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Widen the circle

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Thanksgiving is often that day when we gather with family and friends, eat too much, maybe argue over politics, watch a lot of football, and generally have a good time being in the presence of people we carecanstockphoto21096824 (1) starts with you about. It’s that day when families widen their circle, make room at an already crowded table for friends and friends of friends who have no family nearby to be with.

I remember the last several Thanksgivings well. They represent our growing family.

Two of them were in Ann Arbor on long distance “baby watch”. In 2012, I was on my own having just started a new CIO position at Michigan Medicine. I was anxiously awaiting the call from our daughter in California to say she’d gone into labor and that I should get a ticket and fly out. It was our first grandchild. The plan was to help her out for the first week when they came home from the hospital. A couple I had met at church invited me to join their family on Thanksgiving as I waited. Two years later our second grandchild was due in Boston. Our best friends in Ann Arbor graciously invited my husband and I to join their family for Thanksgiving dinner as we waited for that call.

2013 was the only time we had our family at our Ann Arbor house – they travelled from both coasts for Thanksgiving. We also celebrated our grandchild’s first birthday together that long holiday weekend. And for my football fan son-in-law who grew up wanting to play for the University of Michigan, I bought tickets for everyone to go to the Michigan-Ohio game at the big house. A year to remember!

Over the next few years we became part of our Boston area daughter’s big extended family of in-laws. Now that my husband and I live in New England again and our California daughter and son-in-law live nearby, we have all been welcomed into the Boston area clan at the holidays. This Thanksgiving we were again part of that family but on a smaller scale. Continue reading →

Family ties – we all have a story

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I am the youngest of my three siblings; I have a sister and two brothers. My husband, Tom, grew up the middle child with an older brother and a younger sister. All of our parents were deceased by the time we Blooming Grove cropped icaruswere in our mid-30’s and raising our own children.

My husband’s brother, Ted, died last November. Tom and Ted had an up and down relationship over the years but had come to a good place together last year. They got together for dinner on Wednesdays and had become good friends.

Yesterday, Tom and I drove 350 plus miles to a small community, Blooming Grove, near Williamsport, Pennsylvania to bury Ted’s ashes. Tom’s sister flew in from Arizona and several of their cousins who live in New England joined us. Why Blooming Grove? This is where seven generations of Schade’s are buried. It is a small community of Dunkard Baptists who first immigrated from Germany in the early 1800’s. A place in the Schade family history I’d only heard stories about until this trip.

Several of those generations are on our family photo wall. It is a work in process. Tom continues to add pictures from both of our families as we go through old boxes of photos. Our oldest granddaughter is five. She loves the movie Coco and understands it is about honoring and remembering your ancestors. When she visits, we often review the family photo wall and explain who everyone is.   Continue reading →

Family first

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With a family vacation in our future that includes four grandkids between 2 and 5 years old, I am reminded who my big rocks are. While there may be times that vacation week when the level of chaos is more than I want, just being able to spend extended time together will be worth it.

I executed a new master plan two years ago that included living close to my daughters and their families. Since then I have had a chance to spend far more time with them than when I lived and worked halfway across the country.

I hope you all know who your big rocks are. And more importantly, that you make time to spend with them.

With that in mind, I’m sharing the “Do you know your big rocks?”  post I published in April two years ago.

Do you know your big rocks?

April is a mixed month for me. No, I’m not talking about the fact that we had snow this week. In April, I celebrate many happy milestones, including my birthday and my wedding anniversary. Andcanstockphoto25793802 now, both my daughters have April wedding anniversaries. And the blooming daffodils along the road remind me that spring is finally here. 

Yet, there is always a sad part of April for me. My father died from Hodgkin’s disease on April 23rd, just a few days before my fourth birthday. Losing a parent as a child leaves a hole in your heart and shapes who you are.

Stephen Covey has a great story about “big rocks”. If you’re not familiar with it, just google it. Our families are our big rocks and my daughters remind me of that. And as little as they are, my grandchildren are also big rocks for me.  Every time one of my daughters calls me on FaceTime and I see a cute little toddler smiling at me from my iPhone, I fall in love with them all over again. 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 →

This can’t be the new normal

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I am sickened, saddened, and angry all over again.

