Advice for bloggers: valuable content and discipline

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In the early 2000s, there was an explosion of blogs, but I never pictured myself as a blogger.  But that changed four years ago when I started a weekly blog to share my health IT experiences and insights with canstockphoto13207113others.

It is a weekly discipline I’ve maintained ever since.

I love data. So, I look at the statistics on views per week and per post. I’ve published over 200 blog posts and have had close to 100,000 views.

Over the four years, the posts on lean are by far the most popular – 6 of the top 20 posts – including huddles, visual boards, Gemba walks, and use of an A3. The lean community shares content broadly and openly as they learn from one another. A very good practice! So, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at the popularity of these posts.

I ask myself “what generates views”? Is it the opening tease and blog title that attracts readers? Is it the title or general topic that causes subscribers to read a blog when they get the email notification? Is it the re-publishing by other publications or links from other sites?

Despite all the analytical tools and articles available on how to increase blog subscribers and readers, it comes down to valuable content. Yes, the catchiness of the title and the use of keywords make a difference. I learned that decades ago writing headlines when I was editor of my high school newspaper. But back then the world of content was all paper; now you can search for anything online in seconds. We all know that on social media you must compete for “eyeballs.” Hence, the importance of keywords.

When I first considered starting a blog, I sought out an expert to give me advice. I called Anthony Guerra at HealthSystemCIO.com. Was it a crazy idea or should I go for it? He encouraged me early on and I’m truly grateful for that. It helped me go from considering blogging to actually being a blogger.

I’ve learned how important amplification is in the world of social media: tagging people, likes, comments, and shares. Then there’s “going viral” – nobody knows the secret formula to that. Continue reading →

Teaching moments – every day, everywhere

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A Starbucks in Philadelphia, a golf course in York, Pennsylvania, an Airbnb in California, a college tour in Colorado, a common dorm room at Yale. These are the stories of every day racism that have gotten canstockphoto48801491 (1) multi racialsignificant media attention recently. Yet we all know there are many more stories just like this. And they are happening every day and in every part of the country.

This week it was a blatant and demeaning racist comment from the star of one of ABC’s highest rated shows and money maker. ABC leadership acted swiftly. As they should. ABC Entertainment President, Channing Dungey, announced that the network decided to cancel the show in one brief statement: “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”.

The target of that comment, Valerie Jarrett, former White House senior advisor to President Obama, took the high road. On a MSNBC special program called “Every Day Racism in America”, that same night, she said we should use this as a teaching moment. She was fine but worried about all the people who don’t have support systems, or a circle of friends, to come to their defense. She said she worries about the person of color who experiences a stranger clutching their purse out of fear. And the mothers who must teach their teenage sons to be careful with police.

Yes, these incidents are all teaching moments. Teaching every one of us as leaders about the kind of tolerant, respectful organizations we must create and maintain every day. Teaching us that we need to be the kind of leaders that go high when others go low. And teaching us not to punch back 10 times harder, if we are punched.

Teaching every one of us that we must say something when we see something. The Starbucks incident when two black men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, were arrested for meeting in a Starbucks without ordering went viral because white people videoed it and shared it on social media.

We cannot sit by and let every day racism happen around us.

Working in healthcare organizations for most of my professional career, I spent every day in one of the most diverse workforces. Treating every person with respect was part of the culture. Continue reading →

Celebrating, collaborating with, and learning from HTM

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Two weeks ago, it was National Nurses Week. This week is Health Technology Management (HTM) Week. If you work in a hospital, you may still refer to HTM as Clinical Engineering, Biomedical canstockphoto16403307 (1) HTMEngineering, or just Biomed. Regardless of what you know this department as, they are some of the unsung heroes in every hospital.

The nurses and physicians know these heroes well. The C-suite is recognizing their value more all the time. And IT departments are learning to work collaboratively with them as systems become more integrated.

These are the staff who design, install, maintain and repair the medical devices that connect to patients. Just think about a patient in an intensive care unit surrounded by all that equipment and all those connecting tubes and wires. If those of us in IT think we’re important and critical to the hospital, HTM staff are life critical to the patients.

As a CIO, I’ve always told my IT teams that we are part of the extended care team to emphasize the importance of our providing 24/7 support and excellent customer service. While we don’t touch the patient, the clinicians who do depend on the systems we provide and support. This is even more true for HTM staff.

AAMI (Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation) is a standards development organization and the professional society for HTMs. AAMI celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. Its mission is to advance safety in healthcare technology.

