Tag Archives: lessons learned

Leading Through Disruption: What Travel, Technology, and Teamwork Remind Me

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Because leading well — and living fully — means not staying silent.

Since my last blog post in early September, I’ve travelled internationally, reconnected with a group of health IT colleagues that spanned a 30-year period of working together, moderated an AI panel at a local NEHIMSS conference, and participated in the largest peaceful protest in American history.

All these experiences are worth briefly reflecting on.

My international travel included a week in Prague on a Road Scholar Independent Art and Architecture tour with four other women as part of a 19-person group. It was a wonderful trip on many levels – art, architecture, music and history – with friends and interesting new people we got to know. On an independent afternoon, my good friend and I booked a local tour – “WWII in Prague and Operation Anthropoid Tour”. She wanted to go to Terezin, a concentration camp about an hour from Prague that I had been to on a previous tour 10 years ago. But we mistakenly booked the wrong tour and ended up doing a Prague walking tour instead – it was filled with history from the period before and during WWII. Like other times I’ve been in Europe in recent years, it’s clear that Europeans understand Fascism at a level many Americans don’t or are unwilling to.

On our way back from Prague, that friend and I met our husbands in Iceland for 5 days of touring on our own. While it was a wonderful time in a beautiful country, it was a great lesson in accepting what is not in our control. In this case, the weather! It was grey, rainy and windy for much of the week with no opportunities at night to see the Northern Lights. My advice for Iceland travelers – pack layers and waterproof clothes/shoes/boots (we did) and be flexible. The weather can change dramatically in an hour. And don’t hold your breath that you’ll see the Northern Lights.

Reconnecting with IT colleagues from the Partners HealthCare days (now called Mass General Brigham) was a poignant reminder of how a talented, committed group of people can make a significant difference. For those of you who don’t know John Glaser, just know that he led transformative changes in health IT starting back in the 1990s as we rolled out leading edge systems focused on improving patient safety and much more. I still consider him a mentor who has greatly influenced me as a leader, and he is a legend in our health IT industry. I’m honored to say I was part of that work at Partners as the CIO at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the early 2000s.

Fast forward to 2025 and it’s all about AI. Last week, I moderated a panel titled “Challenges and Considerations for Implementing AI Within the Enterprise” at the HIMSS New England Chapter Digital Health Conference – “Survival Guide for the Disruption TsunamAI in Healthcare”. We covered governance, clinical integration and validation, strategic choices of build vs buy vs partner, measuring success and ROI, and the human aspects. The final question for the panelists was if you had to give one piece of advice to leaders preparing for AI in the next 2-3 years, what would it be? Their advice was short and to the point:

    • Use it / learn it.
    • Go slow / Don’t be afraid of it.
    • Have a strategy / Iterate often / Find a partner.
    • Keep up with what end-users are using.

With AI in mind, I’ll pivot to the last point – separating fact from fiction and recognizing real images rather than AI generated ones is something we all must keep in mind. We are bombarded daily with the most divisive, nasty politics I’ve ever seen on social media and in the news.

Know your values and stick to them. Engage in civil conversations and disagreements with others. And as my sign at Saturday’s peaceful protest said, “The Power of the People is Greater than the People in Power”. I’m an optimist!

Insights for Leading Through Uncertainty

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Is it writer’s block or being discouraged by the state of our country that is getting in the way of my writing these days? I admit that I struggle with what to write that my loyal readers would relate to and be willing to read. One of the people I’m currently coaching noted this week that it’s been a while since I wrote a blog post and she missed seeing something from me. Maybe others are thinking the same, or not.

After some thought, I decided to do what many on social media do, amplify! There is so much great content from others to share.

Who to amplify was not a hard decision. My colleague at StarBridge Advisors, David Muntz, has been writing most of our View from the Bridge blog posts for some time now. He wrote two very insightful and grounding posts in recent months that have helped me have a more positive perspective in these troubling times. Given the reactions these blogs have generated from readers, they appear to have been valuable overall to many others as well.

As the titles suggest, he shares lessons from healthcare and his experience as a leader that we can all use during these challenging times.

Living and Leading in Chaotic and Uncertain Times

From Healing Hands to Healing Hearts: What the Nation Can Learn from Healthcare

I highly recommend you find time to read them both and share widely with your own network.

Championing DEI – personal stories and lessons from leaders

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We learn from our own experiences, and we learn from other’s experiences when they are willing to share their stories. The impetus behind starting this blog was to share and help teach others, especially next generation leaders.  I have shared lessons learned both professionally and personally over the years. And I have shared many stories along the way.

My latest contribution in this sharing space is based on my ongoing commitment to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. As a member of the CHIME DEI committee for the past few years, I’ve come to know many colleagues in deep ways as we share our stories with each other and work to educate the broader CHIME community.

