“I originally started as the chief information security officer, and that evolved into being the CISTO, the chief information security and technology officer,” said Mr. Ramirez on an upcoming episode of the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.” “My CIO tasked me to go through and take a deep dive with the team to look at everything holistically. We are really proud of where we’ve come over the past three years as an organization, culturally.”
Renown was undergoing rapid transformation when Mr. Ramirez joined and he saw big opportunities to standardize and systematize technology integration. His team developed and executed an IT tactical and strategic plan to align with the executive team’s vision under the direction of CIO Chuck Podesta.
“When I came in, there was a really big effort to look at the technical landscape. We were spending a lot of money in areas that needed a refocus,” said Mr. Ramirez. “Under the direction of our CIO and executive team, we did a phased approach that focused on cybersecurity as well as technical debt.”
Like many health systems, Renown wanted to dive into adding artificial intelligence and automation into clinical and operational workflows. But they had to balance growth with the cost of technology and cybersecurity risk. The leadership team focused on stabilization, modernization and optimization as three big pillars for incorporating new technology and AI.
“The first few years we looked at how we could stabilize things, do we have the right people, process and technology? And then where do we really need to strategically focus and modernize our infrastructure, as well as cybersecurity stack,” said Mr. Ramirez. “And then, optimization. Once we get that, we’re into lifecycle management.”
Rapid digital transformation also required a strong governance structure. Renown created a governance risk and compliance committee, which Mr. Ramirez co-chairs alongside Mark Neu, Renown’s chief compliance officer. The committee includes key stakeholders from across the organization to align around the right approach to new initiatives and technology.
Renown also has an SBAR process – a tool focused on assessing the situation, background, assessment and recommendation – to govern any new technology and projects tied to third party risk management. The system brings in checks and balances for new technology, including an application rationalization process to understand the risk for any new projects and mitigate issues with systemwide rollout.
“That governance strategy is super critical, and so is implementing and adhering to our various frameworks,” said Mr. Ramirez. Governance is especially important as so many new AI-driven products hit the market.
“We want to make sure that as an organization, if the technology makes sense to really supplement what we’re doing, we’re able to properly secure it or roll it out and support it, and then the business actually gets true value out of that,” said Mr. Ramirez. “We’ve done a good job of using that governance and intake process to really make sure we’re getting the most bang for our buck for any proposed technology.”
