Inside CHIME: Boot Camp – Changing the Mindset

Inside CHIME - header

Weinstock photo 12.3.15 by Matthew Weinstock
Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME

 

The CHIME Healthcare CIO Boot Camp is a powerful experience, often providing healthcare IT leaders with a new outlook not just on work, but life.

Shortly after returning from the CHIME Healthcare CIO Boot Camp, Alozie Ogechika, M.D., started putting in place a few of the new tactics he picked up at the intensive training program.

“We are switching to a new electronic medical record system,” the chief medical information officer at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, El Paso, Texas, told me recently. “We didn’t have a good scorecard for clinical informatics, so I pushed our senior leadership to come out with a balanced scorecard. We are going to publish it and we are going to push it out to the university.”

Ogechika also learned that sometimes the best way to lead is by letting go.

“You hire good people and get out of their way,” he said. “I used to want to control everything. Since Boot Camp, I have deliberately set expectations for the team and stepped aside. I’ve told them that I won’t be upset if you fail honestly. It’s been powerful to hear the people with whom I work say, ‘I see a change in you,’ and, ‘You are a better boss now.’ It’s been a change in mindset.”

Prior to joining CHIME, I spent years covering the organization as healthcare reporter and editor. CIOs would often pepper me with stories about the power of Boot Camp. Similar to Ogechika, many said that it was not only career altering, but life changing. In October, before the CHIME15 Fall CIO Forum, I got to witness this firsthand.

More than 60 healthcare IT leaders showed up for the Boot Camp in Orlando. Over the course of three-and-a-half days, they unplugged from their mobile devices and engaged in honest dialogue with seasoned CIOs who detailed their experiences navigating challenging personnel and leadership scenarios, creating strong teams and, perhaps most importantly, building trust throughout their organizations.

During small group exercises, Boot Campers applied that knowledge as they hashed out solutions to complicated — and real-life — scenarios. For instance: The board’s quality committee, in consultation with the chief nursing and medical officers have decided to implement CPOE. You were not involved in the decision or planning process, nor was your team. After months of planning, the costly implementation is not going well and there’s no medical staff buy-in. The project seems headed for failure. The CEO has tasked you with getting this project back on track, but you must ensure that the CNO and CMO save face and remain champions of the initiative. What do you do?

In another exercise, and one that left an imprint on Ogechika, Boot Campers used a balanced scorecard to demonstrate IT value to an organization that is moving towards value-based care and population health management.

“I actually expected Boot Camp to cover current topics and reference materials while I was preparing for the CHCIO exam,” said Jessica Cornelius, CIO, Hendricks Regional Health, Danville, IN. “It was very different and far exceeded my expectations. We heard insight from colleagues at varying stages of their careers, focused on communications, the value of relationships, and had open discussion in a safe environment about real problems we were all facing. We focused not just on the business side but also on the personal side of the stressful environment we are committed to being in every day.”

It’s that latter point that, I think, leaves a lasting impression on everyone at Boot Camp. For three days, these leaders are put through exhaustive programming. It builds and builds until that final session when Boot Camp faculty open up about work-life, or, rather, life-work balance. Some of their stories are deeply personal. There’s a saying at Boot Camp — What happens at Boot Camp stays at Boot Camp — so I can’t divulge too much. Suffice to say, you start to re-evaluate your priorities.

One by one, Boot Campers stand and tell their new-found friends what lessons they learned and what they plan to change when they get back home. I would venture to guess that at least 60 percent picked up on that life-work balance — spend more time with loved ones; be a better dad, mom, brother or sister; be a more empathetic boss. Several shed tears as they let the weight of the past three days — and, perhaps, years of work — wash over them.

“I gained so much insight at Boot Camp through the content and exercises, however the best part for me was the relationships formed during three short days,” Cornelius said. “I connected with so many amazing people at Boot Camp and at the end it felt as though we had known each other for years.”

And what would she tell anyone thinking about attending? “It is an experience they will never forget and they will have so much to gain professionally and personally.”

The next Healthcare CIO Boot Camp is April 16-19 in Chicago. It is open to CHIME members and their direct reports.

More Inside CHIME Volume 1, No. 6: