Monthly Archives: December 2022

End of year thoughts and advice for 2023

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This week in between holidays is a time when leaders may be working a more relaxed schedule and planning for the coming year. When I was a full-time CIO, I appreciated this last week of the year with few to no meetings and the opportunity to cleanup, catchup, and prepare for the new year.

While the past three years have at times been a blur as I try to recall when certain pandemic related events and changes happened, and the political discourse is incredibly discouraging at times, I remain optimistic about our collective future.

Health IT leaders will continue to face staffing challenges and cost constraints as organizations are under increased financial pressures. The successful health IT leaders in 2023 will be those who can partner effectively with their peers as a member of the executive team, support their organization’s strategic priorities and goals, find ways to reduce costs without reducing services, create flexible work environments with workforce strategies that ensure the best talent on the team, and embrace new and innovative technologies that solve real problems and improve the patient, clinician, and employee experience.

As in previous years, my StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, has again written an excellent year end blog – 12 Steps to Prepare for 2023 – Big Challenges – Bigger Opportunities. His 12 steps are worth considering as you plan for 2023. And his intro is a powerful reminder of why we work in healthcare and the kind of people we should strive to be in all our interactions:

“Healthcare is a people business.  We need to remind ourselves and our coworkers that mercy and compassion, not anger, define our profession and us as professionals.  We need to model mercy and compassion in our personal lives, in our interpersonal relationships, not just with family and friends, but with strangers and, equally important, our coworkers and business partners.  One way to do that is through genuine listening in pursuit of true understanding – so easy to say, so difficult to do.  Give others an avenue to express themselves.   For your own sake, lower your defenses.  As you create a list of resolutions for the new year, please add to it active and courageous listening, building trust, and treating everyone with kindness.”

May your 2023 be a healthy, peaceful year filled with kindness!

Grief and loss during the holidays

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In this Season of Gratitude as we celebrate holidays with family and friends, I am mindful that it can be a very difficult time for people who are grieving. A particular holiday song can be a trigger, decorations can be a trigger, just about anything can be a trigger. Whether it’s been a few weeks or many years since losing a loved one, holiday times can be especially difficult.

Being mindful of what others may be experiencing is so important. I won’t pretend to be an expert in helping people process their grief, but I have certainly experienced it this year with family members. Being aware of what they are going through, letting them talk openly about it, and just listening is my best advice. There are no right words.

While social media can be a pit of negativity, there are also bright spots of inspiration and positive messaging. I saw something on Facebook recently and shared it with my sister whose husband passed away in September. Healing Hugs (a non-profit organization that helps support parents who have lost children) shared these words from Angela Miller, founder of the grief organization, A Bed for My Heart:

There are no rules for surviving holiday grief.

Do what you need to do to survive.

Honor your loved one how you need to, and do what feels best for your fragile, aching heart.

You are missing a huge piece of you, so do whatever you need to do to find a sliver of peace.

I also saw something shared on Facebook about holiday host etiquette from Sarah Nannen who writes about the paradoxes we face in life, grief, motherhood, and our shared humanity:

If you’re inviting someone to your home and they’re grieving, be sure you’re inviting their grief to attend, too. It will be there, anyway.

Don’t invite someone with the goal of cheering them up for the holidays. Don’t expect them to put on a happy face in your home. Don’t demand they fake it til they make it or do something they don’t want to do, either.

Invite them with the loving intention of offering cheer and companionship and unconditional care during the holidays. To do this, you will need to honor and be responsive to their needs and emotions. Continue reading →

Ban books? No, encourage young readers

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It’s that time of year – whatever holiday you celebrate during this Season of Gratitude there is likely some gift giving involved. You may have an obligatory attitude of just getting it done or (hopefully) a more positive giving attitude spending time selecting thoughtful and more personalized gifts. When I had leadership teams reporting to me, I would give them a book each year. It was often the hardest gift to buy – deciding on the perfect book that they would all like. Over the years, my books included some of the best titles on innovation, leadership, technology, public health and more.

Now my holiday gift book buying is all for younger people. In addition to the one big gift for each of my grandchildren, I get them a book. I will be starting two of them on the “National Geographic Kids Almanac 2023” this year – it is filled with information on animals, science, nature, technology, conservation, and more.  I bought “Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Inspiring Young Changemakers” for one of the granddaughters at my daughter’s suggestion. I was delighted to get the suggestion as I have been patiently waiting for my granddaughters to be old enough so I could start buying some of the feminist books for girls I see in bookstores. And for my grandson who loves all sports and is learning to read, I’m getting a fun story he should like – “The Dog That Stole Football Plays”. The football player on the cover has a “Jets” jersey on and that happens to be the name of my grandson’s flag football team. Hoping he loves the story, and it encourages him to read more!

I have another book buying annual holiday tradition that continues. I buy a book for each of my grandnephews and grandnieces back home in Minneapolis where I’m from and where my siblings and their families all live. That group is older – mostly teenagers. So, we have progressed over the years from picture books when they were little to books focused on their interests including baseball, ballet, and opera during middle school years, to more scholarly and political books now that they are in high school. For example – “A Choice of Weapons” by Gordon Parks, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas”, and “The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene. I count on my three nieces to help me with recommendations and to understand their kids’ evolving interests. The grandnephew who wanted baseball books when he was younger is now into Nordic skiing and heavy metal with his own band. Yes, with my sister’s (their grandmother) help, I found a book he will like.

I can’t talk about nurturing young readers without mentioning the current banned books controversy that goes hand in hand with concerns about teaching critical race theory and talking about LGBTQ. Continue reading →

From an oversubscribed podcast fan

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If you’re a podcast listener like me, you probably have subscribed to a lot of different podcasts. You get a recommendation from a friend or colleague, somehow you hear about a new podcast on a topic of interest, so you search for it and subscribe. At least that’s what I do. It results in being way oversubscribed. Let’s be honest, you can only listen to so many different podcasts regularly whether on your commute, when you’re working out, or walking the dogs.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the This Week Health channels. I subscribe to all three – Newsroom, Community, and Conference. I am a regular listener of the Daily News shows on Newsroom to keep up and because they are nice and short – about 10-15 minutes each except for the Monday show. I listen to many of the Community Town Hall interviews and humbly note that I’m one of the hosts committed to doing one a month. My interviews so far this year have included John Glaser, Kisha Hawthorn, Lisa Stump, Scott MacLean, and Pamela Arora – leaders in our industry you probably recognize.

Since it’s conference season, Bill Russell and his team at This Week in Health have been doing the Interviews in Action series again – 10-15 minute interviews with many health IT leaders which can be found on the Community channel.

If you want to keep up and learn from others, check them out and encourage your team to listen as well. As in past years, Bill will be doing the end of year highlights shows – they are a great way to introduce others to these podcasts. There will even be one with all the Town Hall hosts covering highlights from our interviews this year. And as Bill has done every year for the past 5 years (congrats Bill on an awesome 5 years!!), we can count on tweaks to current channels and maybe some new programs in the coming year.

Back to the oversubscribed challenge and a bit of a diversion. Continue reading →