Innovation –Whose Job is It?
Does any of this sound familiar to the CMIOs?
A physician colleague stops you in the hall to tell you about a cool new application that he or she saw at a conference. “It downloads information from our system and creates a readmission risk score. All we need to do is create the data feed from our system. The vendor said it was easy.”
A resident calls you about a new iPhone app he developed that can be used to teach students and residents. “All we need is an interface to the PACS.”
The CMO calls you. “We’ve had another patient with a pulmonary embolism. We need to make sure the decision support system does not allow anyone to be admitted without VTE prophylaxis.”
How do you respond? What do you say to these people? Do you take all these ideas directly to the IT department and the CIO and hope (or demand) implementation?
These are situations that we as CMIOs face every day. Pioneering chemist Linus Pauling, PhD, said, “The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.” What is our role with regards to championing all of these innovative ideas? As CMIOs, we understand the complexity of adding new applications, developing new interfaces between internal and external systems, as well as the difficulty of creating fool-proof solutions to recurring problems. How do we best leverage our knowledge of the capabilities of the systems and resource constraints, with the excitement and enthusiasm that users with ideas bring us?
Innovation is a team sport. Ideas come from everywhere and should be allowed to bubble up through various channels–clinicians, IT analysts, leadership, etc. An effective CIO/CMIO team works together to foster innovation, promote new ideas from the user community and work to effectively communicate the capabilities and limitations of the current environment. The CMIO should advocate for the ideas and applications that he or she believes can positively impact patient care, quality and efficiency. The interface between the needs of the clinicians and the available resources is critical for the CMIO who should be able to explain to users why their ideas can or cannot be implemented.
The new direction for Clinical Innovation + Technology will continue to highlight emerging and innovative technologies that may be at the core of many discussions between CIOs and CMIOs. I look forward to these new ideas and engaging in the dialogue.