Yesterday as I did my early morning check of Facebook, I smiled at a memory that popped up from 3 years ago. It was a picture of my then 3-month-old granddaughter dressed in a little Valentine’s outfit withcanstockphoto50204846 school icon a little red and white stuffed bear next to her. She was propped up in a chair and holding a sign that said, “I love Nana Sue and Papa Tom”. It made my day.

Early afternoon, I talked to my daughter who is the mom to the oldest of our 4 grandchildren. She had just finished registering her 5-year-old for kindergarten next September. She learned that she’d be taking a bus to school and not going to the school within walking distance. The 5-year-old was excited at the thought of a school bus with her friends.

I learned about the latest school shooting in Parkland, Florida just before my husband and I headed to that daughter’s house to babysit the 5-year-old and her 3-year-old sister, so the parents could have a Valentine’s Dinner date night. The story was still unfolding, and the number of injuries and fatalities were still unknown as we drove to her house.

But watching just a short news piece I saw the anguish of parents anxiously awaiting news of their children. And I saw the fear and pain of the students who survived as they were being escorted out of the school by armed police officers.

Parents send their children to what should be a safe and nurturing learning environment every day. Yet, parents now with increased frequency wonder if their children will return home. Continue reading →

One year anniversary, how are we doing?

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For the first birthdays of my four grandkids, there have been party hats and “smash” cakes. But what does a small team of entrepreneurs do on the first anniversary of founding their firm? They take stock and plan canstockphoto48088945for year two.

David Muntz, Russ Rudish and I launched StarBridge Advisors in October of 2016. So how does a health IT advisory firm measure success after year one?

Number of clients – We have already assisted 12 healthcare provider organizations with some repeat engagements and have national reach.

Revenue – Any first-year projections can be a crapshoot but you need to start somewhere. We may have been overly optimistic but we are well on our way with our client base and pipeline.

Size of our team – In addition to our three principals, we now have almost 20 advisors on our team available for interim management, leadership support and consulting. Their IT leadership experience includes serving as CIO, CTO, CISO, CMIO or CNIO in healthcare organizations.

Channel partners – We work closely with several larger consulting firms who offer services that we don’t. We partner with Healthcare IT Leaders, a leading staffing firm and Rudish Executive Search, which specializes in healthcare.  And we are working with a few start-up technology vendors who are bringing to market new and novel solutions for healthcare providers.

Referrals – Our principals combined have over 90 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Our relationships are a key component of growing a new business and getting known in the market.

Name and brand recognition – A year ago we had decided on a name and incorporated, but had yet to figure out our branding. That was some fun work at first; by January we launched our website and social media presence. Continue reading →

When can we talk about it?

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Like you, I woke up Monday morning to the horrific news that at least 50 people were dead and over 400 people injured at the kind of venue we have been to before: an open-air music event with thousands of people.

But this was not a terrorist attack in some foreign country. This was our country. The United States of America. The land of the free. But sadly, it is also the land of guns. Americans own an estimated 265 million guns, more than one gun for every adult.

This time it was a 64-year-old white man who had amassed over 40 weapons and had carried over 20 of them into his hotel suite a few days earlier. These were semi-automatic weapons modified to shoot rounds so fast that in just 10 minutes he ended or injured over 500 lives. Not to mention the psychological damage for the thousands who escaped, survived, tended to others on the scene, transported them to hospitals or cared for them at the hospital. 

I was in Chicago attending a healthcare forum on Monday. But no one was talking about what had happened. Are we so numb to gun violence in this country that we watch that initial news story in horror but then move on? Were the few hundred people in that meeting room with me distracted during the day and wanting to know more about what had happened? Were they quietly looking for answers? Instead of just looking at email on their phones were they looking for news updates and trying to comprehend this awfulness yet again? 

I saw an alarming image and statistic today. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1.5 million Americans have been killed in the U.S. in gun related incidents since 1968. That is more than the 1.2 million service members killed in all the U.S. wars combined. The caption said, “We are at war with ourselves”.   Continue reading →

Humanitarian crisis, American crisis

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A week after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, we are hearing that this United States territory is facing a humanitarian crisis. That is a phrase we have all heard before about poor countries in other partscanstockphoto18234898 of the world – it could be the result of a natural disaster or a civil war. A crisis like this saddens us, but it’s usually so far away, and we just move on.

