Inside CHIME: Mentorship Opportunity Proves Enlightening for Both Sides

Inside CHIME - header

3.1.18
By Candace Stuart, Director, Communications & Public Relations

Matt Turner knew that assuming the duties of associate CIO in 2017 on top of his position as an analytics officer at Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston would come with significant challenges. But as a participant in CHIME’s mentorship program, he had a trusted colleague in Gary Light to help him navigate the new territory.

Matt Turner

Matt Turner, CHCIO-E, Chief Data Officer, Medical University of South Carolina

“It is a cool thing that CHIME offers,” said Turner, now MUSC’s chief data officer. “You can’t find the opportunity as an emerging health IT leader to pick the brain of somebody who has been in that role in multiple operations anywhere else.”

Light, vice president and CIO at Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center in Jasper, Ind., has had a decade-plus career as a CIO and a healthcare executive in various organizations around the U.S. A member of CHIME since 1992, he has been a champion for helping CHIME members develop their careers. In 2017, he mentored four different members.

“There are a lot of commonalities but so far the people I have worked with have been fairly diverse in their roles,” Light said. Some mentees, like Turner, may aspire to be CIOs; others may already hold the title and see the benefit of having an experienced colleague to provide perspective. No matter the size or type of healthcare organization they serve, most have questions about how to interact with executive staff and other leaders.

Gary Light

Gary Light, MBA, CHCIO, VP & Chief Information Officer, Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center

Light describes his monthly calls with mentees as conversations where they arrive at strategies through discussion. “There are no canned answers to anything,” he noted. For instance, Turner reached out to Light when he faced two fiscal projects: budget planning and capital planning. Light walked Turner through the processes and how he handled them.

“Gary provided insight and guidance on how he negotiates with CFOs and makes that capital pitch to leaders,” Turner said.

The mentor-mentee conversation may focus on a mutual challenge like cybersecurity and the fine balance between educating and alarming leaders about risks. Or it may circle around experiences with certain healthcare IT products. Light says it is a learning experience for him, too, as he hears the perspectives of IT leaders in other environments like behavioral health, an academic center or a large physician practice setting.

“They have different priorities than we have at a community acute care setting,” he said. “I learn from the environment they are in and the processes they are going through.”

Turner says the mentoring he receives from Light and others at MUSC has helped him advance his career without having to leave a city he and his family enjoy. For Light, mentoring is an opportunity to give back to CHIME and the industry, just as he felt the mentors he met during a CHIME Healthcare CIO Boot Camp had given to him.

“Our organization is what the members make it,” Light said. “If I have an opportunity to provide some value to the organization and our members, then I absolutely want to do that. … Our industry will be the better for it if we share our experiences.”

More information about CHIME’s mentorship program is available online here.

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