For many health systems, the chief medical information officer role was given to the physicians most interested in technology to serve as a liaison between the IT administrative teams and clinical physician teams.
Now, CMIOs have many more responsibilities and are part of the organization's strategic leadership team. A panel of CMIOs discussed how their role has evolved during a session at the Becker's Healthcare Health IT + Revenue Cycle Management Virtual Event on July 22. The panel included Nicholas (Shetal) Desai, DPM, system CMIO of Houston Methodist; Pranav Kumar Jain, MD, the physician executive, vice president and CMIO of Northeast Georgia Health System; and Patrick Woodard, MD, CMIO and vice president of clinical systems for Renown Health in Reno, Nev. Mackenzie Bean, managing editor at Becker's Healthcare, moderated the panel.
Here is an excerpt from the conversation, slightly edited for clarity. To view the full session on-demand, click here.
Question: How has the CMIO role evolved over the past five years and where do you see it going in the future?
Dr. Desai: If you think of the role of the CMIO, and all of us had a circuitous way of getting where we are. It probably started out with us being the inquisitive doc that started to ask questions and who then became the lead champion. Then the role became more from the administrative perspective a convergence of clinical and administrative roles that came together. Over time the CMIO went from being the administrative person bridging the gap or being the liaison between clinical medicine and administrative medicine to then become the conduit for IT to then becoming the owners of applications and portfolios and now we are truly at the table as a strategic partner for the organization.
Dr. Woodard: I agree with that. I think historically we have been asked to be optimizers of a system that was already in place or putting one in place. As the role evolved and tools matured, we were asked to think in a more future-oriented way about how we want to take those tools into the future. More of the position now involves using data to make data-driven decisions in a strategic aspect but also in terms of an optimization aspect that may be done by a team or a larger group of individuals.
To Dr. Desai's point, in the strategy realm, we are also asked to be clinical leaders and experts; the administrative clinicians with a deep understanding of the complexities of the health system as a whole. We are really taking a systems approach to the way we manage our patients rather than on a patient-to-patient basis.
Dr. Jain: I would say that to echo all the points that have been made, the CMIO role is transitioning from core implementation to now a majority and really focusing on value creation. We implemented a lot of things over time, a lot of new shiny objects that are now in play, and now we are thinking about how do you evolve and get maximum value from things that you already own and have. Looking at data and understanding where the gaps are and how to actually tailor workflows to utilize technology that already exists is where I believe the next several years will be very important. The focus will be optimizing those workflow integration technology points to where technology begins to fade into the background as something that you don't think about anymore and it enables smooth operations.
Dr. Desai: The next level becomes exactly what Dr. Jain said; leveraging the assets you have. There is also a side channel that is happening, which is truly around transformation and innovation. How do you merge what your current solution asset values are with the next level of items that are needed to scale the strategies you need and then truly transform the organization to where you want to catapult to the next level? If you think of the trend docs have gone on, CMIOs are on a flight path to where they were just on the runway and we've just taken off, and we need to continue to ascend to the next level now.