Cletis Earle serves as vice president and chief information officer of Kaleida Health.
On Thursday, Sepember 21, Mr. Earle will speak on a panel at Becker's Hospital Review 3rd Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle 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 September 21 through September 23 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Mr. Earle's session, click here.
Question: Looking at your IT budget, what is one item or expense that has surprised you in terms of ROI? How so?
Cletis Earle: I strive to see the day where the EMR line items can offer returns on investment from a patient quality and business delivery point-of-view. It would be nice to have the EMRs offer solutions that can clearly identify benefits to the solutions and modules installed.
Q: Finding top tech talent is always a challenge. Say a CIO called you up today to ask for an interview question that would distinguish the best candidates from the mid- to low-performers. What question do you suggest he or she ask?
CE: I would ask to identify a project that was worked on that was able to change the culture of the business. What impact was the person involved with the project and what were the lessons learned.
Q: We spend a lot of timing talking about the exciting innovation modernizing healthcare. It's also helpful to acknowledge what we've let go of. What is one form of technology, one process or one idea that once seemed routine to you but is now endangered if not extinct? What existed in your organization 2-5 years ago but not anymore?
CE: I thought we would never move away from desktops. This was one area where technologies have surpassed and will completely reshape how we do business. Our organization most likely will not have the standard desktop for clinical use a few years from now as machine learning and natural language processing will continue to evolve.
Q: Tell us about the last time you were truly, wildly amazed by technology. What did you see?
CE: I saw the AR Holo Lens solution and I am excited to see where technology is heading. It is extremely obvious that AR and cloud will help revolutionize our industry in the coming years. We will have practical use in the future as the technology gets in the hand of our technologists in the very near future.