EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S COLUMN by Susan E. Sedory Holzer, MA, CAE
How technology plays in IR’s culture of innovation
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The other day I was reading some findings from a California-based HR-focused, open-source collaborative called CHREATE. They believe that today’s technologic, organizational and generational forces of change have an unprecedented capacity to forge a new workplace dynamic, where super-empowered individuals are no longer threatened by technology but are turned on to work that delivers results and activates purpose-built networks. What resonates with me about their work is that it looks at technology through the lens of how it helps us work and live smarter or share information more effectively—something I strive for at SIR.
Take communications, for example. Endless options for sharing and broadcasting through video, audio, live chat and text makes everyone an author, artist and storyteller. In our 2015 annual report—now online at
sirweb.org/annreport—we sought to tell the powerful story of IR through multiple communication technologies, because the combination of patient voices, physician stories and social sharing can reach more audiences who need to hear about our specialty than static words can ever do alone. To print such a report would be impossible. But in its digital only form, this record of our year—i.e., SIR on behalf of IR—is designed to be shared and broadcast far and wide.
As I cannot say often enough, if you haven’t joined the conversations on SIR Connect—SIR’s dedicated online members’ community—you don’t know what you’re missing.
rom travel apps to driverless cars to hypothesis generation software and algorithms that predict organizational turnover—technology continues to take up tasks and even critical thinking previously
Add to this the emergence of project-based dynamics and talent markets that can be tapped regardless of distance or time. As I cannot say often enough, if you haven’t joined the conversations on SIR Connect—SIR’s dedicated online members’ community—you don’t know what you’re missing. At the end of its first year, there have been 2,922 discussions on SIR Connect—including more than 1,000 new discussions in the first quarter of 2016 alone. Having clearly reached a critical mass, we can now turn our attention to using this collaboration platform to democratize member engagement and begin calling for task-specific volunteering.
Just like for the 41 years before, SIR 2016 in Vancouver showcased the impact and promise of innovation on what IRs can do to improve patient outcomes. But I noticed many presentations went well beyond the usual IR innovations.
One of the scientific abstracts that received media attention featured an NIH-developed iPhone app that guides needle placement using the phone’s internal gyroscope (which governs tilt controls) and integrated camera. Who could have predicted that the same device owned by nearly half of all U.S. teens can help an IR improve patient comfort and decrease clinician exposure to radiation?
In this spring issue of IRQ we explore several aspects of technological impact, such as how millennial physicians’ ubiquitous use of technology is resulting in the creation of more patient registries and learning opportunities and inspiring greater teamwork and patient connectivity (see p. 28). These are our future leaders and, indeed, our future is bright.
This technological agility isn’t a byproduct of youth—it is the very spirit of IR. But don’t just take my word for it. Check out some of our Facebook videos on what others, especially medical students, are saying about their experience at #SIR16VAN and IR’s culture of innovation.
6 IR QUARTERLY | SPRING 2016
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