With October looming and organizations devoting more and more resources to prepare for ICD-10, there’s an opportunity being missed. Spencer Hamons believes it’s time to share responsibilities with the end users; after all, they’re the ones who will soon realize that “their job is going to fundamentally change.” In this interview, he talks about the unique perspective he has as both CIO and COO — particularly when it comes to initiatives like ICD-10; the infrastructure challenges that come with being in a remote area; how he is able to leverage the COO title to his advantage; and why CIOs must be willing to be frontrunners when there are no leaders to follow.
Chapter 3
- Master’s in leadership
- “We’re expected to have an advanced degree and the knowledge to back up our credentials.”
- Creating “a sense of urgency” among his team
- On-the-job project management training
- Being recruited into health IT — “We’re starting a new thing called a WAN and you’re our guy.
- The mentor who taught him to be a CIO
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Bold Statements
You can’t just put out some organizational imperative and expect everybody to buy in; you need to have the knowledge and the tools to be able to drive the staff to have the same vision as the organization does.
I wish it was something I had done earlier in my career, but honestly, going back to school after I had experience in the for-profit world, in the academic medical center world, and then in rural healthcare gave me a different perspective, and I think I learned more that way.
There are so few people who have a true mentor that they can call up. I could call Lac Tran right now and bounce an idea and say, ‘I don’t know how to handle this. Can you give me some ideas?’
You’re never going to see the CIOs or the COOs or the CEOs of Target and Wal-Mart talking about things as down in the weeds as we talk about in healthcare.
It’s very important, I think, that whenever we do make a mistake, we have to really go back and say, ‘This wasn’t the optimal thing for us to do. How are we going to realize by changing up what we just did and by doing things differently, we’re going to get more value?
Gamble: Talking a little bit more about your career path, at your last organization in Alaska you had a project manager title. Is that correct?
Hamons: Yes. I was the corporate project manager. I moved from Alamosa, Colorado where I was the chief information officer, to Alaska to get my Master’s degree. I had been doing a lot of work with Joint Commission. I was on their health IT advisory panel when I was the CIO in Colorado, and I realized that a lot of the work that I was doing was getting somewhat underwritten because of my lack of a Master’s degree. So I talked to the folks up there in Alaska. I went up there for four years and really hammered out my Master’s degree, and got the credentials that I needed to be able to come back and lead in this world where we’re expected to have some sort of advanced degree and the knowledge to back up the credentials that we have.
Gamble: That was smart to take advantage of that opportunity. So that was a Master’s of Science in Leadership?
Hamons: Yes. Basically, it’s an MBA focusing on leadership and organizational development.
Gamble: That sounds like something that can be pretty valuable these days.
Hamons: As I’ve moved away from a traditional CIO role into an operations role, it’s definitely been helpful to really be able to understand business drivers, and then to be able to get buy-in and create a sense of urgency amongst my directors, managers, supervisors, and even the staff throughout the organization. Because you can’t just put out some organizational imperative and expect everybody to buy in; you need to have the knowledge and the tools to be able to drive the staff to have the same vision as the organization does, and to really buy into that vision so that their work meshes with what it is we’re trying to do.
Gamble: I could certainly see the value in that. And I’m sure getting really practical, on-the-job experience in project management held a lot of value.
Hamons: Even before I was in Colorado, I was the director of IT for Methodist Healthcare in Houston, and I was responsible for all of their community hospitals. At that location, I reported to the corporate CIO for Methodist Health, but then I also had dotted line relationships to the CEOs of each of the community hospitals spread out around the Houston metro area. It was amazing — you may have this one overarching corporate vision, but then each of these community hospitals serve a slightly different population, and they all have different needs. It was really interesting. It was a great opportunity for me to be able to manage projects in different ways, and to link the urgency and the results that we needed for each one of those projects not only to the corporate strategy, but to the local strategy for each one of those hospitals and each one of those CEOs.
Gamble: I’m sure it took some time to establish your strategy, because it gets complicated when you’re talking about the different reporting structures and dealing with facilities that have different needs.
Hamons: Absolutely.
Gamble: So you have pretty varied experience. I don’t know if that was your intention specifically, but I’m guessing it’s something that has been really beneficial just in terms of working in different areas of the country with different types of organizations. I would imagine there are a lot of different experiences you can draw upon.
Hamons: My career has been interesting, to say the least. I got into this as medic in the Army. I was based in Korea during the first Gulf War and had a Major come in one day as I was doing some paperwork. He said, ‘Are you Hamons?’ I said, ‘It depends. Are you an MP?’ He said, ‘No, but we saw that you worked at Radio Shack in high school. We’re starting a new thing called a WAN and you’re our guy. We’re going to train you how to do that.’ That was how the healthcare and the health IT integration started to happen to my career.
After my time in the Army, I went to HCA, and then to Methodist. It’s been a very interesting career. Honestly, early in my career, I fought going back to school. It was not something I really wanted to do, and then I realized that I was rate-limiting myself there and it really drove me to make that commitment and to go back. I wish it was something I had done earlier in my career, but honestly, going back to school after I had experience in the for-profit world, in the big academic medical center world, and then in rural healthcare gave me a different perspective to go back to school, and I think I learned more that way.
Gamble: It’s amazing how these little interactions that you have can have such an impact on your career. It sounds like you’re someone who has had some mentors along the way, and I’m sure that that has made a difference.