The newest offering from the committee is a video series called “Inclusive Insights: Personal Stories of Diversity in Action”. An insightful interview with Cletis Earle last month was the first in the series. Cletis is the CHIME DEI Committee Co-Chair and former SVP and CIO at Penn State Health and College of Medicine. I encourage you to view it here. He covered how DEI played a role in his career, why organizations should not turn away from DEI, how he advocates for DEI at work and in his community, and shares advice for colleagues trying to enhance diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in their organizations.

I’m honored to be the second person in the series to share my story – it is available here. I covered common myths and misperceptions about DEI, challenges I have faced in my career and how I overcame them, the role that mentorship and sponsorship play in fostering diversity and inclusion, the role of allies, and more.

When I first joined CHIME as a new CIO in 2000, the makeup of the group was very different from what it is today. There is far more diversity among health IT leaders today compared to back then. CHIME’s explicit commitment to DEI in recent years through the committee’s work and the programming at in-person conferences is encouraging.

We have made progress but there is more work to be done. We’re in it together.

Related Posts:

The transformative power of bold leadership in healthcare

Celebrating Women’s History Month: Championing Diversity in Health IT

One year later – an increased focus on diversity, equity and inclusion

A decade of blogging: 10 years of insights on healthcare, technology, and leadership

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This week marks 10 years since I became a blogger! With a focus on the intersection of healthcare and technology, a lot has happened in 10 years. For my regular readers, you know I cover much more than healthcare and technology including leadership, career advice, women’s issues, and yes, even politics. And I weave in personal stories at times.

When I started this blog in 2014, I was serving as the CIO at University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers. The social media coordinator in the Communications department encouraged me to start and helped set it up. I leaned on our IT chief of staff to help manage it. From the start, I assumed that I had multiple audiences to speak to – my IT staff (I encouraged them to subscribe but promised to continue my monthly CIO messages aimed at just them), our health system staff, health IT colleagues in the industry, and anyone else who was interested. My first blog was about our major Epic go live a few days later – “Three days and counting….”. It was the first of many practitioner based blogs over the years.

So, why blog? As I wrote in my “About” page:

“One of my passions is the development of the next generation of IT leaders, especially young people who are beginning their careers or who are beginning to take on leadership roles. I’ve been there: a young mother of two with a full-time management job while a part-time graduate student.  I remember the years when I was the only woman at the leadership table. With this weekly blog, I share perspectives on the critical issues facing Health Care IT, the organizational transformations that IT organizations face, the challenges of leadership, and the work we need to do together to keep the paths of opportunity open for all. What we do matters.”

When I left Michigan in early 2016 to start down a path of interim management, consulting and leadership coaching, I took over the blog myself and committed to continuing writing weekly. I had relevant topics each week as I served in four different organizations in interim IT leadership roles in subsequent years and launched StarBridge Advisors with colleagues in late 2016.

If you are a subscriber, you know that my weekly commitment has waned in the past year, and I publish less frequently. As I have reduced and refocused my work commitments, topic ideas come to me less frequently – mostly from events in the industry and beyond, articles, discussions with people I coach and mentor, and my regular contact with health IT leaders.

There have been times when I just can’t be silent on something and go more political. Continue reading →

Networking and navigating a tight job market

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Are we in a tight job market? It sure sounds like it from all the calls I’m getting from colleagues having a hard time finding a new position. Probably the best indicator though of a tight job market is that unemployment has been under 4% for the last 2+ years.

At StarBridge Advisors, we have many advisors who are only interested in interim and advisory work while others are looking for their next permanent position but available for interim and advisory engagements in the meantime. On our recent monthly advisors call, I asked those who are looking for their next permanent position what their current job search experience tells them. Trends they see are more internal promotions rather than hiring from outside the organization and hiring from the local area or region rather than relocating someone. One of them also commented that with so many boutique search firms, it can be hard to know who to reach out to regarding openings.

Another sign of the tight job market might be the fact that a LinkedIn post I shared on job interview skills got over 2,000 impressions in a short timeframe.

Knowing how important networking is, I take every call request I get from people I know who need career advice. And when colleagues reach out asking if they can send someone my way to talk, I say yes. I seem to be a go to kind of person keeping tabs on the market for health IT leadership positions but more importantly I’m always willing to help if I can. People have helped me along the way, so I do the same.

I also write a lot about career management and all things related in this blog. You can always search previous posts for more career advice. And I do short career coaching engagements – if it helps you to land your next opportunity, this small investment in yourself could be very worthwhile!

I know from personal experience that a job search takes a lot of patience and persistence. Beyond networking, spend time doing your research. Maintain a positive attitude and be open to various possibilities. Our industry continues to evolve, and the health ecosystem is broad with many different types of organizations to consider.