While healthcare organizations recognized their HTM staff in various ways this week, June 1-4 will be a chance for HTM professionals to come together for education and networking at the annual AAMI conference in Long Beach. Continue reading →

When innovation means plan B

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It was already Thursday morning and I had no blog topic in mind for this week. By Thursday night I had several. So, what happened in between?canstockphoto6581040 plan b

I attended the New England HIMSS Chapter’s Annual Spring Conference – something I’d planned to do for a while. On my way there, I figured something that day would light a fire and I’d have a topic to talk about. Instead, there was a different kind of fire.

One of the chapter board members called me in the car and said she had heard I was on my way to the conference. I thought to myself, I’m stuck in traffic and may get there after the opening keynote starts, but did I have to admit that to her? No, that was just my guilt about leaving the house 15 minutes later than I should have. She was calling for a “small favor, no actually a big favor” as she said.

Turns out one of the afternoon speakers had gotten stuck in New York with flight cancellations and couldn’t make it. So, a panel with 3 chapter members was being hastily put together – would I be willing to participate? Of course I would. I said yes without knowing what we’d talk about or who else was being asked to be on the panel.

Two other panelists were being enlisted in that same rush of phone calls and conversations. Arthur Harvey, chapter board member and CIO at Boston Medical Center, had already arrived at the venue. He was of course very sympathetic to the dilemma and ready to help. Arthur and I were on the CIO panel together at the 2017 spring conference. He was already starting to percolate on a relevant topic we could address. Dirk Stanley, CMIO at UConn Health, was on his way to the conference from Connecticut and got a call like mine. I only knew Dirk from social media, so I was looking forward to meeting him in person.

When I arrived at the conference and was greeted warmly by board members who were pulling this backup plan together, I asked which speaker had to cancel and what was their topic. Answer: Blockchain. I laughed and said, well we’re not doing a panel on blockchain. Continue reading →

Celebrate nurses, but more importantly listen to them

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May 6-12 is National Nurses Week. According to a Gallup Poll, nursing has been the most trusted profession for the past 16 years. It’s no surprise.Nurses Week (002)

Those of us with nurses in our family are grateful that there is someone we can turn to with health questions. They help us navigate complex healthcare systems when we have a worrisome condition and need to see specialists and subspecialists. I’m fortunate to have nurses in my family. I am grateful to them and know that I should never take them for granted.

As the President of the American Nurses Association, Pamela Cipriano, PhD, RN, said, “Nurses provide much more than bedside care. We advocate for patients, deliver primary care, meet the complex needs of patients with chronic conditions, volunteer for disaster relief efforts, and are a trusted voice in boardrooms across the country.”

When my daughter first considered a nursing career back in the early 2000’s, I was very supportive. I thought that with her personality, people focus, and an incredible ability to multi-task she would be an excellent nurse. I told her that she could take many different paths as a nurse over time. She already had a bachelors degree in Hospitality Administration/Management with a minor in Business, so she decided to attend a combined nursing/nurse practitioner (NP) program to get her BS in Nursing and her Masters in Science and Nursing.

She worked as a bedside nurse, first on a cardiac surgery stepdown unit and then on a cardiac surgery ICU. Her first nurse practitioner opportunity was working with patients who have atrial fibrillation (known as Afib). She later moved to orthopedics where she is now the Chief NP on a busy and growing inpatient ortho unit.

She balances clinical patient care with administrative responsibilities. And she is always looking at how to improve processes and care. Continue reading →

Sabbaticals for CIOs – why not?

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I talk to several CIOs each week. I listen to them and try to figure out how we might help them through our advisory services at StarBridge Advisors. Depending on where the CIO is in his or her career, they canstockphoto51125301 sabbaticalsometimes ask, “How and when can I join you at StarBridge?”. The idea of getting off the permanent CIO track and having more flexibility can be appealing.

The idea of a “substitute CIO” came up from one of the CIOs I talked to recently. He was thinking about how to get his organization prepared for someone else to lead for a period with the knowledge that he would be back after several months. I told him it sounded like a sabbatical to me – not a bad idea.

Sabbatical means a rest from work or a break. When we think about sabbaticals, we typically think of professors and ministers. It’s a time for them to go away, reflect, study, research, write, and get rejuvenated.

Just think what a CIO could do with an opportunity like that!

