Monthly Archives: June 2019

Good intentions – a midyear checkup

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Remember those things called New Year’s resolutions? Do you make them? Do they last past January? At the start of 2019, I stepped back and did some soul searching (sounds deeper than it was!) and came canstockphoto9123549 (1) calendarup with three broad “intentions” rather than resolutions. They are balance, passion, and engagement.

By balance I wanted to figure out how to make my goal of working closer to three quarters time rather than full-time a reality. Being two plus years into our business, StarBridge Advisors, I was working much more than I initially intended. One of my goals when I stepped off the permanent CIO track in early 2016 was to have more flexibility in my career and work more like three quarters time over the course of the year. When I do an interim engagement, it is obviously a full-time commitment but then there are breaks in between.

So, in January, I decided I would be more intentional about scheduling down time. A great way to do that each week was to block off Tuesdays when I could and spend them with my daughter and two grandkids as that was her day off each week as a nurse practitioner. We had many fun Tuesdays together.

Since I said “yes” to another interim engagement in May it’s been more like having two full-time jobs considering how busy StarBridge Advisors is these days. Evenings and weekends are very full to say the least. A good problem to have for anyone with their own business! But I need to get back to a better balance during this period. It’s a work in process for sure. But I am loving the work I’m doing these days and the people I’m working with.

By passion I wanted to focus some time on developing next generation leaders which has long been a passion of mine. I’d been thinking about an idea for some time focused on developing next generation women leaders. Continue reading →

Crunch time and why IT matters

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It’s crunch time. Every day counts. Can’t miss a deadline. All hands-on deck. Go live readiness assessments (GLRA). If you work in health IT and have been through a major EHR implementation, canstockphoto60328456 (1) EHR UVMHNyou’ve heard all these phrases.

At the University of Vermont Health Network (UVMHN), the Epic Wave 1 go live is less than 5 months away. The University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) has been on Epic for inpatient and ambulatory core clinicals for years. Wave 1 includes the full revenue cycle, lab and anatomic pathology, radiology, OR and anesthesia, cardiology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, behavioral health, rehab, wound care, infection control, and predictive analytics at UVMMC.

Wave 1 also includes the first Epic implementations at three Vermont and New York hospitals in the network starting with ambulatory systems for billing and clinical functions. Waves 2 (2020) and 3 (2021) will be the full suite of inpatient systems at those same hospitals – Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin, Vermont; Porter Medical Center in Middlebury, Vermont; and Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh, New York. Yet to be scheduled are Elizabethtown Community Hospital in Elizabethtown, New York; Alice Hyde Medical Center in Malone, New York; and Home Health and Hospice.

The core infrastructure is largely in place to support the November 1st go live though we have more to do at the device level. Over 10,000 users will be trained in a 6-week period. The first GLRA at 120 days pre go-live is coming up soon.

When I saw Epic on the agenda for the UVMMC quarterly leadership meeting, I assumed it was a project status update. How wrong I was. Continue reading →

Modeling leadership, empowering others

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I had the opportunity to meet all the IT interns at The University of Vermont Health Network this week. Several of them are working on infrastructure teams that I am now responsible for as the interim Chief Technology c change key image update right align 2Officer. They are all excited to be working with us, learning and contributing.

When it was my turn to introduce myself, I told them I’m committed to developing next generation leaders and am happy to make time to meet with any of them this summer if they want to talk and get career advice. My days are busy, but I hope at least some of them take me up on the offer. I will find the time.

We all need role models and people who are willing to help us develop and grow professionally. Female leaders in health IT represent only 30% of senior leadership so it’s not yet a level playing field. With our StarBridge Advisors C-change service, we focus on developing women leaders in health IT through online courses and coaching.

On June 18, Gale Thompson and I will be presenting a webinar, “Develop Women Leaders, Transform Leadership” as part of the HIMSS Women in Health IT series.

The learning objectives are to:

  • Recognize that you are not the only one struggling with how to be effective, successful, and fulfilled.
  • Learn how you can make foundational shifts with intention to craft the leader you want to be and the life you want to live.
  • Discover clear, thoughtful steps you can take to steer your career progression while attending to your personal and family commitments. Explore ways you can be proactive in getting what you need/want both professionally and personally.
  • Learn to give yourself permission to invest in your own well-being and leadership growth and commit to taking that next step.

For more information or to register for the webinar, click here.

Related Posts:

Develop women leaders, transform leadership

Make career choices right for you

What can we learn from women in leadership?

10 tips for next generation leaders

MiChart summer interns — a win-win!

Managing priorities and maintaining balance

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This week marks five years since I started writing this weekly blog. I still get asked how I find time to write each week. That’s a great question. There are weeks when I don’t know how I will find the time.  At canstockphoto9530224 work life balanceindustry conferences, people often come up to me and tell me how much they appreciate my blog. I was recently asked how long I’m going to keep writing. My answer was I’ll write as long as I have something to say that’s useful to others.

This is week three of my new interim management engagement. I have many new topics to cover based on all the best practices I’m seeing (PMO, Service Management, and effective meetings to name a few) but very little time to write.

My days are what you’d expect in an operations role while being in a learning mode. My nights are full reviewing documents balanced with addressing the highest priority follow-up work as a principal in StarBridge Advisors.

While I’m trying to keep up some level of exercise routine, gym workouts have fallen by the wayside. When we get busy, we have to prioritize and re-prioritize and be willing to let some things go. And we need to take care of ourselves.

Thursday night is when I usually finalize my blog and get it ready to publish first thing Friday morning. Many weeks, it’s when I finally write what I’ve been percolating on for a few days.

But this week Thursday night was a “date night”. A few years back when my husband and I first discussed the idea of me doing interim engagements, we thought that it could also mean having an adventure in another city if he came with me at times. We decided this was a good week for him to be in Burlington with me. We acted on that adventure goal and bought tickets for the Thursday night performance at the Burlington Jazz Festival. It seemed like a great idea at the time. Continue reading →