healthsystemCIO – Strategies for Hospital IT Leaders

For those in IT, saying cybersecurity represents a massive enterprise-level risk is not breaking any news, but it is incumbent on those IT folks to make sure that message is clearly communicated to the business leaders in the C-suite. Conversely, it’s also incumbent on business leaders to demand that their IT counterparts translate IT risk […] Source: Q&A with American Hospital Association Nationa...

Sure, outstanding CIOs can give great insights on what it takes to excel in the role, but those who deal with different health system CIOs on a regular basis also come to discern what separates the everyday from the exemplary. One such individual is MangoApps Co-Founder & CTO Vishwa Malhotra, who does just that. Having interacted with a number of CIOs as prospects and customers, he has sharp insig...

Health systems are being asked to do more with less, and the CISO has not been immune from such belt tightening, according to Pat Voon, CISO at Loma Linda University Health. But while the process may be less than pleasant, there is a sensible way to move forward. Voon, who’s been plying his trade for […] Source: Q&A with Loma Linda University Health CISO Pat Voon: “Right Sizing the Right Framework...

If you ask most security professionals about the greatest dangers their organizations face, you'll likely hear about those coming from the outside. But compliance professionals would counter that there's plenty on the inside to be concerned about as well. Unfortunately, some organizations have been taking a largely reactive approach to dealing with insider breaches, and seeing suboptimal results i...

Turning points in life can come when we least expect them. And that’s just what happened to 16-year old high school dropout Phil Alexander when his Dad told him to get off the couch and find a job selling cars at one of the local dealerships. For Alexander, the exercise in persistence led to a […] Source: Q&A with North Mississippi Health Services CISO Phil Alexander: If You’re Struggling to Get C...

“We can’t continue to do what we’ve done in the past and expect to survive,” said Terri Couts, CDO at Guthrie Clinic. In this interview, she talks about the virtual command center designed to centralize key functions, increase efficiencies, and ease the burden on nurses – and the “revamp” that’s helping them get there. Source: Q&A with Guthrie Clinic Chief Digital Officer Terri Couts: “The Focus S...

Healthcare IT executives understand that the most serious risks are the ones you don't know exist. As such, it's imperative to understand where ePHI sits inside and outside the organization and, in today's complex technology environment, that can be any number of places. In this timely webinar, we'll speak to leaders who are working hard to find and follow ePHI wherever it goes so it can be guarde...

Every leader would like a bigger budget. But instead of asking for more money, CIDOs should look for ways to reduce expenses and “put savings back into IT so that we can begin to transform the organization,” said Joel Vengco of Hartford Healthcare. In this interview, he talked about how Hartford Healthcare is building a foundation for transformation. Source: Q&A with Hartford Healthcare CIDO Joel...

Today, health systems face rapidly growing pressure to move protected health information (PHI) and other healthcare data to the cloud. The complexities of meeting cloud security and compliance standards,  especially with PHI, can make this a major challenge for your organization. Without the right expertise in place, you could wind up with risky misconfigurations (with hundreds of controls to cons...

To Christopher Neuharth, VP of Experience at Digital Innovation at Children’s Wisconsin, adoption numbers don’t mean that much – what matters is how technology is being utilized to “make the process easier and more efficient for our staff and families,” he said in a recent podcast interview. Source: Q&A with Christopher Neuharth of Children’s Wisconsin: “We want to find the easiest way to solve a...

As CDO at Sanford Health, one of Jared Antczak’s core objectives is “ensuring that we’re not just digitizing existing things.” In this podcast, he talks about the difference between digitization and digital transformation, the value of teaching “website manner,” why accessibility is such a huge area of focus, and why he loves the Chick-Fil-A app. Source: Podcast: Sanford Health CDO Jared Antczak o...

Most agree there is a direct relationship between a team's ability to easily communicate and its effectiveness. As such, it's no surprise that health systems are looking to move beyond traditional tools for sharing internal policies and facilitating employee communication -- such as email and SharePoint -- and into a world where they can have more seamless interaction and increased security (think...

There’s no perfect recipe for turning around an organization, but there is an ingredient that needs to be in place, said Dennis Sutterfield, CIO at SUNY Downstate. “Without question, you have to be incredibly transparent. I want my team to know everything I know.” Recently, he spoke about the power of storytelling, the importance of “strategic investments,” and the unique challenges of urban healt...

Having been a CISO in the past, David Reis is definitely a security-minded CIO. But that doesn’t mean he protects the University of Miami Health System with a my-way-or-the highway mentality. In fact, Reis wants to make sure clinicians can use the tools they say they need (within reason) meaning his application portfolio is a […] Source: Q&A With University of Miami Health System CIO David Reis, P...

The ability to provide guidance on financial decision-making is becoming a core skillset for CIOs, according to Pamela McNutt. In this interview, she reflects on 30 years with Methodist Health System and shares insights on the evolving CIO role, the importance of mastering contract negotiations, and her team’s “heroic efforts” during Covid. Source: Q&A with CIO Pamela McNutt: “Deliberate Growth,”...

With cyber-talent coming at a premium that many health systems struggle to pay, CIOs and CISOs are looking for the right partnerships to unload some of the blocking and tackling that comes with running a high-functioning shop so the folks they do have can practice at the top of their license. But questions abound about the best tasks to offload, how to pick the right partner, how to best structure...

“Sometimes it isn’t about looking at new technology, but thinking about how to do things differently,” said Michelle Stansbury, VP of Innovation and IT Applications at Houston Methodist. In this interview, she talks about the value of co-development, the “true partnership” between IT and operations, and what it takes to build a culture of innovation. Source: Q&A with Houston Methodist’s Michelle S...

With the increasing volume, sophistication, and intensity of cyber-attacks, hospitals need a paradigm shift to keep from being overwhelmed. Information security teams are constantly being asked to master these challenges while simultaneously reducing costs. Even without factoring in budget constraints, hiring enough staff qualified cybersecurity defenders is nearly impossible. This talk will prese...

If you don’t want to keep learning, heading up IT security for a health system is probably not for you. At least that’s one obvious takeaway from speaking to WVU Medicine CISO Hunter Barbour, who lists the impending marriage of AI and quantum computing as a possible game changer for security professionals. So Barbour is […] Source: Q&A with WVU Medicine CISO Hunter Barbour on healthsystemcio.com -...

For healthcare IT leaders, “the technology is the easy part,” said Chris Carmody, CTO at UPMC, during a recent interview. The real challenge comes in maintaining strong relationships with stakeholders.” He also talked about the benefits of migrating analytics to the cloud, why third-party risk management should be top of mind, and why he sees “a bright future” for healthcare. Source: Q&A with UPMC...

As a practicing ER physician, Christian Dameff, medical director of cybersecurity at UC San Diego Health, is one of the first in the nation to bridge the clinical world and cybersecurity, thus bringing credibility and understanding of cyber efforts to the clinical team. Dameff works closely with CISO Scott Currie and, in this interview with […] Source: Q&A with UC San Diego Health CISO Scott Curri...

Though he’s just coming up on his one-year anniversary, Geisinger Health System CISO Zack Gable sounds like an executive with many more years leading security under his belt. That’s because Gable knows his job is about “business enablement,” or empowering clinicians with the tools they need to provide superior patient care, rather than putting the […] Source: Q&A with Geisinger Health System CISO...

Even in 2023, women face unique challenges rising to C-suite levels in the workplace, and healthcare IT is no exception. Yet there are actions all leaders can take to strengthen the pipeline of women moving in that direction. In this timely webinar, a panel of highly effective and accomplished healthcare IT leaders will share their personal career journeys, provide advice for both women and men in...

Building engagement tools in a way that “surfaces through the care team” is a critical goal for Ashis Barad, MD, Chief Digital and Information Officer at Allegheny Health Network. But it can’t be “built in a way that’s just adding burden to the care teams by having more alerts put in front of them,” he said in this interview. Source: Q&A with Allegheny Health CDIO Ashis Barad, MD: “We Need to Do t...

The bane of every IT executives existence – from CIO to CTO to CISO – is a complex environment. And nothing contributes to such complexity like hundreds (or even thousands) of applications from dozens of different vendors. Thus, many leaders are working to formalize a rational approach to application selection, along with a reduction of duplication among existing vendors. But challenges abound, as...