Edward Marx, FCHIME, FHIMSS, will begin his tenure as CIO of Cleveland Clinic Sept. 1.
Mr. Marx comes to the clinic from the Advisory Board Company, where he served as executive vice president. Prior to the Advisory Board Company, Mr. Marx served as CIO at Arlington-based Texas Health Resources. He is the former CIO of University Hospitals in Cleveland.
On Thursday, Sepember 21, Mr. Marx will give a keynote presentation at Becker's Hospital Review 3rd Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place September 21 through September 23 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Mr. Marx's sessions, click here.
Question: Looking at your IT budget, what is one item or expense that has surprised you in terms of ROI? How so?
Edward Marx: While I appreciate and find satisfaction in financial ROI, my heartbeat is clinical ROI. How quickly a well-designed and executed EHR implementation or optimization can return solid increases in quality metrics and patient safety has been pleasantly surprising. In a recent implementation we saw all of our baseline quality, safety and risk markers improve on day one.
Q: Finding top tech talent is always a challenge. Say a CIO called you up today to ask for an interview question that would distinguish the best candidates from the mid- to low-performers. What question do you suggest he or she ask?
EM: "Describe your defining moment, personal or professional." "Share with me three heroes or mentors you have. They have to be three people I've never heard of."
Q: We spend a lot of timing talking about the exciting innovation modernizing healthcare. It's also helpful to acknowledge what we've let go of. What is one form of technology, one process or one idea that once seemed routine to you but is now endangered, if not extinct? What existed in your organization two to five years ago but not anymore?
EM: My favorite example is our early adoption of Microsoft Surface. We received grant funding and developed some state of the art applications for that technology. If you don't remember, Surface was a flat screen computer/monitor that was the size of a coffee table. I think that technology was absolete the same year it was introduced. One of the applications we developed was adjusted to fit the iPad and we were not only able to help clinicians better take care of alzheimer patients, but we were able to commercialize the app as well. We kept the Surface in our CMIOs office as a coffee table...
Q: Tell us about the last time you were truly, wildly amazed by technology. What did you see?
EM: Chatbots and nanobots. Chatbots turn messaging into concierge services, and nanobots will be able to assess and fix us from within.
Click here for more with Edward Marx.