"As strategies Health System increasingly hinge on data, the ability to understand data needs and ensure data delivery can make or break organizational plans!"

LINDA A REED
CIO and VP
Atlantic  Health System

Linda is Vice President, Behavioral and Integrative Medicine and CIO of Atlantic Health System. She is responsible for planning, acquiring and implementing information technology and telecommunications. She is a long-standing member of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME). She is also a member of the Strategic Advisory Council for McKesson Corporation’s health information technology division. She has served as an adjunct professor in the MBA program at Widener University and as a trustee for the Healthcare Employees Federal Credit Union in Princeton, NJ

Challenges in technology to meet enterprise needs in 2013 and expectations.
My largest concern and challenge is cross continuuminteroperability. While many EMR vendors were certified interoperable for the purpose of meaningful use, I find that this is not the case.  Even with the use of HIE technology, it is extremely difficult to work with some vendors.  Additionally, EMR companies are charging additional fees to both the connecting organization  as well as the ambulatory practice to set up "connectivity" and also charge an ongoing support  fee. My largest expectation for technology providers is to step up and eliminate the care  fragmentation they cause to maintain revenues. If a technology provider is certified as  interoperable they should provide plug and play functionality and not just to other modules in  their family of products, but across all healthcare applications.

Technology Trends Impacting Enterprise Business Environment
Health information exchange is one technology we are working with as part of our local health information organization. This technology has the promise of care defragmentation, supporting care coordination and the accountable care models that are arising. The other promising technology is mobility. The promise of patient activation is inherent in mobile healthcare by providing consumers the information required and individual access to care protocols, providers and coaches for consumers to actively participate in their health.

My roles and responsibilities as a CIO
Over the last few years my role has changed from that of technology installer to business enabler. Not that long ago the CIO was in the trenches making sure point solutions were installed and worked as well as possible. Today, CIO's are responsible, along with other members of the leadership team, in planning and executing business strategies. As strategies increasingly hinge on data, the ability to understand data needs and ensure data delivery can
make or break organizational plans.

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.
As noted above, the lack of real cross vendor interoperability is a true problem that fragments the care experience, the care continuum and patient safety. One of the things that keeps me up is the inadequacy of healthcare software quality. If you get it installed initially, updates invariably break it. System performance is at times an issue as is the usability of the user interface. All of these items along with the inability to interoperate with other "outside" systems drive our care providers towards work arounds or inadequate utilization of the systems. All of these issues keep our current technology systems from delivering on.

Lessons I learned as a CIO that can help you
There have been so many lessons over the years, it is hard to choose!
1. The easier it appears the harder it will be to get done.
2. Regardless of the completeness of an RFP or the subsequentresponses, something always slips through.
3. Organizational attitude and determination trump software
reputation and expense in getting the most out of technology.