Randy Davis serves as Chief Information Officer and Vice President for CGH Medical Center.
On April 2nd, Randy will speak at Becker's Hospital Review 10th Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place April 1-4, 2019 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Randy's session, click here.
Question: What do innovators/entrepreneurs from outside healthcare need to better understand about hospital and health system leaders?
Randy Davis: They should realize profound innovations will take hold quickly, as they do in all industries. But it’s likely their innovation will not be thought of as profound. The issue for them is stair-step innovation is much tougher in an industry that, despite our talk, is conservative and slow to adopt new ideas. Our industry likes to say it’s ok to fail (ie, trying something new), but the truth rarely matches the thought. So it’s tough to gain a foothold. Find a hospital or two, get them to bite and succeed with your innovation, then market the heck out of it.
Q: Healthcare takes a lot of heat for not innovating quickly. What's your take on this?
RD: Hard to argue with the truth, and I believe that is an accurate sentence. What we have is an industry where the federal government, as a byproduct of making billionaires out of 2 firms, has placed innovation in our industry in the hands of 2 organizations, Cerner and Epic. This has been a clear fail. FHIR I hope will change that, but the encouraging talk for congressional consumption has not matched true effort. The only way innovators can be empowered is to grant read/write access to our databases. The big vendors bemoan the day this becomes reality and the only entity that can raise that aircraft carrier is Medicare.
Q: Can you share some praise with us about people you work with? What does greatness look like to you when it comes to your team?
RD: Greatness to me is making my leadership irrelevant. My folks don’t have to wait on me to start a meeting. They are self-confident and experts in their respective areas of responsibility. When they know that’s expected of them, it doesn’t make them nervous, it empowers them. No horse ever won a race with the jockey pulling at the reins.