The growing responsibilities of the CIO are well-documented and understood. But the organizational structure of leadership is also changing to accommodate the evolving demands, suggests Rebecca Busch, president and CEO of healthcare consulting, auditing and forensic services firm Medical Business Associates.
“What’s happening to the CIO in healthcare is they’re becoming the catchall for everything else above and beyond what they normally do,” Ms. Busch says. “All of a sudden they’re going from, ‘OK, we have to preserve our brick and mortar, our infrastructure and so forth,’ to, ‘All of a sudden, we’ve got to deal with administrative safeguards, security, the integrity of our systems.'”
According to Ms. Busch, every two days, the world generates more data than the volume that has accumulated since the beginning of mankind. “When I say volume, I’m talking about serious volume,” she says.
Hand-in-hand with an increase in data is an increase in responsibilities regarding that data. This has largely led to the rise of the chief data officer. Ms. Busch says many organizations are employing chief data scientists now to help make sense of it all. New positions like this are reshaping the leadership organization.
The traditional leadership organization functions from the top down, but now there is also a tri-layered leadership infrastructure that is emerging, Ms. Busch says. The three layers are traditional leadership, informational leadership and support leadership.
The traditional leadership line includes the CMO, COO, CEO and CFO roles, which Ms. Busch says make up the overall strategic direction. Those included in informational leadership are the CIO, CMIO, CNO and CSO. These roles control key information. As for the third layer, roles revolving around technology, data, strategy, patient experiences and population health are present. Ms. Busch calls the third group the “content experts of the data.”
The infrastructure isn’t entirely linear; instead, it may be better described as ancillary. “Each one is the chief of his own kingdom, yet among each other, it’s almost a contemporaneous, peer-like relationship that appears to be evolving,” Ms. Busch says.
While the one, enterprise data strategy still comes from the CEO, each of the three layers is responsible for the piece of the strategy that falls within their expertise.
With the proliferation of data, CIOs and hospital leadership will continue to grow and adapt to the changing environment. But one thing CIOs won’t have to worry about, according to Ms. Busch, is the relevance of their jobs. “CIOs, don’t worry about job security because there’s so much to do,” she says. “There’s a lifetime of work to do. Your job is not going to become obsolete. You will not become obsolete.”
Ms. Busch outlines the changing dynamics of the C-suite due to data in her latest book C-Suite Revolution: Re-engineering Healthcare in the Era of Data Intelligence. Ms. Busch says she wrote the book to help solidify and confirm the methodology she uses with her own clients in her audit and review practice.
More articles on CIOs:
15 thoughts on interoperability from healthcare leaders
4 reasons CIOs need cybersecurity attorneys
Readers’ choice: 21 health IT leaders to know
