Finding The Ideal Clinical IT Leader

Clinical informatics, clinical application support, and clinical transformation roles are the most in-demand staffing needs for senior IT executives in 2013, according to the 24th Annual HIMSS Leadership Survey, sponsored by Infor. CIOs are looking for clinicians to be active participants in their health system EMR/CPOE system transformation, but the most important role is the one of clinical IT leader. Have you added a clinical IT leader to your team?

Qualifications

The “ideal” clinical IT leader will have these qualifications:

• Five or more years of experience as a practicing clinician
• Five or more years in a leadership role in IT or an informatics department
• Five or more years of experience in direct clinical systems implementation and process re-design
• Practical experience with EHR systems in both hospital and ambulatory settings
• Extensive experience in managing clinical IT staff and other healthcare IT professionals

Titles

The clinical IT leadership title can vary depending on the organization, size of staff, and the scope of their responsibilities. Here are some of the titles we are seeing in our healthcare IT executive search practice:

• Chief Nursing Informatics Officer
• Chief Clinical Information Officer
• Vice President, Clinical Systems & Integration
• Vice President, EMR Implementation
• Regional Chief Nursing Information Officer
• Associate Vice President, Nursing Informatics
• Director, Nursing Informatics
• Director, Clinical Informatics
• Director, Clinical Systems
• Director, Clinical Applications

Sources

The key to success in finding these clinical IT leaders is to first look internally. There are many leaders today who found their clinical IT career by first being drafted into committees or becoming “super-duper” users in their organizations. If these resources aren’t available internally, seek outside assistance, such as executive search firms or posting the position on the American Nursing Informatics Association website. For more information on skills and leadership abilities for clinical IT leaders, check out The ANIA Annual Conference taking place May 2-4, 2014, in San Antonio, Texas.

Salaries

Finally, competition is steep for clinical IT talent, so expect salaries to reflect this, especially for the roles of CNIO and vice president of clinical systems and integration.