Hamons: I have had some great mentors. One of my favorite was Janet Leatherwood, my chief nursing officer at HCA who ended up coming to work for us at Methodist, and Lac Tran, who’s now at Rush Presbyterian. I would say that Lac really taught me what it was to be a CIO. And there was Jerry Vuchak, who I knew at Methodist, who really taught me how to deal with people. Those guys have been great mentors to me over the years.
Gamble: Right. It can be someone you’re in contact with on a regular basis, or sometimes it’s someone you have just a few different interactions with, and it can certainly shape a career.
Hamons: I was just at an ACHE conference on leadership and development, and one thing that I realized is that there are so few people who have a true mentor that they can call up. I could call Lac Tran right now over at Rush and bounce an idea and say, ‘I don’t know how to handle this. Can you give me some ideas?’ He would have no qualms about doing so, but I don’t have any problems with asking him for the help. There are a lot of people who don’t have that. And it saddened me as we were going through this ACHE conference that here we have people who are in senior leadership positions who don’t have somebody outside of their own organization that they can go to and seek some honest feedback and be able to say, I don’t know the answer.
Gamble: Yeah. I’m hoping that we’ll start to see more organizations encourage that. For you, having somebody who’s so well known and respected throughout the industry that you can go to with an issue, that’s invaluable. Now, it’s interesting that you talked about going to ACHE. We’re hearing about more CIOs who are part of ACHE and who go to the conferences. I think that that’s pretty interesting because it’s not something that’s health IT-specific, but really focused much more on leadership. Is that pretty accurate?
Hamons: It is. It’s focused on leadership, but also it focuses a lot on what’s happening in our industry — not necessarily what’s happening in IT, but in the healthcare industry in general. I’ve been an ACHE member for five or six years. I’m about to sit for my Board of Regents exam and try to get my fellow with ACHE.
I have my CHCIO, which is the Certified Healthcare Chief Information Officer certification from CHIME, and that was a very difficult test. Honestly, it was more focused on general healthcare leadership than I expected it to be. It was not nearly as technology focused as I anticipated, and I’ve really found some value in that. As I’ve been studying for my Board of Regents exam with ACHE, I find what I studied for my CHCIO exam to be more and more relevant for that test as well.
Gamble: That is interesting and I’m thinking that with ACHE it’s also just more of a broader look at healthcare, and I would think it offers a different perspective that can certainly help you as a leader.
Hamons: I find a lot of value in their programs. They’re a little bit pricey, but they are valuable.
Gamble: Okay, so the last thing I wanted to ask you was about your leadership style. Actually, one of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you is that you’re somebody who publishes podcasts on your own site, and you make yourself available. I think that now with everything going on, there are so many CIOs and other leaders who want to know what other people are doing; what challenges they’re having. Do you think that it’s important for CIOs and others to pull back that curtain a little bit and share some of the lessons they’ve learned with others out there?
Hamons: I think it’s extremely important. If nothing else, it’s the right thing to do. I think we’re in a unique environment. Healthcare is one of those unique things. You’re never going to see the CIOs or the COOs or the CEOs of Target and Wal-Mart talking about things as down in the weeds as we talk about in healthcare.
If you go back to when I was at Methodist in Houston and we had a highly competitive market with Memorial Hermann and everybody else out there, there was still this energy that we had as a group that we wanted to do something better. We wanted to do something good. And to do that, we had to share our ideas. I think that puts us in a unique situation as an industry, and it’s something that we should take advantage of and we should be able to share that.
It’s only going to make us stronger as an industry and as individuals by sharing that information. But for some folks, it’s just not in their nature. There are some folks that just don’t have time for it. For me, it’s something that I enjoy doing. It’s a hobby. It’s something that relaxes me and it gives me that opportunity to say, ‘Hey, you know what? I just had one of the biggest screw ups I’ve ever had in my career.’ It happens.
I was talking about the mentors I’ve had over the years. One thing that’s a common thread amongst all of those folks is that none of them were afraid to admit when they had made a mistake. It’s very important, I think, that whenever we do make a mistake, we have to really go back and say, ‘This wasn’t the optimal thing for us to do. How are we going to realize by changing up what we just did and by doing things differently, we’re going to get more value? That’s how we’re going to connect our jobs and connect our staff members’ jobs with a real sense of purpose. If you can do that, that’s going to give you the ability to truly lead — not in the traditional sense, but sitting down and listening to where we made mistakes, where we can be better — really listening to that, and then letting others link that with what it is for their job performance. That’s how we’re going to lead the future.
Gamble: That’s really well said. You don’t really look up to somebody who does everything perfectly all the time, but instead, somebody who says, ‘Yes, I did mess up, and this is how I handled the situation.’ That’s a lot more valuable.
Hamons: That’s what creates a learning organization. It doesn’t mean anything to have a leader willing to do it, unless everybody in the organization is willing to do it, but nobody is going to be willing to do it if the leader is not.
Gamble: Definitely. It starts at the top. Well, we’ve touched on a lot. Unless there’s anything else that you wanted to talk about, I want to thank you so much for lending you time. I really appreciate it.
Hamons: Thank you very much. It’s been fun and hope that this is useful for you and I appreciate it.
Gamble: I definitely hope to catch up with you in person at some point and then hopefully catch up on the phone again down the road to see how everything’s going, see the progress you guys have made.
Hamons: Great. You’re welcome to give me a call any time.
Gamble: Thanks again. I really appreciate it, and I wish you the best of luck.
Hamons: Thank you very much.
Gamble: Thank you.
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