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Episode 4: Sue Schade on Amazon and Apple make their Big Move, Plus Role of the CIO

[00:00:31] This is episode number four. My name is bill Russell, recovering healthcare CIO writer and consultant with the previously mentioned health lyrics. Today I'm joined by former hymns chime CIO of the year and veterans CIO from Brigham and women's hospital, university of Michigan health system, and an interim interim CIO at university hospitals in Cleveland and Stony Brook in New York.

[00:01:05] Sue Schade: [00:01:05] Morning, bill. Thanks for having me on.

[00:01:18] What, what are you working on right now? What are you excited about?

[00:01:39] And I'm also a person, I think probably known in the industry who is willing to speak up on behalf of women and women's issues. So I'm going to be doing the health it chicks meet up panel. I'm preparing for a session. I'll be presenting on advice for the aspiring female executive. And I'll also be facilitating one of the [00:02:00] round tables at the women and health it mentor meetup.

[00:02:23] Bill Russell: [00:02:23] Your, your day is different every day of the week. So

[00:02:28] Bill Russell: [00:02:28] So Starbridge. [00:02:30]You founded that with with a couple of of luminaries in your you're doing interim CIO placement, and you can give us a little idea of what you're doing at not a full-blown commercial, but just a little idea. And then, and then we'll transition into the, into the news.

[00:03:07] So we cover a broad range in terms of interim work and then do consulting and leadership coaching. And we're having a great time doing it.

[00:03:25] Sue's picked a story. I'll kick us off this week. With [00:03:30] the Apple announcement. So Apple to launch health record app with HL seven fire specification at 12 hospitals. Let me recap the story real quick. Apple is going to use the fire spec to move data to the EHR, to your phone, to obviously your iPhone on your Android phone.

[00:04:04] I'm going to go ahead and read the 12 systems, Johns Johns Hopkins, Cedar Sinai, Penn medicine, Geisinger health, UC San Diego, UNC healthcare rush university medical center, dignity health Oschner health system. MedStar health, Ohio health and Cerner healthy clinic, I guess that's how Cerner does things.

[00:04:45] How healthcare CIO might think about this or how they might respond to it. So that the five ways this, this could be a big deal is it's a, it's an ecosystem and platform play. Now while Cerner and Epic are starting to evolve their [00:05:00] platforms for developers and starting to think in terms of an ecosystem, they they're not there yet.

[00:05:28] There's a lot of pressure [00:05:30] on it organizations and health systems to reduce costs and to improve the consumer experience. So timing is good. And obviously another reason this could be a big deal is it's just it's Apple. You know, the only thing that would've made a bigger splash than this, well, I guess is the Amazon announcement or, or a Tesla announcement getting into healthcare.

[00:06:11] Apple traditionally has taken a long time between iterations. I would like to see them go a little quicker and obviously there's a whole bunch of things. This doesn't address it. It doesn't address tight integration with the EHR. Therefore you're not going to get into the EHR workflow and there could be some unmet expectations.

[00:06:38] Sue Schade: [00:06:38] Oh, great question. And in a great selection on the article. You know, it kind of ties into the other article that we'll talk about in a bit.

[00:07:10] And they're going to take notice. So many organizations are still, you know, struggling with some basic interoperability. They may still be, you know, in very early stages of, you know, trying to develop their digital health strategy and how do they reach out to consumers beyond the basic patient portal.

[00:07:53] If I start with some of the not. It's easy sometimes to look at as like, Oh, hi, here's the latest and [00:08:00] greatest, but is this really going to take off? And when you dig under the covers, what are all the challenges to participating in it? But, you know, it's certainly something worth noting. And I will tell you if I was a sitting CIO in another organization right now, I'd be reaching out to some of my colleagues at the organizations on this list and trying to find out more and how we might, you know, think about participating.

