Richardville Named CIO Of The Year

Craig Richardville, senior VP and CIO at Carolinas HealthCare System, has been named the recipient of the CHIME-HIMSS 2015 John E. Gall, Jr. CIO of the Year for efforts to improve the care of patients in North and South Carolina. Richardville is being recognized for spearheading a strategy focused on more effective patient engagement, virtual care delivery and interoperability among providers at the Charlotte, NC-based system.

“I’m honored and humbled to be recognized for this award,” said Richardville, who created his team with being able to “leverage technology to improve and support the care delivered.”

The longtime CIO has been instrumental in advancing innovative technologies for patient care. In 2013, the health system deployed one the nation’s largest virtual ICU practices, with now includes nearly 300 ICU beds. In addition, clinicians cans also conduct virtual psychiatric visits and provide care for stroke and other complicated conditions to rural communities.

Richardville and his team of 1,200 staff have also been on the cutting edge of improving patient engagement, developing two mobile health applications that allow patients to share data from Fitbits, wireless scales or nearly 50 other devices and apps directly with their care team.

The system also leads a statewide private HIE in which more than 270 providers throughout the Carolinas are contributing data.

“From the bedside to the home, we always are looking for ways to truly engage the patient in managing and improving their health status,” Richardville said. “Virtual visits, virtual ICUs and mobile applications like MyCarolinas Tracker puts the patients in charge of their health. Here in the Carolinas, we’re proud of the work we’ve done, and we recognize there is a lot more work to do. In order to be truly effective, one of the biggest challenges facing us as an industry is interoperability. We cannot leave it to the government or the vendors. Rather, all of us have to come together to craft a solution that securely and safely enables meaningful health data access for our citizens.”

Chuck Christian, chair of the CHIME board of trustees, called Richardville “a visionary,” adding that “he is passionate about finding innovative ways to use technology to not just transform healthcare, but ensure that we are improving care for the patients that we serve. His work at Carolinas HealthCare System has raised the stature of the CIO and is raising the bar for the rest of the industry.”

Richardville has been actively involved in both CHIME and HIMSS, serving as a HIMSS fellow and former president of HIMSS’ North Carolina chapter. Currently, he is as a reviewer for the HIMSS Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model.

Carla Smith, executive VP of HIMSS North America, cited Richardville’s leadership as a key component in nine of the Carolinas HealthCare’s hospitals and 254 of its ambulatory clinics achieving Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics EMRAM. “Craig’s leadership in this effort resulted as well in the establishment of exemplary business and clinical intelligence used to monitor and improve the health of the Carolinas patients.”

The award, sponsored by CHIME and HIMSS, recognizes healthcare IT executives who have made significant contributions to their organization and demonstrated innovative leadership through effective use of technology. Richardville will receive the award on March 3, 2016, at the HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas.