"To be successful in managing patient populations, we need to be able to combine clinical and claims data from multiple provider venues, be able to analyze and interpret trends within that data."

Deane Morrison
CIO, IT Services
Capital Region Health Care

Deane’s current responsibilities include information systems strategic planning for all affiliates of Capital Region Health Care; information systems capital budget planning for Concord Hospital, Capital Region Physicians Group, Capital Region Services Corp, and Capital Region Development Corp; and management of the Information Technology. He is the Past Chairman, Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations

2013 is nearly over so my thoughts on this question are focused on the next couple of years. The biggest challenge I see is the need for our IT solutions to adapt to a pay for performance/ accountable care risk sharing model. IT solutions have historically been silo driven. The future will require a much more integrated system based approach. To be successful in managing patient populations we need to be able to combine clinical and claims data from multiple provider venues, be able to analyze and interpret trends within that data.

Things that keep me awake at night

I worry that a major IT disruption will occur and that our IT department will not be able to respond to that disruption within the expectation of our general user population. In other words, the general user population has no idea how complex the IT environment is; how hard it is to manage to the system performance that is expected, to ensure there is no disruption to daily service and to guarantee that no data will ever be lost. To address the gap between what we believe our user population thinks will happen and what we know we can provide.

1. Use of Data
We are a July 1st 2013 Medicare Shared Savings Program entrant. To be successful within that program we must learn how to analyze the claims data they provide us for our attributed population. We must sort out who we are going to target for interventions, document those interventions and then analyze their impact.

2. IT Strategic Planning
No such thing. Every organization has a business strategic plan. IT’s job is to align itself with that business strategic plan such that the plan is executed as efficiently and affordably as possible.

Technology trends impacting enterprise business environment

Without question the movement to provide services through the cloud will impact us. Healthcare CIOs tend to be resistant to this trend for the fear of losing control of their data and incurring privacy breaches. The economies of the cloud are hard to ignore and I believe it will drive
privacy solutions that CIOs will accept. Once that occurs the nature of an IT department will likely change significantly.

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO

While nearly every healthcare organization in the country is accelerating their investments in the risk of making investments in IT and not realizing value is also growing significantly, the CIO must ensure within their organization that the discipline for due diligence is structured and followed for making every IT decision.

Lessons learned and advice for fellow CIOs

Never rest on one’s past successes. Like a batter in baseball, your hits yesterday mean nothing today. CIOs must incessantly continue to justify the value that IT brings to their organizations. Develop a model that incorporates as many business leaders as possible into the decision to invest in an IT solution as well as in evaluating the outcomes from that investment. Share those outcomes, both good and bad, throughout the organization.