[00:08:46] I played golf at the chime event last year with a small system. CIO. And I got this perspective of, you know, we really do talk to two different audiences. We talked to an audience that has a a hundred million [00:09:00] dollar budget, and we talked to one that has a $5 million budget. And those that have a $5 million budget, they absolutely should reach out to these people.

[00:09:34] That's that that's, that's a different, different play altogether. The it'll, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I You know, I'm, I'm, I'm one of those hope, as I said in the article, but when I was hopeful optimists, that Apple will be able to create an experience. And if they're able to create that experience, then we can just piggyback on that and, and do the things that we do [00:10:00] well to really improve outcomes, focusing on chronic conditions and those kinds of things.

[00:10:26] Sue Schade: [00:10:26] Absolutely because you don't want to be in react [00:10:30] mode. You want to be proactive and you want to be part of it. So any of your, you know, forward-thinking executives and physician leaders are going to be looking at this and going, okay, what about us? How do we get in on this? Right.

[00:10:49] Why don't you go ahead and share the story of the week and we'll, we'll dive into that.

[00:11:14] Title was Amazon Berkshire had the way in JP Morgan chase joined forces to tackle employee healthcare costs. I'm going to refer to a couple other articles as I talk about this in from a summary perspective, what they're trying to do according to the [00:11:30] article is create an independent non-profits.

[00:11:59] It's [00:12:00] not a health insurance company, not a hospital, not a pharma company for, into the article, but a company to bring technology tools. There to make healthcare more transparent, affordable, and simple. So their initial focus, even though they're an early planning is on technology solutions. I thought it was interesting in the article that they say very clearly, they don't pretend to understand all the complexities or have all the answers.

[00:13:12] So they're going all in and we'll take some risk. Another is that they're just in denial. You know, this too shall pass all these disruptive announcements. And the third is recognizing that they have to transform, but the board that they are accountable to is [00:13:30] looking for the least. Risky way for them to transform the organization.

[00:13:54] I found that kind of fascinating as I scammed all those He developed [00:14:00] mints and milestones. So, you know, it's about disruption and change. And as I said earlier CIO is certainly need to be part of it and not reacting. You know, they're all kind of heading down on the agenda and what they've got to deliver on to the, for 2018, but at the same time they need to have their heads up on what's coming and how their organization is going to play in that and embrace it.

[00:14:58] They're not comfortable with the only [00:15:00] thing in their and their employee's lives. That is stuck in the nineties. Being healthcare at a time when Amazon has psychology to enter the house the same day delivery, or have a totally automated grocery store. They're not content with the lame explanations around transparency, inequities, and even spending believable are sending in a believable understandable bill.

[00:15:46] I believe this announcement say it's just another indication that traditional healthcare organizations need to move faster. Dr. William Conway, CEO of Henry Ford medical group, I think many providers would welcome this. The tape form [00:16:00] is an outrageous administrative costs of healthcare in the us and the expense of all the mental services.

[00:16:31] Something. We need to have conversations with the administration and with our physicians and even the employers in our markets and the the consumers in our markets. We need to understand what they are looking for and figure out ways. To start to to start to deliver on that promise of consumer-driven healthcare.

[00:17:19] And for some, it's still very much baby steps, pilot projects, no clear strategy. But let's try some things. And I think that. [00:17:30] It's really gonna, it's gonna really open up that, that discussion and, and put a lot more pressure on healthcare organizations to deliver.

[00:17:44] I'm, I'm glad you're on the show. You've written so many good things about leadership and we've had discussions about leadership. And so let's talk about the role of the CIO. How is it, how is it changing? How has it. How has it changed since you started in the [00:18:00] industry and where do you, where do you think it's going?

[00:18:25] Right. But you should be there. And if you're not, you got to deal with that. [00:18:30] You as a CIO really needs to be at the table as a strategic partner with everybody else in that C-suite looking ahead at where healthcare is going. So that's, you know, over the years, I think that's the biggest change and that's not exactly, you know, any earth shaking kind of comment.