Related Posts:

Navigating career crossroads

Career advice revisited

Considering a career move?

Building bridges for success: the role of interim leaders in healthcare IT

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I have written in the past about interim management in terms of when it makes sense for an organization and shared some lessons from my own experience. Following my career as a CIO at two leading academic health systems, I have served four different healthcare providers as an interim leader – three as CIO, one as CTO. As a principal at StarBridge Advisors the past 7 plus years, I have placed and overseen interim IT leaders at many healthcare organizations. I know firsthand how interim leaders provide an important bridge during leadership transitions and can make a significant impact on an organization in a short time.

I recently had the opportunity to do an interview with the Advisory Board on interim management. We covered a lot of ground together. Some of the highlights from our discussion:

    • Rising Executive Turnover in Healthcare: healthcare organizations are grappling with a 66% increase in hospital CEO exits in 2023 and there is a resulting surge in demand for interim leaders.
    • Role of Interim Leaders: interim leaders play a critical role in steering organizations through transitions, making quick assessments, and delivering tangible results within a six-month timeframe.
    • Preparing for Transition: clear communication and preparation are needed when bringing on an interim leader, including briefing books, townhall meetings, and the support of the hiring executive is critical.
    • Driving Long-Term Improvements: organizations can leverage the expertise of interim leaders to drive sustainable change, focusing on agreed-upon areas of improvement and setting the stage for the permanent leader’s success.

The Advisory Board article, How to navigate executive turnover: A Q&A with StarBridge Advisors’ Sue Schade (advisory.com), is available to non-members if you set up a free account.

When your organization has a critical IT leadership gap, turn to StarBridge Advisors. We can make available to you fully vetted, world-class healthcare IT executives, inclusive of CIOs, CISOs, CMIOs, CNIOs, CTOs, and others. And if you choose to use an internal interim, we can provide coaching support to them to ensure they are well positioned to be successful in the role. Our advisors all come from health system backgrounds and have a wealth of knowledge and experience which often stretches far beyond the provider space.

Related Posts:

Bridge Builders: Interim Management Solutions for Health Systems

Talent shortage? Great resignation? Interim leaders can help

Interim Management – Providing a Bridge During Transition

When an interim CIO makes sense

Stepping into an interim leadership role

Beyond Hero Culture: Trusting Your Team to Shine

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Do you trust your team to cover when you are gone? I was inspired to comment on the importance of team, especially at this time of year, after listening to one of Bill Russell’s Friday podcasts on his ThisWeekHealth Newsroom show. If you are a regular listener, you know Bill comments on various topics on Fridays rather than focusing on a specific news story. This episode was called – “Step Aside”. It’s definitely one worth listening to.

He talks about lessons from a recent golf tournament where the format was more than what we golfers know as “best ball”. In this tournament, whoever had the best ball didn’t get to hit the next ball. Only the other three could hit it. This ensured everyone was participating fully on the foursome team.

He also talked about “hero culture” which I’m afraid many IT shops still depend on. We know that IT takes a team. And there is no “I” in team! When you or someone else takes a break or is unavailable, can your team cover or can at least one other person step in?

Let’s take that question a step further and apply it to the holiday season. Who is doing the holiday decorating, gift shopping and party planning in your household? Do you have a holiday “hero culture” at home? Or are you sharing the tasks?

I am getting ready for a multi-week vacation which has included working the pre-holiday to do list. Happy to say gift shopping is done! I’ll get as far as I can on all my work tasks and then do my handoff document for my StarBridge Advisors colleagues before I leave. With our team approach, I know everything will be covered just fine.

Whether at work or at home, there is no need to be a hero – think team and know that others will step up and maybe even grow with some new responsibilities. Note to parents – your home team includes your kids!

Wishing you a happy, healthy, stress-free and joyous holiday season!!

Navigating career crossroads

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I’m fresh off another stimulating in person CHIME Fall Forum. Many colleagues have already posted on LinkedIn their recaps of the forum speakers and key takeaways. One of my takeaways is the importance of networking on many different levels. A common conversation for me was colleagues who are looking for their next career move or currently in between positions. As I organized my post CHIME to do list on the plane home, I found that I had several people to follow up with from that perspective.

Ironically, when I got home and back into my daily podcast listening routine, the first one I heard was the ThisWeekHealth Newsroom show from November 10 – “The Signs it’s Time to Move on as a Leader”. On Fridays, Bill Russell usually does a stream of conscience commentary on a topic. This one tied very well into some of my CHIME conversations. I encourage you to check it out – only 10 minutes long.

If the end of year approaching has you rethinking your own career plans, check out my previous blogs on career advice. Earlier ones are listed in this blog – “Career advice revisited”. Newer ones are referenced in this blog – “Considering a career move?”. You will find some useful insights and advice for your journey.

