Wes Wright, CIO, Seattle Children’s Hospital, Chapter 3

One of the core philosophies of military leadership is to train the person who will eventually replace you to help ensure a smooth transition. That’s precisely what happened at Seattle Children’s Hospital this past summer. When Drex DeFord resigned as CIO, Wes Wright was ready to fill the role. Recently, healthsystemCIO.com spoke with Wright about what it was like to move from CTO to CIO, what he learned from working with Drex, and how the organization incorporates Continuous Process Improvement into its overall strategy. He also discusses the clinical application environment, managing multiple vendors, why leaders must be willing to take risks, and how his organization is working to foster innovation.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

• Collaborating with Microsoft and VitalHub
• The perks of having a software giant across the lake
• Taking big risks — “You can’t innovate without falling on your face a few times.”
• Establishing a Partner Experience and Innovation department
• Using a contractor for workflow analysis
• Laying a foundation for innovation

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Bold Statements

What I want to do is virtualize that touch‑enabled operating system of Windows 8 Metro so that I can still have the security and the data protection of my virtual environment, but have it on a touch-enabled device. We’re just starting down that road and I think it might be a big deal.

We come up with an idea and then say, ‘do you want to test it for us?’ And 99 percent of the time they’re very enthusiastic and say, ‘yeah let’s give it a shot and see what we can do.’ Developing that cadre of folks that are interested in innovation has really helped us here.

There is an innovation arm to IS now, and that’s where they need to touch base and say, ‘I want to do this — how do you think is the best way to do it?’

She has experience in our facilities and she has the IT background to be able to put the pieces together for us. And I really think that’s a role that’s going to grow in the health IT area — somebody that’s purely dedicated to shadowing and figuring out how I can take waste out of your process using IT tools.

What we were trying to do was bring some stability, some professionalization of the network, and get our day-to-day operations where they needed to be. And once we got to a certain level with that, we could lift our heads up and say, ‘Okay, now how can we add more value to the organization?’

Wright:  With Microsoft right across the lake, I’m very interested in using the Windows 8 Metro. What I want to do is virtualize that touch‑enabled operating system of Windows 8 Metro so that I can still have the security and the data protection of my virtual environment, but have it on a touch-enabled device. We’re just starting down that road and I think it might be a big deal.

Gamble:  It seems like that’s where having the CTO experience might really come into play for you.

Wright:  This is something we’ve been talking back and forth about for many months, and now the pieces are finally coming together with Windows 8. So it’s pretty exciting.

Gamble:  Yeah, it is. Is there a timeline for that at this point?

Wright:  We’ve just started. I hooked Microsoft up with VitalHub, and so they already do this for the IOS-based devices, but I can’t virtualize an iPad because it’s against the law. Apple won’t let you do that. But I can virtualize the Windows 8 device, so I hooked Microsoft up with VitalHub and said, talk to these guys about porting that iPad application over into Windows 8. So we’ve made those preliminary discussions and had some phone calls. What I’d really like to be able to do is get this into the hands of a handful of providers for maybe a Christmas present.

Gamble:  Oh, wow. So we’re talking pretty soon.

Wright:  I’m hoping at least to get some kind of proof of concept up and going, and then we can keep testing and see what we find out.

Gamble:  It’s nice having Microsoft in the area, right?

Wright:  It is. It’s nice.

Gamble:  Going back to when you did that pilot with the iPads, do you think it’s important to be able to take some risks — maybe I don’t want to say risks, but to not be afraid to pilot things like the iPad, even though it might not work out. Do you think it’s important to kind of have that mindset?

Wright:  Absolutely. You can’t innovate without falling on your face a couple times. Fortunately we have a group of physicians, nurses, and medical technicians that want to participate in innovating. So we come up with an idea and then say, okay, here’s our idea, do you want to test it for us? And 99 percent of the time they’re very enthusiastic and say, ‘yeah let’s give it a shot and see what we can do.’ Developing that cadre of folks that are interested in innovation has really helped us here.

Gamble:  Yeah, I would think so. Now, the way things are set up, if they want to try something, will they approach you?

Wright:  Recently — about six or eight months ago — we stood up a directorate called Partner Experience and Innovation, and so we have a director of Partner Experience in Innovation. There is an input method into that innovation directorate, and so folks are starting to realize that there is an innovation arm to IS now and that’s where they need to touch base and say, ‘I want to do this — how do you think is the best way to do it?’ Or, ‘I want to do this, this is how I think we can do it — will it fit into architecture?’

Gamble:  So that gives you a direct channel to the clinicians to understand what they’re looking for in terms of their IT needs.

Wright:  Yeah, and attached to that directorate, we have a contractor we use that goes out and does workflow for us so when somebody comes out with, ‘hey, can you take a look at this and see how we can be more efficient,’ or, ‘hey, I want to do this with this,’ we’ll send out the workflow analyst to take a look at the workflow and the tools that they want to use to solve that particular issue. Nine times out of 10, we generally have something that solves that problem already in place — either they weren’t aware of it, or we need to tweak it a little bit to scratch the itch that they have. But there’s always that tenth time where we don’t have something in place and we say, ‘Yeah, if we did do that, we would be able to help you out in this manner.’ I’m pretty excited about the whole innovation directorate.

Gamble:  So the workflow analyst that you’re talking about — is this someone who has clinical experience? How does that work?

Wright:  It’s a contracted position because I don’t have need for it all the time, but it’s the same person who has been working with us and has worked in a lot of the facilities around town, like Virginia Mason and University of Washington, all those places. She’s not an RN or anything like that; she observes. She’s a very good observer and knows in the IT side of the house. She can put the one and one together and come up with two.

She’s the same person we used in our virtual desktop deployment. When we deployed that, we would send out a workflow analyst first to make sure that the virtual desktop infrastructure would work in that area. One, she has experience in our facilities, and two, she has the IT background to be able to put the pieces together for us. And I really think that’s a role that’s going to grow in the health IT area — somebody that’s purely dedicated to shadowing and figuring out how I can take waste out of your process using IT tools. 

Gamble:  Yeah, that makes sense. I know a lot of organizations try to do things with having the IT staff do rounds with clinicians, but sometimes that isn’t always possible, and I can see the advantages of using this person who might be a contractor but obviously knows your organization really well.

Wright:  Yes.

Gamble:  So for the past four years or so that you’ve been at Seattle Children’s, has there always been this much of an emphasis on innovation and entertaining the ideas that different people or different clinicians have on what they want out of technology?

Wright:  No, not always. That’s always where we wanted to get to, but when we started out the conversation, for the first couple of years what we were trying to do was bring some stability, some professionalization of the network, and get our day-to-day operations where they needed to be. And once we got to a certain level with that, we could lift our heads up and say, ‘Okay, now how can we add more value to the organization?’ So the first two or three years was mostly shoring up the underpinnings and getting folks in the right seats on the bus and laying that foundation for us to start innovating.

Gamble:  It’s interesting because I know that a lot of organizations want to have more of an emphasis on innovation, but you have to get that structure in there first, and I think it’s important for people to understand that.

Wright:  Yeah, the old cliché — you have to walk before you can run. We were spending a lot of time walking there in the beginning, and now we’re in a position where we can run, I think.

Chapter 4 Coming Soon…