"CIOs are no longer the technology guys; we are now starting to run pieces of the business"

Linda A. Reed
CIO
Atlantic Health System

In her current role Linda provides leadership in the areas of Information Systems and telecommunications, integrative and holistic medicine and behavioral health service line. She serves as the President of Jersey Health Connect, one of New Jersey’s grant funded health information exchange organizations.

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations

The biggest challenge in IT right now is the ability to exchange data between non-aligned facilities. To put records together provides better care for patients. If you make them interoperable then you can buy anything. We still have fragmented records. When I look on that what I expect is technology providers should start providing systems with open access, following standards to allow the data exchange so that we can start putting that healthcare continuum together in order to provide better care for our patients.

The areas in business environment where solutions do not yet exist or not up to the mark, and which if existed, would've made job easier

Some of the solutions are the business intelligence analytics that come out of your source systems, your core personal information system or your core EMR. The analytics that comes out of the system is not up to the mark. Consequently if you do want the analytics, you know the big thing that everybody is talking about ‘The big data’ and big data means big bucks. You got to move your data around and given the technology today and given the system, there should be better core analytics functions in both core systems. Secondly, better critical decision support and loading. It goes hand in hand with analytics.

Technology trends impacting enterprise business environment

First one we are looking at and the one we are working very diligently on is the Mobile Healthcare apps. We have got couple of Suite centers and now there are tools out there that you can attach to your iPhone. Quickly a lot of these applications that people can use in real time are going to be changing or modifying the services we provide. And technologies like the real time remote technologies, space time, tele-presence; teleconferencing is making cluster more real time in depth. If you take a look at video conferencing, new connectivity and the fast network, then you will see that it has changed the way healthcare delivers.

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO

My role has really changed as a CIO and it’s about how technology can really impact business processes. That’s the first real big change in the world. More and more CIOs are given different responsibilities today. I myself have another service, I have integrated medical center, I also have behavioral health and I have operational responsibilities too. Many CIOs are in charge of strategic planning or clinical engineering today. The other trend is that the CIOs are no longer the technology guys; we are now starting to run pieces of the business.

Lessons learned and advice for fellow CIOs

The first thing I have learnt is we have to be flexible or your customers will go around you. You must always be willing to listen and you must always be willing to ask a question. Always paint a longer range picture for people as to what is that they are asking for. The next thing is to always ask the next question. Sometimes people start asking you the questions and that’s when you get into trouble because you didn’t go far enough. That is when you get surprised and you don’t really get to the bottom of things because you stop asking questions before you should.