7 tips for managing in the fast lane

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It’s generally a bad sign when the seat belt warning light for the passenger seat comes on but you are the only one in the car. You’ve got too much weight on that seat and the car thinks it’s a person who needs to fasten their seat belt.

This has happened for me a few times lately.  It’s when I have thrown my briefcase and stacks of work for the weekend or the evenings on the seat.  Or I’m out of my office at hospital meetings for several days in a row and need various files with me.  The passenger seat becomes my file cabinet until I’m back in my office.

If I’ve been out of town to visit family or on business, it gets even harder to manage the volume.

People say they don’t know how I do it….how do I keep on top of everything. I respond, typically, “I don’t do it that well.” I’m my own worst critic. But I try my best.

So how do you survive and be your best at times like this?

Triage skills – Review your email inbox and make sure that the time sensitive ones are answered. Look for emails from your direct reports, boss, peers and customers to handle. Continue reading →

Where do new ideas come from?

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New ideas can come from many places. Are new ideas the same as “innovation” which has become almost a buzzword these days? According to Webster’s Dictionary, the answer is yes. Innovation is defined as “the introduction of something new OR a new idea, method or device.”

In the past week, I’ve met with health care CIO colleagues from around the country, heard some excellent speakers at our UMHS annual leadership day and met with my staff at our semi-annual all staff meeting.  New ideas came from all those varied places.

Meeting with CIO colleagues last week, I heard a lot of great ideas. I learned about a new mobile app that addresses the stress that families feel when their loved one is in surgery because they lack information. I learned about a storefront “genius bar” service inside a hospital that helps patients and families sign up for the patient portal, get information about the best mobile health apps, and connect their FitBit or glucose monitoring device to health apps. I learned how one colleague is applying a successful implementation go live readiness assessment approach to ongoing project and support work. And I learned how a colleague is leveraging a product’s additional functionality only to realize that we haven’t begun to make the most of that same product here at UMHS. I will be sharing all these ideas in more detail with my leadership team in the coming days. Continue reading →

A salute to the nurses among us

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National Nurses Week officially ends today, May 12th on Florence Nightingale’s birthday. But of course you can thank a nurse and recognize him or her any day, any time. Many of us have personal stories of being cared for by a nurse with great skill and empathy.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a teacher. But my part-time high school and college jobs were actually as a nurse aide in nursing homes. I saw firsthand how nurses cared for the elderly and how hard their work was.

There are several nurses in my family whom I love dearly and respect greatly. I know I can call on them whenever I have a health question. I have to be careful to not abuse this access.  Every family who has a nurse or doctor amongst them knows how valuable they can be.

My sister, Mary Sheehan, is a nurse. She went on to get a master’s degree in public health. She ran just about every division in the Minnesota public health department during her long tenure with the state. Before retiring she served as a county health and human services director. Continue reading →

The power of learning from your peers

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I spent the better part of a day this week at the annual meeting of the Epic Michigan Users Group (we call it eMUG). But I don’t want to focus on Epic. I want to talk about the value of learning from your peers. It could be any vendor or any user group.

This was our fourth annual eMUG conference. Given space limitations, we had 200 attendees last year and with the venue this year we were able to accommodate 400, a significant increase. With 11 health systems in Michigan on Epic, that’s a good size group from each organization.

When asked for a show of hands on how many had been to Epic’s national user group meeting (UGM) before, only 25-30% of the attendees raised their hands. Local user group meetings like eMUG give many more staff a chance to attend and connect with their peers. National user group meetings are costly with airline and hotel expenses for a couple days.

This eMUG meeting was a content rich day: Continue reading →

Making the tough decisions

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We make all kinds of decisions every day. Some are small yet seem difficult at the time. One I sometimes joke about is ordering off a restaurant menu that has too many good choices. When I finally make my order, I tell the server that I have made my “major life decision” for the night.

Sometimes a group makes a decision after weeks or months of lengthy deliberation: many groups have weighed in, expressed their concerns, asked their questions, refined the plan or recommendation, and only then ultimately provided their support.

And then there are the potentially very impactful decisions that must be made in a matter of minutes with the best information you have available after a very quick weighing of the risks. I had to make one of those decisions last Friday.

We had scheduled our Epic version 2014 upgrade for the weekend. The plan was to bring down the production system at 12:30 AM Saturday. The system would be down until 5:00 AM while the final conversion tasks were completed. IT and operations staff were scheduled in the command center to monitor the upgrade and address any problems. Leadership calls were scheduled daily to review issues starting Saturday.