[00:19:06] So that's some of the changes that I see. I think that You know, if you want to talk about some of the characteristics in terms of what a good they're great CIO needs to have at this point, I, you know, it would emphasize the strategic thinking, the partnership and relationship skills, and that's what the executives, it's what physicians.

[00:19:48] You know, on behalf of the organization as I said, you've got to be part of the executive team and view yourself that way, not just the it leader. [00:20:00] And you know, as I also said, the, the, you gotta be. Really good at execution, focusing on costs, taking costs out and making sure that your processes are really tight.

[00:20:24] Bill Russell: [00:20:24] Yeah. There's certain things that you just have to be able to do, or you don't even get a seat at the table. You have to be [00:20:30] able to. Hit your budget every year, you have to be able to deliver a high and highly efficient it operation.

[00:21:38] Are you still seeing that are our systems starting to look for a different. Type of CIO or are they starting to fill the role or they're starting to say the CIO does this and the chief digital officer does these other things or that kind of stuff?

[00:21:55] Are you saying that you're seeing that overall or with interim placements [00:22:00] in particular?

[00:22:21] Sue Schade: [00:22:21] So, you know, it's a balance. You can't see my hand gesture but it's the balance of the two. The strategic [00:22:30] thinking to take the organization to the next level from a technology perspective, I think most organizations want, they also want to know that you can ensure.

[00:23:02] Problems downtime, you know trends that they can't figure out. They may, in that interview process, focus on those more than they really should or want to for the long haul. If they are you know, if they've got a lot of the core stuff done and they're moving into a whole next level of systems thinking they're going to be looking for you to be more strategic, but any of [00:23:30] these roles.

[00:23:55] Retiring and had been there a long time and going to do a nice handoff. [00:24:00]Or if someone, you know, announces are leaving and, you know, 30 days they take another opportunity and, you know, the organization's looking to fill a gap as they search for the next person. And they want someone to pick up quickly or a situation where it's just not working out and someone's been asked to leave and they're looking for an interim to come in.

[00:24:39] Bill Russell: [00:24:39] Yup. Well, you know, the other thing it's. from a skill standpoint. I know a lot of CIOs are sort of overwhelmed. They're like, you know, should I be a, an EHR expert, a clinical transformation expert? Should I be a, a cloud expert? Should I be a data analytics, data science expert? Should I, should I know blockchain and IOT and all those things.

[00:25:22] But also being able to identify is now the right time to be talking to somebody about data science is now the right time to be talking to somebody about blockchain [00:25:30] or is now the right time to be doing pilots. So our, our job is really as leader to know when to pull the right levers and didn't know when to elevate certain conversations, right?

[00:25:48] Sue Schade: [00:25:48] Yeah. You, you can't be, he can't be. Yeah, I think you've said it really well in terms of knowing when when to raise it, which of those topics and pull those levers and make sure that you can find and [00:26:00] bring in the, my talent and expertise who do know all of those specialized areas and the emerging ones.

[00:26:30] Who's the CIO over at space X. This is a great example of creative communication recruiting with vision. So he posted on LinkedIn. The he has a picture of a spacecraft out in outer space with, you know, a cool arm. And he goes on to say no VBA, or CQL want to help colonize Mars, leverage these skills to make a difference at space X.

[00:27:10] Sue Schade: [00:27:10] I know I sent you three and you said surprise me, which one? So I'm taking the one that I it's a video and the person who posted it is Ingrid Owen.

[00:27:50] And they, they pan over to this area where there are kids playing and adults with them. And it just really struck me as that's a [00:28:00] family, family friendly company, and we all know how hard. It folks and our users work, especially during that intense go live period and what people have to give up and family-wise and commit to during those times.

[00:28:31] Bill Russell: [00:28:31] I love that. I love that one chapters and dine is one of my favorite. CEO's definitely a visionary and definitely has a great culture that he's developed with his employees.