On Technology

Facebook: cute pics, political organizing or privacy threat?

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Chances are you are on Facebook. More than 2 billion people around the world are active monthly users. I joined in 2006 because my brother said he wouldn’t send pictures of his first grandchild by email canstockphoto7547507 facebookanymore – I could see them on Facebook instead. I joined. And then I soon figured out it was a great way to keep in touch with family and friends around the country.

I have always been suspicious of apps that I could sign into through Facebook. I didn’t want uncontrolled data sharing. I did not answer the many Facebook quizzes; I had heard someone say that the answers were probably building a profile on you for who knows what purpose.

I sometimes check out a sponsored ad if the product really grabs my attention, but I rarely purchase it. It’s an online shopping/browsing thing like looking at catalogs that still come in the mail.

I am vocal about my politics in my original posts, my likes, comments and shares of other posts. And I have joined certain private groups that share my politics. So yes, somewhere there is a profile on me and my politics.

On Twitter, I try to maintain a professional presence as much as possible and leave politics for my Facebook circle instead. I have read so much about online harassment of women on Twitter, and we do have a President who appears to be the cyberbully-in-chief.

With the latest exposure that Cambridge Analytica used Facebook data on 50 million Americans to influence the 2016 election, I am questioning how we can protect our personal information yet continue to utilize social media platforms and all the good they bring: keeping families and friends in touch or accelerating social movements around important issues. Continue reading →

Technology making a difference at scale

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Post HIMSS18, there have been many recaps from people who attended. I won’t try to do that but have listed several of them at the end of this post under “resources”.  Instead, I want to share with you a keynote on the final day of the conference. It represents what is possible when a team of dedicated engineers set out to solve a real problem in healthcare at scale. In fact, as I listened, it seemed like the ultimate in “health IT connect” – the name I gave this weekly blog back in 2014.

Keller Rinaudo, co-founder and CEO of Zipline, captivated those still around on Friday morning with his keynote full of stories and video clips describing the first autonomous logistics system delivering blood and medical supplies to people in Rwanda and Tanzania. Or as one of my colleagues called it this week when we were talking about it – the “blood bomber”.

As their website says, “Zipline operates the world’s only drone delivery system at national scale to send urgent medicines, such as blood and animal vaccines, to those in need – no matter where they live.” The problem they are addressing is that “more than two billion people lack adequate access to essential medical products, such as blood and vaccines, due to challenging terrain and gaps in infrastructure.”  In his opening at the keynote, Keller showed a truck stuck in the mud on an impassable road and asked, “Why depend on roads?”

Zipline developed a solution to improve access to supplies “by flying over impassable mountains and washed-out roads, delivering directly to remote clinics”. Continue reading →

Guide to HIMSS18 – onsite or remote

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If you work in health IT, you know that the annual HIMSS conference is the biggest annual industry event whether you are headed to Las Vegas next week or not. The number of emails, blog posts, social media HIMSS Blog Imageposts, and articles providing guidance and recommendations on HIMSS18 continues to grow with just a few more days before it all begins.

With so much info out there, I decided to pull together a few more resources that might help in your final preparation:

Here’s the good news! You don’t have to attend to benefit from all that’s happening there. HIMSS TV will be launched for the first time ever. There will be live coverage from the conference. You can also follow on Twitter using #HIMSS18 or specific hashtags for your area of interest.

Whether you are attending in person or following the happenings from a distance, the “Official HIMSS18 hashtag guide” will help you focus in on your areas of interest. And of course you’ll want to follow all the social media ambassadors.

Check out “HIMSS – are you ready?” from StarBridge Advisors to see our principals’ top picks for this year – mine are #WomenInHIT, #HITventure and #Connect2Health.

If you are still trying to pick your education sessions, the topical guides provided by HealthITNews as “Don’t Miss Education Sessions” may be helpful to review.

HealthSystemCIO.com has a special HIMSS18 Preview aimed at CIOs and health IT leaders you’ll want to check out.

Are you an introvert? Continue reading →

Tune in: recommendations for IT podcasts

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How do you keep up with industry news? Do you have a favorite online publication? Are you a reader or a listener? I find myself struggling to keep up with everything I want to read. But I’m doing better, now, with canstockphoto33796857 podcastat least tracking on the headlines and top industry news stories.

For all you busy multi-taskers who may be looking for an alternate way to educate yourself and stay current, 20-30 minute podcasts are a great option. Whether you’ve got a long daily commute, need something to listen to while working out at the gym or while walking the dog, consider listening to podcasts.

Here are some podcast series worth checking out:

This Week in Health IT – This is a new program launched by Bill Russell, CEO at Health Lyrics, focusing on news of the week and a topic of interest. He publishes online every Friday afternoon. I was honored to be on the program last week. We covered the Amazon, JP Morgan, Berkshire Hathaway announcement and the Apple health records app story. Both are examples of the disruptive forces we are seeing in healthcare. Bill and I also talked about the evolving role of the CIO and shared our favorite social media posts of the week.

HealthSystemCIO.com – Anthony Guerra and Kate Gamble have been conducting extensive one-on-one interviews with CIOs for several years. They publish them online as multi-chapter series. These interviews provide insight and experiences for everyone in health IT.  And if you’d rather read the interviews, they are also available as full transcripts. Continue reading →

What keeps you up at night – the wrong question

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What do healthcare CIOs have in common as they start off 2018? And how can they get the additional bandwidth they need to achieve all their objectives?canstockphoto13538474 question

When I talk with CIOs. I want to understand their current priorities and challenges. Our team of advisors at StarBridge Advisors can be an extender for a CIO – partnering with them to accomplish key initiatives that they or their leadership team don’t have the time to do.

When I meet with CIOs that I don’t know or who serve organizations I’m not familiar with, I try to get as much background in advance as I can.  It’s easy to do these days. You look at the organization’s website, press releases, and online profiles of individuals and their career history. When I was a CIO, I remember when new vendors would call on me and they’d eerily seem to know a lot about me. I realize now that they were just doing their basic homework.

But as consultants, we don’t know until we talk with a CIO what their priorities and areas of need are.

I stay away from that standard question I heard so many times as a CIO – what keeps you up at night? I like to just sit down with a CIO and learn about their agenda and challenges. Through dialog we can mutually identify potential gaps that StarBridge Advisors might fill.

Based on recent conversations with several CIOs, there are common themes. Are they AI, machine learning, or blockchain? Continue reading →

The other end of the highway

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This morning I was looking out my window at a new 3 inches snowfall while making conference calls. Tonight, I’m driving past palm trees. This afternoon I was on I-95 driving to the Providence airport for a canstockphoto25609566 (002) highwayflight to see a new client. Tonight, I’m exiting a Florida airport in a rental car and merging onto I-95 heading south.

With google maps piped through the car rental audio, I am confident I will get to the hotel 50 minutes away. I have done all the initial lane changes and merging, so now I’ve got a 19 mile stretch before the next turn. It’s safe to call home on speed dial and chat with my husband. I do the ritual “woe is me” that my flight was delayed, the airport was busier than I expected, and there was a long wait for the car rental center shuttle. But I’m finally on the road to my hotel much later than expected and very hungry. I am aware that these all are first world problems.

We have the “I’m still on I-95 but with palm trees” conversation. When I exit I-95, it is crystal clear that I am 1,500 miles south of the I-95 I’m used to. The “lady” in the car audio is telling me to merge onto Dolphin Expressway. No road in Rhode Island is called Dolphin Expressway!

I dislike busy unfamiliar expressways, driving at night (especially with lane changes) and driving in the rain (in that order). Fortunately, this was only 2 of the 3 – it was dry, with no rain (or snow). In these situations, lane management is critical, and the navigator system can only help so much. And good signage is critical or as my daughter says, “use your eyes”.

What does this have to do with healthcare and IT? Continue reading →

Merger mania – is it good for the patient?

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In just the past few weeks, we saw several major healthcare merger announcements – Dignity and CHI, Advocate and Aurora, Ascension and Providence St. Joseph Health on the provider side. And then there’scanstockphoto18678854 CVS Health and Aetna – a potential disruptor in the healthcare market. And we don’t yet know what other market disruptors like Amazon or Google might do in the healthcare space.

There have been predictions in recent years that eventually there would be just 10-15 major healthcare systems in the U.S. Are we on our way to that prediction with the latest merger announcements?  The combined Advocate and Aurora system would create a 27-hospital healthcare system in Wisconsin and Illinois with projected annual revenue of $11 billion. The Dignity and CHI merger would include 139 hospitals in 28 states. If Ascension and Providence St. Joseph Health merge they would create the largest hospital chain with 191 hospitals in 27 states and annual revenue of $44.8 billion.

What is driving these mega mergers? The announcements about them talk about improved access to care, improved outcomes, lower costs, sharing best practices and overall being more prepared for success in the changing healthcare market and landscape.

Jane Sarsohn-Kahn, health economist, wrote a great piece earlier this month – “Will Getting Bigger Make Hospitals Get Better?”.  She talked about the value that matters to patients — the trust that is needed between hospitals and patients.

And what are the IT implications of these mergers? If markets don’t really overlap, what degree of system integration is needed? Is one seamless patient record needed as it is for large regional systems with a lot of patient movement between community hospitals and specialists at academic medical centers? Continue reading →

Tech is king and soft skills matter

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These are just two of the key findings of the recently published, “LinkedIn 2017 U.S. Emerging Jobs Report”. Not at all surprising. The report is worth checking out regardless of where you are at in your canstock 121417 tech is king and soft skills mattercareer. As I always tell people, be open to the possibilities.

The report notes the estimate that 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately hold jobs that don’t yet exist. Just think back to what your options were when you started primary school.

I know as a young girl in the 60’s, it seemed like teacher or nurse were the options. My sister did become a nurse and then went on to get a master’s degree in public health. By the time she retired a few years ago, she had run many of the state health departments in Minnesota at one time or another. I wanted to be a math teacher when I was young. Instead I found my path to computer programming in the early 80’s when the field was starting to really explode. Here I am today having served several healthcare organizations as their Chief Information Officer before starting a health IT advisory firm.

Back to the “tech is king” finding. The report says that the top emerging jobs are machine learning engineer, data scientist, and big data engineers in a wide range of industries.  It also notes that there are currently 1,600 open roles for machine learning engineer in the U.S.

The report also found that there is a low supply of talent for top jobs. For example, data scientist roles have grown over 650% in the past 5 years but only 35,000 people in the U.S. currently have data science skills. Any CIO looking to build out the analytics capability for their organization is probably all too aware of this gap. Continue reading →

STEM gift ideas for 2017

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Black Friday and Cyber Monday are here. Millions will be spent in the next few days on holiday presents for kids.  A few weeks ago, I asked for STEM gift suggestions and promised I would create an updated listcanstockphoto36568604 STEM if I heard from enough of you. And I did, so I am. Here goes:

Babies and Preschoolers

Hilary Graham suggested plush microbes from ThinkGeek. Hilary and Marianne Mara both noted that author Chris Ferrie has a series of science themed board books for babies.

Another blog subscriber said they bought their 3-year-old the Fisher Price Code-a-Pillar for his birthday and that he really likes it.

Vicki Davis, from Healthcare IT Leaders, won the prize for the most suggestions and the most detail. She said she wished that she was a little girl again so she could play and learn with these amazing toys. She provided age range, costs, and where to buy each item – her complete and detailed list is in the comments on my previous post. I’ve broken it out by age groups here.

Learning Resources Gears! Gears! Gears! Super Set lets budding inventors create whatever they want with a colorful set of interchangeable gears. Children learn about complex systems and creative problem solving.

GoldieBlox has construction toy and storybook sets that feature a girl engineer character. These have been award winning products.

My daughter, Ann, with a “hint, hint” in her comment said the Classic Builder Pink Set from Baby First looks like hours of fun. The hint is for either an upcoming birthday or Christmas present for my grandkids.

Elementary School

My StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, said his wife is giving their 8-year-old granddaughter a coding camp experience. Sounds like fun to me!!

Jennifer Dennard, founder of #healthitchicks, is a leading proponent of developing women in IT. She said she will be purchasing Ozobots for her entire family. These little robots teach kids to code in creative ways. Both of her daughters use them in their respective STEM classes in elementary and middle school. Even her husband has said he’d like a few to play with! Continue reading →

HIMSS Stage 7: what does it take?

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This week, I participated in another HIMSS Analytics Acute Care EMRAM Stage 7 review team as the CIO reviewer. During the opening presentations by the organization’s leadership, I leaned over to theHIMSS EMRAM 2018

full-time HIMSS reviewer to say, “They are hitting it out of the ballpark”. By the end of the day, our three-person review team had indeed reached that conclusion. The full-time reviewer said, “Some organizations barely clear the bar but this one far exceeded it.”

Only 6.1% of hospitals have achieved Stage 7.  What does it take?

On review day, the review team is presented with information that includes a system overview, including governance, clinical and business intelligence, health information exchange, and plans for disaster recovery and business continuity.

The review team has been given a 17-page document that includes checklists for each major clinical area.

Several case studies are presented that demonstrate how the organization has used the system to improve clinical care.

The organization prepares for this visit for months, developing the case studies and verifying they have met every specific criterion. The full-time reviewer spends time on the phone reviewing their readiness.

Achieving Stage 7 takes teamwork throughout the organization to fully leverage all aspects of the vendor’s product. It takes engagement and passion from executives and clinicians.

The organization we were reviewing implemented their EMR according to these guiding principles: Continue reading →