The document discusses the evolving role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in healthcare organizations. It notes that CIOs are no longer solely responsible for infrastructure and IT operations, but rather must act as strategic partners who help transform the organization. An effective CIO builds strong relationships, operates with a strategic vision for the entire organization, and acts as a change agent to shift mindsets and resources. The CIO role now closely resembles that of a technology-literate CEO.

1. | |JULY 2014
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| |January 2016
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2. | |JULY 2014
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CIO INSIGHTS
uring my first healthcare IT leadership
job, the organization for which I
worked didn’t have a CIO position.
As with many healthcare
organizations, IT reported to the CFO
and was considered a cost center
with little strategic value. We were
responsible for making sure that
the technology lights stayed on, which meant: the help desk,
infrastructure, telecom, and anything technology related.
This has changed. Technologies such as mobility, cloud
computing, big data, and social media have created strategic
issues that require the attention of a CIO capable not only of
innovation but also of helping to transform the organization itself.
For CIOs, the days of managing infrastructure, data centers
and telecom as core job functions are over. These functions are still
important, but today it’s easy to outsource or automate many of
them. At worst, there are other staff members within Information
Services departments to whom these tasks can be delegated.
Freed from the mundane, a CIO can accomplish much more
important objectives, such as leveraging technology to bring
efficiency and greater financial returns. You don’t just do this
by implementing new technologies; you do this by thinking
differently about how, when and why to use technology. For
example, a CIO can be instrumental in shifting the mindsets of
front line staff as well as the Board and top-level executives.
To do this, a CIO needs to be the opposite of what he used
to be: instead of running a department that largely operates
behind-the-scenes, he has to build strong relationships across the
organization.
“Technology is a team sport,” said Tim Zoph when he and
Donna Roach presented the results of a survey on October 15
D
By Robert Napoli, CIO & SVP-IT, Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands
C-Suite Executive with
Technology Literacy: CIO

3. | |JULY 2014
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| |January 2016
38CIOReview
at the CHIME Fall Forum. The survey
was administered to CHIME (College
of Healthcare Information Management
Executives) board members and member
CIOs, as well as to non-CIO C-suite
executives.
Zoph reported, “One of the most
important learning of this enterprise
was that achieving alignment with the
senior team is fundamental. If you don’t
have alignment, you’re going to have
problems developing strategy.”
Interestingly, according to the survey
C-suite executives had a stronger sense
of the need for CIOs to be change agents
than did the CIOs themselves. This didn’t
surprise me. Non-technology executives
need a partner with whom they can
collaborate, and in many cases their
desire for such a partner exceeds
some CIO’s readiness to be such a
proactive and dynamic professional.
The core capabilities of an
engaged – and engaging – CIO
closely resemble a technology-literate
CEO. You must be able to operate
around a strategic vision for the
entire organization shifting
people, resources and mindsets
as necessary to bring that
vision to fruition.
Of course, this is all hap-
pening in the context of near-
constant change. As Zoph ob-
served,” The healthcare industry
is accelerating its pace of change.
It feels very frenetic today, but it’s go-
ing to be even more frenetic. There are a lot of forces for change,
including organizational consolidation, consumerism, precision
medicine, regulatory developments, and payment model changes.”
When I joined my organization 2 and half years ago, I was
expected to operate in a proactive, strategic manner. To be frank,
in the past things became stagnant and antiquated. I had broad
discretion to change people, processes, and technology so that we
could operate at high levels of performance.
Yes, I’ve invested a lot of time and effort into operational
remediation,butI’vealsobeenbusyprovidingthestrategicvaluethat
technologyoffers.Duringthistime,weimplemented
a mHealth app, built a data warehouse for our BI
initiative which will drive our decision making,
and moved many applications to the Cloud; the
latter will reduce costs and redirect staff toward
more meaningful efforts.
As a member of the Executive Team, I am
also being relied on to assist the organization
in non-technology related strategic initiatives.
Aside from changing the culture of my de-
partment (which is a leadership responsi-
bility), I am a key leader in helping cre-
ate and manage the innovation process
which we’ve described internally as
“Thrive.”
I’ve been asked to find ways to
drive revenue and reduce expenses in
all areas, not just with technology and I
am also spearheading an effort to bring
lean Six Sigma process methodology
to the organization in order to
improve performance.
A CIO can accomplish
much more important
objectives, such as
leveraging technology to
bring efficiency and greater
financial returns
Robert Napoli