Inside CHIME: Celebrating CHIME’s Rockin’ 2016

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probst_marc 12.15.16 by Marc Probst, CHCIO
CHIME Board of Trustees, Chair; VP & CIO, Intermountain Healthcare

The year started with CHIME taking on one of the most daunting challenges facing the industry and ended with a grand celebration of the organization’s tremendous growth.

npid-event-in-dcLast January, just two weeks into my term as chairman of the CHIME board of trustees, I flew to Washington, D.C., to officially launch one of the biggest – and most important – initiatives in CHIME’s 25-year history: The National Patient ID Challenge. Standing at the podium in a crowded room at the National Press Club, I explained the immense patient safety and organizational challenges we face because there’s no national system for ensuring accurate patient identification. As an industry, I said, we needed to step forward and fix this problem once and for all.

Acting Assistant Secretary of Health Karen DeSalvo, M.D., who, at the time, was also the national coordinator for health information technology; and National Patient Safety Foundation CEO Tejal Gandhi, M.D., joined me on the dais to express their support of CHIME’s historic initiative. Several CHIME board members were also in attendance.

chime-in-dcI’ve been honored to serve as CHIME board chair this year and work with an incredible group of member volunteers and the CHIME staff. Being front-and-center on such issues as patient identification and creating a more flexible Meaningful Use program have helped grow CHIME’s presence and influence on a national level. I testified on behalf of CHIME at House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health hearing on cybersecurity. CHIME leaders were also invited to participate in a White House briefing on a new toolkit for assessing organizational cybersecurity readiness. And, importantly, two CHIME board members were selected to serve on the Health and Human Services Department Cybersecurity Task Force.

There’s more. CHIME President and CEO Russell Branzell was invited to participate in a White House event launching the Precision Medicine Initiative. It was an opportunity to highlight CHIME’s work enhancing patient engagement by increasing adoption of OpenNotes. Individual CHIME members also attended the PMI event to showcase how their institutions are advancing personalized care.

CHIME’s tireless advocacy efforts paid off in other areas, including securing a 90-day reporting period for Meaningful Use. You can read more about those wins here.

CHIME’s professional develop and education offerings continued to flourish as well. We launched KnowledgeHub to give members a one-stop-shop to find case studies and other resources to track down best practices. The Education Foundation awarded a record number of scholarships – 69, totaling nearly $200,000 – giving members opportunities to expand their skill sets. And we welcomed the inaugural class of international CHCIO designees.

In collaboration with the CHIME Foundation, we continued to work to jettison the old vendor-customer mindset and build true partnerships that will allow all of us to work toward the common goal of transforming care. The first CHIME Partner Education Summit was a huge success. Nearly 150 Foundation firm representatives and a dozen CIO faculty members met in Chicago for a two-day symposium where we shared ideas for creating a more robust healthcare system.

Foreigner Concert

Last, but certainly not least, we kicked off a year-long celebration of CHIME’s 25 anniversary at the CHIME16 Fall CIO Forum. It was wonderful to see so many founding and lifetime members in Phoenix for the celebration. Keynote speakers challenged us to get out of our comfort zones and find new ways of inspiring staff and leading change. And how will we top Foreigner?

Thank you all for the contributions you make to CHIME. Together, you have all made this the most outstanding professional organization on the planet (well, my opinion). I hope you will all take some much-earned time during the next couple of weeks to be with your families and recharge for 2017. As I hand the gavel over to Liz Johnson, I know that CHIME is in exceptional hands for the new year.

Happy holidays!

More Inside CHIME Volume 1, No. 32: