Highlights from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executive’s 2001 Spring CIO Forum
“Perspectives on Healthcare, Technology, and CIO Leadership”

The College's first major networking and educational event of the year, the 2001 Spring CIO Forum, was also the most well-attended and highly rated Spring CIO Forum in the College's history! A record crowd of more than 360 attendees (including more than 250 CIOs!) gathered at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans to network with colleagues and hear experts share perspectives on burning issues in healthcare, technology, and CIO leadership. A special thanks to all who participate for making this THE most successful Spring CIO Forum ever! For those of you unable to attend, a summary of highlights follows:

Healthcare strategist, Doug Goldstein, gave an energetic keynote address on "eHealthcare: Trends, Tactics, and Thinking to Harness the Power of eCommerce and eCare". Highlighting the influence of e-commerce as the driving force of change for healthcare business, Goldstein remarked how the Internet has radically and forever changed the doctor-patient relationship. According to Goldstein, patients are doing more and more online, and demanding more online services from their healthcare provider(s). To keep pace with growing consumerism, healthcare organizations must transform current e-health strategies - simple websites serving static marketing and/or healthcare information - to the focused delivery of "e-care" services (the digital delivery of online services such as personal health records, e-support groups, and disease management). While stressing the importance of e-care to the future success (and profitability) of healthcare organizations, Goldstein cautioned that "quality of service, not speed of implementation", would determine long-term success.

In the "ABCs of Healthcare ASPs", Lew Hollerbach helped shed some light on the "murky" healthcare application service provider industry. While acknowledging that bad marketing, unrealistic expectations, technology limitations, and performance and pricing issues have all taken a recent toll on the ASP industry, he emphasized that the long-term value proposition still holds much promise. Faster implementation, relief for IT departments, (quicker) access to new capabilities, investment risk reduction, and cost reduction are all part of the allure of the ASP model, but "the biggest value of ASPs", he states, is that "they allow the organization to focus on core business issues". Although some inhibitors to mainstream adoption remain, he feels that experimentation and innovation will eventually solve these issues. The ASP may still not be the right solution for every organization, but for those considering the approach, Hollerbach provided these helpful guidelines: adopt an outsourcing attitude, understand the business need, balance (your own) IT capabilities with those of an ASP, check the strength of the ASP supply chain, and look for deep domain and process expertise.

In the post-lunch session, "Using IT to Leverage Change Through Governance", governance expert Jamie Orlikoff painted a picture of "healthcare leaders standing at the confluence of two great rivers." The first river represents what has been in healthcare. Driving this river are the beliefs that "people will always get sick, always need physicians and hospitals, and always come to [our hospitals]." The second river is a turbulent force, representing the agents of change that will redefine the reality of healthcare: consumerism, complementary and alternative medicine, and genomics. "While boards are currently spending most or all of their time addressing the pressing concerns and trends represented by the first river, the opportunities for future growth lie within the forces of the second river. These boards, and the organizations they govern, run the very real risk of being swept away by the forces of the second river." The question is where, as healthcare I.T. leaders, do you focus? "Will you use your finite, precious resources to protect and preserve your increasingly irrelevant infrastructure, or will you use your resources to creatively destroy your existing infrastructure and create the infrastructure of the future?" He urged healthcare CIOs to focus on the second river and visualize new opportunities for their organizations to use I.T. to break into new markets, deliver new services, generate new sources of revenue, deliver better patient care, and promote organizational growth. For, according to Orlikoff, "the riches are in the niches for early adopters".

In the final session of the day, Dr. Jim Wetherbe shared his "Perspectives on Healthcare, Technology, and Human Resource Leadership". In today's fast-paced, information technology driven world where "technology changes faster than technique", he stressed the importance of team building, development, and retention. Dynamic and entertaining, Dr. Wetherbe reinforced concepts by concluding his session with an interactive exchange of ideas with the audience. A few insightful nuggets recited by attendees included: "people care more about who they work with than who they work for", "the best teams self-select", and "people respond best to spontaneous rewards".

The 2001 Spring CIO Forum was concluded with a prize raffle drawing. Congratulations to the lucky winners: Deb Krau, winner of a Lexmark color-jet printer, Bill Bollig, winner of a $250 Buy.com gift certificate, and Joan Tulk, winner of an amazing $1,000 Buy.com gift certificate!

Thank you all for making this Forum such an outstanding event!

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