COVER STORY
As for some of the top IT imple- mentation priorities, Kravitz says, “Of course, there are foundational items like an API management platform that enables quick, real-time integration of data from our systems to the customer front-facing systems. This is important to provide real-time integration to the cus- tomer need or perceived need.” Further,
of human-to-human transactions or interactions. So our focus is using digital technology to advance our goals.”
Peter Smith
he says, “Costing is paramount; so, IT governance and IT application rational- ization go hand in hand to reduce the size of the portfolio and try our best to keep it small through governance. The idea is fewer vendor partners with much deeper integration to the applications to meet the business needs of the orga- nization. In short, he says, CIOs must be looking for ways to provide a better service at a much lower price point to the organization. We need to show the value to the organization and manage the size and cost of our staff with the ability to track KPI’s and perform better than benchmarks for comparable sized organizations.” Nemours Children’s Health’s Moss
agrees that leveraging information technology to move one’s organization forward strategically will be extremely important. “We’re increasingly operat- ing in a digital world, in healthcare as in everything else,” he emphasizes. “During the fi rst months of the COVID pandemic, we fi gured out how to make rounds in the ICU, virtually, with the whole family involved, with no use of PPE. We never thought we’d be able to do that a year ago. And we’re investing $20 million a year in our Children’s Health Delivery and Innovation program, where we take $20 million and look at innova- tive technologies. We have a one-stop app for telehealth, remote disease moni- toring, communicating with providers, looking up your medical records, all in one app on your phone. All of healthcare is moving in that direction. We do see ourselves as a leader. And healthcare is always going to be the most personal
The governance factor With so many elements in the opera- tional landscape changing in real time now, and with a seemingly limitless to-do list of IT and other priorities, industry observers agree: governance will be important. Indeed, says Peyman Zand, vice president of advisory ser- vices at the Nashville, Tenn.-based IT services consulting organization CereCore, “Strong governance is a must”: patient care organization leaders “must provide explicit attributes and outcomes for their plans. And CIOs really need to pay attention to the people working for them. And it’s not just their own people, either. Everyone’s sending people home to work; so they need to learn how to manage a remote workforce. And so either we’ll staying in a hybrid model, even after the pandemic is over, or we’ll go more into an out- sourced environment, with outsourcing or cold-sourcing.” The opportunity for enhanced patient engagement is there because of the widespread adoption of virtual care during the pandemic, he adds.
Peering forward, gamely All of this gets back to the current moment, and its future implications. “The COVID-19 pandemic has been a catalyst; it’s as though we hit the fast- forward button on the evolution of the healthcare system,” says Andy Smith, president of the Naperville, Ill.-based Impact Advisors consulting firm. “And the healthcare system has been staid and conservative” in terms of its histor- ical administration,” he says, “almost by design. But the current situation is calling for a new type of leadership, almost entrepreneurial. And leaders are going to have to partner, are going to have to acquire, be acquired, or be left behind. Overall, we’re going to have to start treating healthcare more like a business, almost like a retail business, because that’s where the threats are coming in from. And it’s been fashionable to bring people in from other industries; but healthcare is unique and rather parochial. So we’ll need a blend of outside and inside thinking, and new expertise.” “What a unique time this is, for lead-
ers over the last eight months,” says Pete Smith, managing partner at Impact Advisors. “Andy’s been thinking about the long-term health and perpetuation of your organization. But think about what the healthcare system had to do
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to mobilize in this crisis: everybody had to pivot to deal with a very imme- diate problem, mobilizing command centers, mobilizing shifts in delivery. It’s amazing what everyone did, really. Leadership really has had to do two things in the past fi ve months—react to a crisis, but also respond to long-term viability issues. Leaders have had to have two strategies, one for near-term and one for longer-term.” Andy Smith says that the emerging
healthcare system “is going to require a different level of leadership; and for the most part, the industry has stepped up. They’ve shifted to telemedicine, they’ve sped up their decision-making. And I spoke recently with an executive who’s saying in his organization, if we haven’t done something in the past six months, why should we go back? We need to keep the pace going.” And, with disrup- tive new entrants coming in, technol- ogy and processes enabling more and more care delivery outside the inpatient hospital and even into the home, and
Andy Smith
other changes, Pete Smith says that “I think that what you’re going to see is hospital leaders who get that, and who will pivot their organizations based on new models. So you’ll see some win- ners. You’ll also see additional entrants in healthcare, the Walmarts and Targets, that will eat away at the profi table primary care services; and hospitals that don’t get it will be left with a very high-acute-care business, with very sick patients in inpatient hospitals and a lack of profi table primary care businesses. You’ll see that accelerating, through COVID. We think there will be a lot of mergers and acquisitions.” Nemours Children’s Health’s Moss
sums it all up thus: “What I say to myself every day is this: summon the courage to go bold places, to let go of one side of the pool to get to the other side, and be comfortable with ambiguity, as we go forward.” HI
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