HIT Innovation Drives Change In Healthcare Executive Suites
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
New positions are emerging while more traditional roles are expanding in healthcare leadership.
As health information technology continues to play a critical role in the success of healthcare organizations, new executive positions are surfacing while the responsibilities of CIOs and more traditional roles are expanding. New positions such as Chief Medical Information Officer, Chief Health Informatics Officer, Chief Nursing Informatics Officers, and other leadership positions are emerging more commonly as part of the C-suites in healthcare.
“Some [of these positions] have overlapping responsibilities from traditional jobs, but some are definitely taking on the flavor of jobs that we just haven’t had before, like a vice president of analytics,” explained Tom Quinn, a senior partner with executive placement firm Witt/Kieffer in Boston.
Hillary Ross, Principal and Co-Lead of Witt/Kieffer’s Information Technology Practice, has seen the rapid growth and continuing development of several positions that are very important to health IT, including Chief Medical Information Officer, Chief Health Informatics Officer, biomedical and bioinformatics research leaders, and executive positions in data analytics and precision medicine.
Ross told Health IT Outcomes in an email, “Innovation in informatics and data science is critical for quality improvement, fee for value, and other strategic priorities. New positions are emerging as health systems realize that strong IT and informatics leadership are directly related to patient quality care and precision medicine.”
For Chris Wierz, also a principal and IT practice co-leader, the increase in risks and potential minefields that can derail the careers of Chief Information Officers and Chief Technology Officers, from security breaches to not having the right staff in place to handle today’s health IT challenges, mean new attention must be paid to the IT realities. She has seen the growth of specified positions such as Chief Nursing Informatics Officers, telling Health IT Outcomes, “Hospitals or health systems that may have previously been resistant to the role are now starting to embrace the fact that CNIOs are central to the success of today’s healthcare organizations. As the primary liaison between IT and nursing, the CNIO can help identify and oversee all necessary resources to maximize nursing productivity.”
“The key is to be strategic about information security and have vital programs and plans in place specifically for risk management, incident response and workforce training,” says Nick Giannas, consultant in Witt/Kieffer’s IT practice, specializes in executive searches for Chief Information Security Officers in healthcare and education. “There needs to be an executive to oversee security across all of the organization’s business areas and to encourage a culture of information security.”