Good morning.
Bill Russell:It's day one at the chime conference, actually it's day one and a half,
Bill Russell:I guess, because last night we got together at the reception, got to hang
Bill Russell:out with people for the first time in a long time and just get a pulse
Bill Russell:of what's going on in the industry.
Bill Russell:And that's what I wanted to do today is just share what I am
Bill Russell:hearing from initial conversation.
Bill Russell:And set up what we're going to be doing over the next couple of days.
Bill Russell:So today is Thursday and I'm going to be doing a bunch of interviews today.
Bill Russell:There's five to 10 minute interviews that you've gotten used to, and
Bill Russell:I'm just going to grab people, probably just hit on one topic.
Bill Russell:So these aren't going to be deep dives, but I'm going to take people
Bill Russell:that, you know, from the industry, ask them specific questions about
Bill Russell:the topics that are top of mind.
Bill Russell:And just get some sound bites for you to get a feel for what's going on in
Bill Russell:the conference and in the industry.
Bill Russell:Let me give you, so my initial reactions I've talked to, I would
Bill Russell:say a good half dozen to two, maybe even two dozen CEOs at this time.
Bill Russell:We did the news day recording yesterday afternoon and that
Bill Russell:will air on Monday and directs.
Bill Russell:And I sat down and then a couple of CIO's dropped in on us.
Bill Russell:Erin, Mary Lee, Milligan William Waldo, stopped in Dr.
Bill Russell:Colin Banas from Dr.
Bill Russell:First stopped in as well.
Bill Russell:That is, I think, going to be a must listen to it was, I loved it.
Bill Russell:And Aaron pushed back on me a little bit on some of the things I was saying, and
Bill Russell:that is always great for the industry.
Bill Russell:And you could hear some of that back and forth on.
Bill Russell:I think the biggest issue going on, and this is kind of surprising to me,
Bill Russell:but as I thought about it is not as surprising as I might have thought
Bill Russell:if I had really spent some time thinking about it, cybersecurity,
Bill Russell:I think is taking the number two position in people's minds right now.
Bill Russell:And it's not because it's not important.
Bill Russell:It's because we've made a bunch of progress in this area.
Bill Russell:We've been thinking and doing things on it for the better part of.
Bill Russell:You know, nine months, maybe even a year, in some cases, maybe even a little
Bill Russell:longer for the forward-thinking health systems so that the plans are moving,
Bill Russell:the money has been freed up around cybersecurity boards are aware of it.
Bill Russell:And so that work is underway.
Bill Russell:So not , as top of mind, as you would think it would be the, , issue, which
Bill Russell:is top of mind is labor and staffing.
Bill Russell:And so we have a couple of things that are going on right now.
Bill Russell:One the vaccine mandates.
Bill Russell:And so they, those are slowly rolling out across health systems across the country.
Bill Russell:Some health systems, United Methodist and others, uh, got well ahead of this
Bill Russell:and were some of the early organizations do this, and then others just waited
Bill Russell:for their states or for the federal mandate to kick in, to have backing,
Bill Russell:to do it in states that may not have been as open to the, uh, to having.
Bill Russell:So regardless either way, cause we're not going to talk about vaccine mandates.
Bill Russell:Do they make sense or not?
Bill Russell:They are going in pretty much across the board in health systems.
Bill Russell:And what we're seeing is that that's impacting health, it staff, right?
Bill Russell:I talked to one CIO, they lost 19 people talk to another CIO there
Bill Russell:they're facing losing about 30 people.
Bill Russell:And it's not necessarily those numbers.
Bill Russell:Aren't staggering.
Bill Russell:They're not huge numbers, but it was already a challenging
Bill Russell:market to find staff.
Bill Russell:And now it's becoming even more challenging, especially when you, you
Bill Russell:know, it's not, Hey, I lost 19 people.
Bill Russell:It's Hey.
Bill Russell:Yeah, two or three very strategic people.
Bill Russell:My head of network operations PR potentially could be somebody you
Bill Russell:might lose that you're sitting there going, this is the person
Bill Russell:who understood our routing tables.
Bill Russell:Understood.
Bill Russell:, how our network was set up, how our disaster recovery was set up.
Bill Russell:That's a significant loss.
Bill Russell:I'm not saying that, you know, I'm not valuing people, but in terms
Bill Russell:of the skills that are brought and the difficulty in replacing it,
Bill Russell:replacing some of these positions that we're losing is , very challenging.
Bill Russell:And I think this is top of mind for almost.
Bill Russell:So the conversation about labor, what we're doing around it, how we
Bill Russell:are preparing to backfill some of those positions, how we are getting
Bill Russell:creative with where we're hiring people and how we're thinking about
Bill Russell:work environments, how we're managing people through the pandemic, how
Bill Russell:we're communicating with people.
Bill Russell:These, these are the topics that are, interestingly, at least for the leaders
Bill Russell:of the organization, really top of.
Bill Russell:Kinds of, conversations.
Bill Russell:And so those were, I guess again, I, if I really thought about it, that would make
Bill Russell:sense to me that that would be bubbling up because it's the, , the issue of the day.
Bill Russell:If you will, it's the issue.
Bill Russell:That's hitting them right now.
Bill Russell:And that's the nature of being a CIO.
Bill Russell:You're going along.
Bill Russell:You have a strategic plan, you're doing a lot of different things and you are
Bill Russell:moving all those, all those balls down the field to use a football analogy.
Bill Russell:The, uh, the unexpected just continues to hit us, you know, it's the pandemic.
Bill Russell:And then it's, , everybody worked from home then it's, , figure out
Bill Russell:how to do remote care, figuring out how to do telehealth overnight.
Bill Russell:Uh, that's been the nature of the job for roughly the last two years.
Bill Russell:And it doesn't look like that is going to change anytime soon.
Bill Russell:I will say this digital.
Bill Russell:One of the, obviously the top five things going on.
Bill Russell:And when I say digital, it's kind of pretty broad in terms of the definition,
Bill Russell:but it's applying technology to clinical workflows to administrative processes.
Bill Russell:, and data obviously I think is in that top five as well, figuring
Bill Russell:out how to do things with the data.
Bill Russell:We are collecting how to collect new types of data, how to, , visualize that.
Bill Russell:, also seems to be top of mine.
Bill Russell:So that'll give you some idea of where the interviews are going to
Bill Russell:be going over the next week and just give you another little heads up.
Bill Russell:So I go from this conference to another conference, I'm going to
Bill Russell:have interviews on this channel probably for the next two weeks.
Bill Russell:, the five to 10 minute interviews with people who are in positions of
Bill Russell:influence within their health systems.
Bill Russell:So hopefully you're enjoying.
Bill Russell:These short snippets, we will get back to my commentary on the news,
Bill Russell:probably in about two week timeframe.
Bill Russell:After I get back from traveling, get back in my studio where I can actually sit
Bill Russell:down and breathe a little bit and read some articles and catch up on things.
Bill Russell:We are back to traveling and getting used to that and all the things
Bill Russell:that it entails is kind of fun.
Bill Russell:So, , if you have anything or anyone that you would like for me to interview, shoot
Bill Russell:me a note bill@thisweekinhealthit.com.
Bill Russell:I'm going to interview as many people here at chime, as I possibly can.
Bill Russell:Five to 10 minutes, try to get you a flavor for what's going on.
Bill Russell:That's all for today.
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Bill Russell:Thanks for listening.