When I was working as a CIO fulltime and would visit other countries on vacation, I thought how awesome it would be to spend several months studying another country’s healthcare system. The lessons and new ideas I could bring back to my organization. But that’s just one idea. What about taking time to learn about leading edge healthcare organizations in the U.S. Or studying a particular problem that every healthcare organization is trying to solve. Or working with start-ups on a new and innovative product.

Wouldn’t our industry benefit from letting our senior practitioners step back from the day-to-day and go deeper on work we need to do?

You earn vacation time each year, so why not earn sabbatical time? Continue reading →

Hotels, healthcare and the DMV

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What do these experiences have in common? Customer service – good or bad. I’ve experienced all three in the past two weeks – good and bad.canstockphoto20052265 (002) customer service

It started with the Rhode Island DMV. Rhode Island is a small state of 1,200 square miles and a population of just over 1 million. There is one central DMV. Yes, there are several satellite offices but something as simple as renewing your driver’s license can’t happen at a satellite. And in certain circumstances, online renewal is not an option. That was the case for my husband and I who got our first Rhode Island drivers licenses a year ago. We had to renew in person before our respective birthdays. Not sure why, it’s like we were on probation as Rhode Island residents for a year. Who knows. But rules are rules.

So, we headed over to the central DMV location first thing on a Monday morning to do a simple transaction. We needed to be out in a short time for later commitments later that morning. Silly us.

We arrived just 20 minutes after they opened and found about 150 people ahead of us in the generic “check-in” line. What?? Busier than usual because it was Patriots Day in neighboring Massachusetts, so more Rhode Island people took the day off? Was it the beginning of spring break, so kids were out of school? Or just a typical Monday?

It took us 70 minutes just to get through that check-in line. Then we waited about 45 minutes for our number to be called. Once it was our turn, it was just a 5-7 minute transaction for each of us. Our paperwork was reviewed and updated in their system; we gave them a check. A new photo was taken, and a temporary driver’s license was printed to use until a new one would be sent in the mail. I had hoped for an online task, but it took 3 hours, including the drive there and back.

Tuesday, I had a long overdue doctor appointment. 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 →

Equal Pay Day 2018, like spring, comes four months too late

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Last Tuesday, April 10th was Equal Pay Day – the date each year that marks when the average woman will have earned as much as her male colleagues earned the previous year. Last year it was April 4th.  Forequal pay winter spring pix women of color, Equal Pay Day comes even later. Black women reach the milestone on August 7th and Latina Equal Pay Day is November 1st.

Let’s take a closer look at this situation.

In a Time article, “10 Powerful Women on How #MeToo Has Changed the Fight for Equal Pay”, Jennifer Calfas notes how long it will take to close this gap, given our present rate of progress. Estimates from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research show the pay gap won’t be closed for women until at least 2059, not until 2124 for black women, and as far out as 2233 for Hispanic women. So not in our lifetimes! Think about that when you are talking to your daughters and granddaughters about what they want to be when they grow up.

According to an ABCNews report, tech is one of the better industries. The report says, “In the tech industry — which has been under scrutiny for gender equity issues — women were paid 99.5 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earned, the smallest pay gap by industry found in the study. However, when the control for the same title is removed, women earned 84.7 cents compared to men in the tech industry, moving it to the middle of the industries examined.”

According to the 2018 HIMSS U.S. Compensation Survey based on the feedback of 885 health IT professionals, gender pay disparity exists similar to the overall numbers already noted. Continue reading →

Being valued, doing meaningful work

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I’ve had at least three different conversations in recent days providing career advice to colleagues. Different industries, organizations and types of roles. And each person was at a different stage of their canstockphoto10463933 (002) career choicescareer. Yet, there were common themes we discussed that are worth sharing:

Being valued – Do people listen to you? Is your input taken seriously? Is your work appreciated? For most people, there are many signs each work week that show whether you are valued or not. Don’t ignore them.

Doing meaningful work – We each define what we consider meaningful and what we are passionate about. And we all probably do some tasks that we dislike as part of our jobs. Overall, finding your passion and doing work that you consider meaningful can keep you happy and motivated to go back every day.

Options – As you consider to stay or go, to move up or out, there is always more than one option. Make sure you are clear with yourself and stay grounded in what really matters to you as you frame and evaluate those options.

On your terms – Take control of the discussion and shape the opportunity if there is room for negotiation on the type of work and the role. Remember that you own your own career.

Trust – Do you trust the people you are working with or negotiating with? Continue reading →