Inside CHIME: Building Partnerships to Transform Healthcare
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4.27.16 by Matthew Weinstock Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME |
As the delivery system continues to evolve to a value-based environment, providers and their IT partners must work hand-in-glove to create high-performing organizations. At the inaugural CHIME Partner Education Summit, leading provider CIOs will take Foundation firms on a deep dive into the world of delivery system transformation and what they need to be successful.
Meaningful Use. Population health. Value-based reimbursement. Clinical documentation. mHealth. Revenue cycle. Patient engagement. Physician engagement. Cybersecurity. Data analytics. Electronic quality measures.
These are just a few of the issues topping the average healthcare CIO’s to-do list.
After more than a decade of building the foundation for a digitized healthcare environment, CIOs have shifted their focus to becoming strategic partners with the rest of the C-suite. Health IT is essential to propelling organizations toward the so-called Triple Aim of an improved patient experience, better population health, and reduced per capita costs.
But they can’t do it alone. Companies that design, build and deliver valuable products and services to providers need to be full partners in this journey. To do so, they must immerse themselves in the business of healthcare and fully understand the challenges that CIOs are facing.
“When I or someone from my organization walks into a CIO’s office, we better understand their business otherwise we are wasting the CIO’s time and ours,” says Frank Nydam, vice president for healthcare at VMware and a CHIME board member. “The entire industry is transforming and so should the traditional customer/vendor relationship. Exceptional partnerships can yield innovative solutions and transformational results for both parties, but you need put the time into to learn.”
That is part of the inspiration behind the inaugural CHIME Partner Education Summit, or CPES, September 15-16 in Chicago. Over the course of the one-and-a-half-day program, some of the nation’s leading CIOs will provide CPES attendees with expert firsthand insights into the business of healthcare and IT. During one panel discussion, CIOs will examine how new provider alliances and collaborations are not just changing care delivery, but also their purchasing decisions. Another panel will detail how IT firms and CIOs can forge long-term strategic partnerships. And, there will be an “Ask the CIO” session.
“We have to do a better job of being a partner, not a vendor, with CIOs,” says Nydam, chair of the CPES committee. “This is a very unique opportunity to dialogue with top CIOs and understand how their business is changing. Imagine being a product manager or engineer and hearing how your code impacts workflow and how one second or one click can make a difference to a nurse delivering patient care. Or for a marketing person to better understand how to get your message out there so you aren’t wasting a CIO’s time. And think about the sales person who gets a deeper understanding of how their product fits into the broader healthcare ecosystem. We want to light a fire inside of people so they are connected to the mission of healthcare, the mission of saving lives.”
These are lessons that Nydam learned with his own team. Several years ago, Nydam asked Russell Branzell, then at Poudre Valley Health System, to participate in a boot camp for his sales, marketing and engineering teams. Hearing how health IT impacted patient outcomes resulted a complete overhaul of the sales mentality. “We weren’t selling a product anymore,” Nydam says. “We were helping provide our customers with outcomes.”
To be sure, Foundation firms hold user-group meetings to solicit input from customers, but CPES will have a different feel, Nydam says. Often, user-group sessions are built around products or service offerings. CPES is geared toward understanding the dynamics of the changing healthcare environment. Also, attendees will have an opportunity to network with their peers and build stronger alliances with firms that often must work in tandem in provider settings.
“Rather than reading about what’s going on in a magazine, or hearing a sound bite, you can come to CPES and hear directly from a panel of CIOs about how they are becoming more strategic partners within their organizations,” Nydam says. “The business model is changing and we need to be thinking in terms of partnerships and delivering high-quality performance and outcomes across the board.”