Becker's Health IT + Clinical Leadership + Pharmacy: 3 Questions with E. Thomas Carey, Director of Pharmacy Services for Swedish American Hospital

E. Thomas Carey, PharmD, serves as Director of Pharmacy Services for Swedish American Hospital. 

On May 2nd, Dr. Carey will speak at Becker's Health IT + Clinical Leadership + Pharmacy conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place May 2-4, 2019 in Chicago.

To learn more about the conference and Dr. Carey's session, click here.

Question: What one strategic initiative will demand the most of your time and energy in 2019?

Thomas Carey: For several years, informatics has been a challenge to health systems and this will continue in 2019. Specifically, optimizing electronic health records (EHR’s) and incorporating “best of breed” and/or niche software vendors into daily use. There is a constant struggle between implementing a single platform across all services lines and incorporating best of breed systems. Mergers and acquisitions even further exaggerate the challenges. As robust of tools that many EHR’ s provide, many health system users (especially on the clinical side) struggle to make their informatics systems be more efficient so that it is a tool to make their days easier and ultimately improve care.

Q: Healthcare takes a lot of heat for not innovating quickly. What's your take on this?

TC: This is totally accurate. Healthcare, especially operationally) is very reactionary. In part, this is related to not devoting resources to supporting infrastructure. With the economics (specifically net profit) of where healthcare exists today, when it comes time to devote people and money to areas such as “strategic growth” and/or other “fluff positions”, health systems find themselves having difficulty supporting these strategies as robustly as other area.

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?

TC: Greatness is when a team member “picks up the ball and runs with it”. I don’t think great leaders are those who know or can (or think they know or think they can) do everything. Rather (especially if you have large team), fostering an environment which allows others to grow. This may be people who step right up and are ready to participate, but may also be others who aren’t necessarily ready to stand up, but are still ready to take on challenges. Greatness is allowing others to exceed yours and their expectations.

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