Chris Logan serves as Senior Healthcare Strategist for VMware
On Thursday, September 21, Mr. Logan will give a 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. Logan's session, click here.
Question: Looking at your IT budget, what is one item or expense that has surprised you in terms of ROI? How so?
Chris Logan: There is always a battle when trying to prove ROI especially because calculating it sometimes can only be done qualitatively. With this in mind, I have witnessed two areas where significant returns have been achieved. The first is the investment in people. When we properly trained and challenged our IT staff to be innovative, we saw significant return in both customer and employee satisfaction. This return is priceless! The other area where we saw significant return was in the development and deployment of new clinical workstations. We took full advantage of virtualization and mobility, and allowed our clinicians to practice medicine in a very consumer friendly way. Not only did we reduce our IT spend and refresh cycle for hardware, we delivered an experience that drove clinician satisfaction, which in turn created greater patient satisfaction.
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?
CL: When looking for top talent my focus has always been on understanding a candidate’s leadership strengths and abilities. Understanding how a candidate could navigate the complexities of the healthcare system and demonstrate leadership without authority is important to me. I always ask candidates to reflect on a time when their organization was making a decision (on a process or technology) that they knew could be done a different way, and what they did to persuade the key stakeholders to go a different direction to achieve the goal. This gives the candidate the opportunity to discuss a time when they used leadership skills like judgement, initiative, tact, courage, knowledge and, most importantly, the ability to communicate up. Technology changes rapidly, so having the ability to lead through those changes is crucial for any organization's continued success.
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 2-5 years ago but not anymore?
CL: We used to purchase "best of breed" technology to satisfy the ever-changing demands of the departmental clinical environment. We saw a sea change in that belief because of the inherent need to integrate systems with agility and accuracy. We went from looking at the newest technologies that solved a single problem to technologies that can solve multiple problems and create an environment that unifies the end user population across the enterprise. We consolidated systems, which unified the user experience, ensuring the clinical staff had all of the necessary information at their fingertips at the point of care.
Q: Tell us about the last time you were truly, wildly amazed by technology. What did you see?
CL: I will always say that virtual reality was truly a game changer, but I am now seeing the theme of mixed reality taking shape — there is so much utility in this technology. An example is the HoloLens. I witnessed the HoloLens being used for teaching medical students anatomy and disection. This is amazing as it gave a near real life experience using technology, enhancing the educational experience. It will also allow organizations to save money. HaloLens was the complete balance of efficiency and effectiveness through the use of hologram technology. When I sit down and think about how this technology can be used across healthcare in the provider setting, I am simply blown away at the possibilities.