What is a “humanitarian crisis”? Wikipedia defines it as “a singular event or a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or well being of a community or large group of people”. Another way of saying it – when the basics of life are unavailable – food, water, transportation, healthcare, and communications.

Puerto Rico is us, yes US. It is not somewhere far away. It is 1000 miles from Miami. 3.5 million people live in Puerto Rico. It is 3 times the size of Rhode Island – in square miles and in population.

Less than 50% of Puerto Ricans have running water. The entire island is without power, the power grid has been destroyed. Only 29 of 69 hospitals on the island are operational. Hospitals still open are running on generators and quickly running out of fuel. In the capital city of San Juan, 2 people on life support died when their hospital’s generators ran out of diesel.

Interviews with San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz on MSNBC brought this home. She could not have been more articulate in her plea for federal help. As she talked about the dire situation and the reality of hospitals running out of power, she described them as places to care for and heal people, not to be death traps.

Luis Guiterrez, U.S. Representative from the Illinois 4th congressional district, whose parents were born in Puerto Rico described in vivid terms what the elderly are going through there. He asked us to think about what it would be like for our own elderly parents who may live alone. What if they didn’t have access to food or water and they needed insulin. He called for the U.S. military to go in and quickly set up a power and communications infrastructure as we know they can and do in wartime.

The USNS Comfort is larger than many of the largest hospitals in this country with 1000 beds. Continue reading →

A pile is not a file

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“I need to go to the Container Store”. When I hear my husband say that simple sentence, I’m totally in. Unlike when he says he’s going to a nearby office supply store for something, I have to go with to the canstockphoto1397590Container Store. There is always something there I could buy to get myself more organized.

I work from home when I’m not doing an interim management engagement, so my home office is a continuous improvement project. Or is that just an excuse to fool myself and buy more organizing tools?

Before the trip last weekend, I stepped back to assess my needs. After all, you can’t just walk into that store and head to the home office section without a plan. I opened the storage closet in my home office. I was instantly reminded that I had unused organizers from previous trips plus unwanted products from my husband’s home office. The guilt set in.

I made a plan for organizing my desk and working files better. I decided I didn’t need any new organizers for now. But I did want one more way to hang stuff up on my office wall. So, I carefully measured the space and thought about the product I’d buy.

There’s something about the Container Store that sucks you in. There’s always a sale and always cool new products. It’s not that close to us so fortunately we don’t go that often. The challenge is to not wander around the store fantasizing about all the possible containers and organizers that could transform your life. Who couldn’t be more organized somewhere in their life? Whether it’s your kitchen, your bathroom, your laundry room, your closets, or your office, there’s something calling to you. Continue reading →

From One to Many

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In the past four days, I’ve learned about and interacted with ten different healthcare systems. Some are current consulting and coaching clients while others are prospective clients. Their needs for services canstockphoto1878305range from interim management to leadership development to small, discrete consulting projects.

Their challenges and needs are unique, but not necessarily new to me. After 30+ years in healthcare IT, I “know a lot because I have seen a lot” as the insurance company advertises.  But if I am going to be effective in meeting each client organization’s needs, I need to get to know each client organization, the players and the culture.

I enjoy the day to day work of an interim CIO engagement like my recent one at Stony Brook Medicine. It’s very rewarding to be part of a larger team making a difference for patients. But interacting with many different organizations around the country and helping them solve problems is an entirely different kind of challenge. It is fun and rewarding in its own way.

On that first call with a prospective client, you need to establish your credibility and determine if your services are a match to their needs. Listening skills are critical – when talking to a prospective client and once you get the work. You need to go deep to understand their unique issues. And at the same time, you need to apply your experience and knowledge from other organizations.

Five new leads for StarBridge Advisors have come my way this week. I’m chasing them all. Once I understand the unique need, I’ll match one of our advisors and prepare a proposal for the client.

This level of client activity requires good administration, organization, and tools. We have the tools and continue to refine our processes. We’re trying to fully leverage SalesforceIQ and use it consistently as a firm. Leveraging our tools and creating repeatable processes is all part of the work this first year in business. Continue reading →