As healthcare organizations navigate the fast-evolving digital landscape, attracting and retaining IT talent remains a critical challenge.
Becker's asked three health system CIOs: What are some of the biggest challenges you foresee for health system IT teams in the coming year?
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
Amy Feaster, senior vice president and chief digital and information officer of Children's Hospital Colorado (Aurora, Colo.): An ongoing challenge is that there are always so many great ideas but not enough people, time and money to implement them all. This means that prioritizing the solutions that have the greatest positive impact on our patients and families, our clinicians and other team members becomes so important.
Brad Reimer, CIO at Sanford Healthcare (Sioux Falls, S.D.): I think the healthcare industry — and really, industries beyond healthcare — are facing challenges with these new and rapidly emerging fields like AI, data science, and product management, especially in areas focused on patient and provider experience. Everyone wants to invest in these areas and develop programs around them, but they're advancing so quickly that the talent pool with the necessary skills and experience is incredibly limited.
There's this constant struggle to find a few really talented people in the industry — sometimes even outside of healthcare — who have expertise in data science, AI, and digital management, and who can then mentor and grow internal talent. The problem is that schools aren't producing graduates fast enough to meet the demand, and even when they do, the technology often changes so much by the time students finish their education that it's hard to keep up.
Brian Lancaster, CIO at Children's Mercy Kansas City (Mo.): Healthcare is extremely complex for several reasons, one of which is operating within very thin margins. These margins make it difficult to secure the appropriate investments for key roles. For instance, hiring a cloud engineer can be challenging when they have opportunities to work for big tech firms that pay significantly more. Attracting the right resources and building a strong team to sustain technology is a constant struggle.