At 11:51 AM on Friday, I got a text Continue reading →

Meet your future workforce

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Future IT worker helps with the a/v during the morning presentation.

Yesterday the IT Department hosted 25 children for Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. This annual event is a great way to encourage both girls and boys to consider careers in health care and information technology.

I kicked things off at breakfast and talked with all the participating young people (ages 6-13) and their parents. I met many of the parents and children individually as they signed in and ate breakfast.  One parent said to her child that I was her boss’s, boss’s, boss.  I said they should think of me like the principal at their school – in charge of everyone in our IT department. I thought it would relate to them better than saying CIO. Continue reading →

In a bow: HIMSS15 wrap up

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The biggest HIT event of the year is over – more than 43,000 attendees, over 300 education sessions, and over 1,200 exhibitors. Say what you want about the long taxi lines at the end of the day, all in all the service provided by HIMSS, hotel and convention staff was great. Say what you want about the slow performance of the HIMSS15 mobile app, there were many other ways to find out what was happening and where you needed to be. I will say though that our UMHS users would be all over me if our systems had such slow performance – I guess for an app that has the life cycle of a 4 day conference, you can get away with it. But let’s hope for improvements next year!

I’ll leave the deep analysis on market trends, vendors, and big announcements to the professionals who write for a living. I have a day job to get back to. But I will share a few highlights and thoughts after my time in Chicago: Continue reading →

Make the most of HIMSS15

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The health IT event of the year is almost here. Yes, just a few more days until HIMSS15 and time for education, networking and vendor exploration. Whenever HIMSS is in Chicago, some people worry about the weather. But it looks like we’ll have high temps in the 60’s so you southern and west coast folks can leave behind your boots and gloves!  I am sure the Boston attendees will not bring snow.

March to HIMSS Post Icon-Sue Schade BlogI’ve attended HIMSS many times and have learned how to make the most of my time there. So, whether it’s your first HIMSS or you are a veteran, here are some useful tips:

Education sessions – The best ones will be standing room only.  If you really want to hear a particular presentation, get there early. Room locations may be very far apart so map out your next session. Pay attention to the session designation in the listing – basic, advanced, or intermediate.  The last thing you want to do is walk half a mile to get to a session that is targeted at a different level audience.

Networking – Networking is one of the greatest values of this annual event. HIMSS provides many ways to find people with similar interests as yours. Plan ahead: Continue reading →

Yes you can: encouraging girls to pursue IT careers

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Last week I spoke with high school and college age women about the Journey to a Successful Career in Information Technology. I gave the keynote at an event jointly sponsored by the Student Resource and Women’s Center and Career Services at Washtenaw Community College. The event was part of their women in non-traditional careers series. It was fun to do – having a chance to encourage and inspire the next generation of information technology professionals.  And it was great to see some familiar faces in the audience – a number of women from our IT team decided to attend as well.

I started my talk by profiling real women in real IT jobs today – 8 women from our IT team.  Their positions include service desk, business analyst, programmer, database administrator, data architect, project manager, training manager, and infrastructure manager. I described what they do in a typical day and the skills they need in each position. One comment overheard after the talk: “This is exactly what these girls need – to see that women can and do work in IT.  Then they can picture themselves doing it, too.” Continue reading →

Make your voice heard

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March is Employee Appreciation Month.  UMHS leadership is hosting breakfast, lunch or dinner at all our sites as a way to say “thank you.” We also conduct our annual Employee Engagement Survey this month. There are only two more days to participate in it.

I’m happy to say the IT department is at an overall participation rate of 66% compared to 48% for all of UMHS.  We had a 90% participation rate in IT two years ago. It was my first year as the new CIO and I made it very clear to the people on staff that I couldn’t address problems in the department if I didn’t know what they were. I needed their input!

Based on the survey results two years ago, we established four workgroups to focus on several key areas. Some areas we were definitely weak on and others we were OK but knew we could improve – recognition and appreciation, employee development and training, service excellence and teamwork.

While we’ve made good progress in all these areas, I’m the first to admit there is still far more work to do.

I have been encouraging our IT department staff to “Make Your Voice Heard.”  There are multiple channels for staff to give me and the entire leadership team input and feedback. In addition to Continue reading →