Celebrate the Current Pace

Much has been written about the impact of meaningful use on the healthcare CIO, but it is worth digging a bit deeper in the organizational chart and outline how our management teams will need to adapt as well.  A tremendous strain has begun to take hold within our departments as we thoughtfully charge forward to achieve meaningful use, brace ourselves for ICD-10 and become a strategic partner with the organization in navigating healthcare reform.  As CIO’s become more engaged in physician relations, community healthcare IT strategy, and countless other tasks our management team is caught in the same job redefining era that we are.  Here are three suggestions for your management team to stay ahead of the curve in this new era:

Celebrate the current pace.  The current pace will not change in the foreseeable future and this should be celebrated not lamented.   I see no end in sight to the amount of work on our plates, and the grass is not any greener at other healthcare institutions.  Realize that trying to manage the project load, support requests and compliance tasks the way we have previously is truly the path to, and definition of, insanity.  You and your management team must find innovative and different solutions to manage the work.  Our managers need to examine the way they organize themselves and their team’s workload and settle into the current pace.   If the leader is perceived overwhelmed that has a multiplicative negative impact to your team.

Pull back, plan and reengage.  While sometimes counter intuitive your management team should mentally pull back from the front lines, get organized, plan and reengage on a regular basis.  While being on the front line is right where the action is, and it demands so much of our attention, without getting out of the details we risk heading into a wrong direction and rarely correcting our course.  I am encouraging my management team to get out of the office for a few hours a week, turn off instant messaging, don’t answer emails, just organize and bring fresh thinking to some of the most difficult problems we are facing.  Much of the anxiety we face can be resolved by pulling back, planning and reengaging into the situation.

Prepare mentally and operationally for staff transitions. Competition for talent and expertise will be heavily fought over.  You and your management team must be providing an exceptional work environment to keep your best talent engaged.  Even if you have the best work environment, there will still be transition in times like this.  Prepare for staff transitions and new staff.  As transitions take place and community colleges create new curriculum for students interested in Health IT, a new approach for new team members will need to be developed.

“The key to success is often the ability to adapt” – anonymous