And if you’re looking for a career coach, this blog might be helpful – “When to use a career coach”. I’m happy to explore with you what a short 3-month engagement would look like and how best to customize it to meet your unique needs.

Healthcare as a right in more progressive countries   

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I wasn’t going to write anything this week since my husband and I just returned from an 18-day trip with Road Scholar – The 4 Nordic Capitals. We spent 3-4 days in each – Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, and Helsinki. It was everything I had hoped it would be! But no one hopes for jet lag and feeling like a zombie the first day or two back.

So, on day 2 of re-entry, I was up very early after too short a night’s sleep as my body adjusts to the 7-hour time difference. Why not start writing? I learned so much on the trip and have lots to share in due time. No question that we can learn a lot from these progressive Nordic countries – Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

I visited three of these capital cities when we were on a cruise in the Baltic Sea in 2018. But having only 6-8 hours in a port is nothing like immersing yourself for a few days and really learning about the country – their history, political structure, culture, social services, technology, and more.

A day with a Road Scholar tour like this includes a 1-2 hour lecture from the local guide or an outside expert and then guided tours to a variety of sites with usually some free time late afternoon to explore on your own.

Let’s start with how progressive they are. I could start from various angles – a strong focus on sustainability, extensive public transportation infrastructure, free education through the university level, lengthy required maternity/paternity leaves, and of course their healthcare system.

From my lecture notes, here are a few data points I captured on healthcare:

In Finland, healthcare is not completely free but pretty close. Prescriptions are subsidized and you pay a maximum of 700 euro in a year ($769.37 using today’s conversion rate). Think about the people you know in the U.S. who are paying thousands a month for just one critical prescription. Hospitalization is 49 euro a day regardless of what it is for ($53.86 using today’s conversion rate). Think about people in the U.S. who have to declare medical bankruptcy due to hospital bills or deplete their life savings for nursing home care. (A 2015 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that medical bills caused 1 million U.S. adults to declare bankruptcy every year and that 26% of Americans aged 18 to 64 struggle to pay medical bills. Medical bankruptcy is almost unheard of outside the U.S.)

In Sweden medical care is free until you are 19 years old and dental care is free until you are 24. For medical care you pay $25 per visit or procedure. After a maximum of $720 per year you don’t pay. (Local guide spoke in dollars vs euros for us).

Yes, people in these countries have high tax rates but their dollars go to services for the entire population. Healthcare is just one example – they truly believe healthcare is a right with every citizen having equal access to services.

More to come on lessons from the Nordic countries in future weeks….

Leadership and crisis management lessons from Pennsylvania

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I love seeing stories of success with lessons to apply to our work in health IT. The recent I-95 collapse in Philadelphia and the re-opening in just 12 days is one of those stories. There was a great opinion piece in the Washington Post on July 16th by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro – “Opinion: We fixed I-95 in 12 days. Here are our lessons for U.S. infrastructure”. Initially experts told the Governor it would be months before they could reopen the highway and get traffic flowing. Instead, they reopened it in just 12 days. Indeed, there are many lessons for leaders in all industries.

Here are the four key takeaways he comments on:

  1. Empower strong leadership
  2. Speed up the bureaucracy
  3. Encourage creativity
  4. Work together

In the face of a crisis, empowering strong leadership is critical. We’ve seen it in healthcare during the pandemic and when responding to any kind of disaster. As Governor Shapiro describes it – “Managers of every component of the project were empowered to be decisive, take ownership and make a call when necessary — not defer and delay to the often-circular bureaucracy. Decisions were made quickly and in a synchronized manner.”

We have plenty of bureaucracy in healthcare including many processes in IT that seem burdensome. Governor Shapiro described how an executive order he signed shortly after taking office that catalogued each of the 2,400 permits, certificates and licenses the state issues and set timelines for each of them resulted in significantly reducing wait times – with one example cutting the time from eight weeks to two days. IT leaders take note – how many processes can be streamlined in your shop?

Innovation in healthcare is greatly needed and there are many bright spots we read about each day. But innovation is not just the new big flashy stuff, it can be a creative and new way to solve a problem that comes from someone on the team or an observer. Governor Shapiro wrote, “Encourage creativity and allow everyone to bring their ideas forward”. The backfill solution to rebuild the collapsed freeway using a recycled glass product was a result of that creativity from PennDOT engineers.

We all know there is no “I” in team. We accomplish great things by working together. In Pennsylvania, state and federal officials coordinated closely with each other and private contractors and organized labor collaborated working 24/7 to get the job done.

While we never want a crisis to manage through, there will be more. These lessons will be key then and every day.

Related Posts:

Leading through a crisis