Olivia Schlabach, associate vice president at FINN Partners, gives us the lowdown on the CHIME Fall Forum 2022. Here’s what she had to say…
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the CHIME Fall Forum in San Antonio. As the saying goes, everything in Texas is indeed bigger, including emphasis on the rise of innovation and digital strategy to improve the healthcare continuum.
This is especially true as it pertains to patient outcomes and the ongoing labor crisis that has resulted in staff shortages and clinician burnout.
While technology is not the cure for all of our ills, it does play a big role in the consumeristic approach to care. Care that patients have been vying for since pre-pandemic times.
As one physician from the University of Utah Health System noted during a panel, “You’re a patient sometimes, and a consumer always.”
Healthcare systems and providers have an increased responsibility to use digital strategy to improve patient outcomes. They are starting way before patients enter the four walls of the hospital or doctor’s office.
Telehealth, remote patient monitoring (RPM) and patient portals with EMR integration are some of the ways technology has advanced to put the patient, or consumer, first.
Read on to learn more about how innovation is closer than we think, and other takeaways from CHIME’s Fall Forum.
We don’t have a technology problem; we have a culture problem.
Ask any CIO at Fall Forum what the most challenging part of the digital transformation is, and the answer might surprise you. It’s not the technology that often derails success, but rather the cultural adaptation to the technology that is harder to overcome.
Culture, no matter how resilient and able, will never change organically.
This is why it is imperative for senior leaders to encourage their leaders to take risk and fail fast. Failing, contrary to popular belief, is not a sign of weakness.
Rather, it is a sign of an organisation’s ability to take risk and learn what doesn’t work so they can move on to the next idea.
Hospital and health system cultures that embrace a consumeristic, digital transformation strategy are more apt to improve the patient and provider experience quickly and more efficiently.
Identifying nuances and holes in the planning phase can lead to better results in the implementation.
Providing opportunities for employee and patient feedback, as well as education and training throughout, will be critical to digital success across the organisation.
We need to do a better job of fostering collaboration in the C-Suite
One of the focus group sessions I attended emphasised the importance of bridging the gap between key stakeholders in the organisation to improve digital transformation.
Peyman Zand, VP of Advisory Services at CereCore, spoke to the challenges that arise when C-Suite leaders fail to communicate with one another. Zand referred to a recent survey by HFMA that found 42% of CFOs say they need CIOs to provide more information about how to:
- Improve the process of prioritising major IT initiatives
- Systematically align those initiatives to corporate goals and business outcomes
- Assess the risk of IT initiatives and clearly identify the level of organisational change required
CFOs went on to say that these models would enhance decision-making around IT investments, which would expedite the future of digital transformation. For more results and takeaways from the survey, check out the full report here.
We need to ask the right sources for help
Much like the gap in communication that exists between an organisation’s C-Suite leaders, the same can be true for organisations that want to thrive but aren’t sure how.
The good news? There’s an abundance of guides and professional experts out there who are more than willing to take you where you want to go in the digital transformation journey.
There was a lot of support and excitement at the Forum around identifying your core competencies and outsourcing everything else to subject matter experts who can help.
Agility coaches and managed services firms are excellent resources for taking your digital strategy to the next level, whether you need help with staffing, help desk support or some other level of assistance.
Work with your internal teams to figure out which areas of your business need the most improvement and make the call. It’s too expensive not to.
Closing thoughts
In summary? CHIME Fall Forum was a phenomenal meeting of new and longtime friends. The education, leadership and networking were on full display as CHIME celebrated 30 years of doing what they do best.
My view of healthcare innovation expanded significantly during my time in San Antonio, and I’m already marking my calendar for next year’s Fall Forum in the Grand Canyon State.
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