In this special Speaker Series, Becker's Healthcare caught up with Esteban Gershanik, MD, the former CIO of the Louisiana Department of Health.
Dr. Gershanik will speak on a panel during the Becker's Hospital Review 4th Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference titled "Determining Where to Invest for IT in Your Organization's Strategic Plans and Goals," at 1:15 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21. Learn more about the event and register to attend in Chicago.
Question: Can you share your best advice for motivating your teams?
Dr. Esteban Gershanik: The best advice for motivating my teams has been to ensure that, in every project we take on, our approach is mission-driven, team-oriented and principled. [Everyone should have] a clear role with responsibilities that lines up with their interests. [Everyone should know they are] integral to our success as a team. Incentives and recognition, as well as support for one another, are provided along the way for such projects.
I also preach the concept of “just culture,” which I adopted from my work in quality and safety in healthcare delivery, [and describes] how we all are going to make mistakes — it’s not a matter of “if” but “when.” Since that is the case and we are a team, preaching “just culture” ensures clear, open, honest communication in a positive environment. [It encourages us to] focus on how we work together to ensure the process and systems that we work in are constantly improving, and [it allows us to] minimize mistakes or failures [while making] agile and fluid changes quickly.
Q: How does your organization gain physician buy-in when it is implementing a new technology or solution?
EG: To gain physician buy-in when implementing a new technology or solution, we ensure that we have a physician champion to help guide the implementation, and we open it up to feedback from those within the organization. We also provide an opportunity for physicians to bring new technologies and solutions to the table to see how they can support the organization’s overall mission. Focusing on how these technologies or solutions improve patient care is key to [gaining] their buy-in, [but it is also important that] the solution is easy for providers [to use]. To have a physician champion early on to assist with the initial [rollout] is key. Once the lift is done, it can be easy sailing, and [eventually, it can be] difficult to take away the new technologies or solutions from providers.
Q: How do you promote innovation within your organization?
EG: [I] allow everyone within the organization to participate in innovation by providing the tools to allow them to leverage their expertise and insight into a problem that needs to be solved. Also, approaching subject matter experts and getting the right people together at the table to look at a problem and explore innovation to solve that problem together [inspires improvements].