Once a nurse, always a nurse.
It’s funny; Robin Lang never envisioned herself as a CIO. As a nurse, her passion was caring for patients – both those in the hospital and those living in the community. But the more she became involved in technology, the more she started to believe in the impact she could have in an informatics leadership role. In fact, Lang found that not only could she touch more patients, but she was also able to improve care delivery and help reduce the burden faced by clinicians.
Recently, healthsystemCIO spoke with Lang about her 30-year journey from nurse to CIO, and the work her team is doing at CaroMont Health to move toward an integrated system while making IT as “seamless” as possible. She also talked about how they’re working to provide at-the-elbow support, the organization’s philosophy on growing from the bench, and the enormous privilege of being a female IT leader.
Chapter 3
- Working with Mike Johnson – “He trusted me to be the clinical expert.”
- Governance and dotted lines
- Ensuring strategic alignment: “That has to happen or it’s hard to be a successful CIO.”
- Her 30-year path to the CIO role
- CaroMont’s philosophy of growing from the bench – “We don’t have to look very far for expertise.”
- The burden – and privilege – of being a female CIO
- Women in technology: “It’s hard to be what you can’t see.”
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Bold Statements
You absolutely must be in tuned with them to know that you’re meeting the goals and objectives of the business, and that your IT strategy is in line with the organization’s strategy. That has to happen.
I appreciate so much the ability to recognize talent in the incumbents. Sometimes we overlook talent when it’s right in front of us.
Fit and culture are extremely important. We need to make sure everyone’s marching in the same line, and that we’re driven to be our community’s most trusted healthcare provider. That’s not just words on a banner; it really is our desire.
It’s hard to be what you can’t see. When you can’t see female leaders in technical roles, it’s hard for young women to believe they can achieve that level of leadership.
There are great authors out there and great TED Talks and great mentors who can help us realize we can do this. We have a really remarkable opportunity to sit in a space that hasn’t been occupied by women and make a really strong difference.
Lang: At that point, we had a dotted line over to IT. The CIO who preceded me, Mike Johnson, was also a nurse previously, although he didn’t practice in North Carolina. He was our director of IT and then our first CIO. He was a wonderful mentor and really trusted me to be the clinical expert and say, ‘Yes, this is what we should be doing. These are the teams of people we should bring together.’ That trust, encouragement, and empowerment really helped me to see how this world was growing. He made sure I was involved in lots of opportunities with professional organizations. He introduced me to CHIME; I absolutely love everything CHIME does to support the CIO.
For me, it just grew into a passion. I get so excited about what we do.
Gamble: That’s great to hear.
Lang: Anyway, when I heard there was an opportunity for the senior director position, I applied and met with the technology folks to help understand where they were. I asked, how many of you are in direct patient care, and as you might imagine, none of them thought they were. They didn’t connect those dots. But if you ask them today, they’d all raise their hands.
As Mike got closer to retirement, I was sitting in a senior director chair; it had transitioned to the point where I was reporting to IT and had a dotted line back to nursing. And honestly, when you’re senior director for information systems or CIO, you may report directly to the Chief Financial Officer — which I happened to — but you absolutely have a dotted line to everyone. I have a dotted line to my COO, my chief medical officer, the vice president of medical affairs, and my chief nursing officer. You absolutely must be in tuned with them to know that you’re meeting the goals and objectives of the business, and that your IT strategy is in line with the organization’s strategy. That has to happen, or it’s really hard to be a successful CIO.
As I saw the opportunity coming along — and after I was able to shake off the famously female fraud phenomenon of ‘no way can I do that,’ — I started to believe that possibly I could do it. And with a lot of encouragement and mentorship, I applied for the CIO role when Mike retired, and have had the privilege of being CIO since November of 2017.
It’s a 30-year journey. Sometimes it feels like an overnight success, but it was really 30 years in the making to go from bedside nurse with an associate’s degree, with an organization that has given me so many opportunities to practice in different environments, to earn a couple of masters degrees and then my doctorate in 2012, and to have the headspace to figure out who we need to be as an IT organization, and have my own vision.
I can’t say enough about the CaroMont philosophy of growing from the bench and investing in employees. I’m an example of what the return on that investment can be.
Gamble: Right. We’ve heard a lot of people say that if you want to move up through the ranks, you have to switch organizations and kind of bop around. It’s really encouraging to see an organization that wants to build on what they already have.
Lang: Yes, they do. Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t go outside for expertise — we absolutely do, but I appreciate so much the ability to recognize talent in the incumbents. Sometimes we overlook talent when it’s right in front of us.
But we absolutely believe we have some of the strongest, sharpest, and most amazing people here. We don’t have to look very far for expertise. And of course, fit and culture are extremely important. We need to make sure everyone’s marching in the same line, and that we’re driven to be our community’s most trusted healthcare provider. That’s not just words on a banner; it really is our desire for our community. We’re willing to put our money where our mouth is and invest back into the community and do wonderful, exciting things with our local colleges and universities. We also do mentorships and preceptorships and invest in high school programs so that we’re not only an employer in this community, but a place where people want to come back to after college and be part of the community.
Gamble: Right. I appreciate what you said about female fraud phenomenon and honest you were about your experience. Being in your position now, are you able to help other women and encourage them to go after roles, even if they’re not 100 percent sure they’re qualified?
Lang: Absolutely. The burden of being a female CIO is heavy on my shoulders, but it’s a self-imposed burden. I want to be that role model. I heard a speaker say something that really burned in my heart: it’s hard to be what you can’t see. When you can’t see female leaders in technical roles, it’s hard for young women to believe they can achieve that level of leadership, and be successful in those types of roles. And so it’s really important to do things like ‘girls who code’ clubs, speak at high schools, and show up at civic organizations and talk about what it means to be a female leader.
I have to say, I’ve had a very good career experience where I haven’t personally experienced a lot of gender bias. Have I seen it? Yes. Have it felt it at times? Yes, but not to the degree that has happened in some organizations. If you look at our leadership team, there are 12 of us, and two are women. We have a responsibility. We feel strongly about mentoring young girls and women, particularly in STEM, and to encourage girls to be wildly successful early in areas like math and science, and help them believe they can be astronauts. I love that we have young women now stepping out of the traditional technical roles. One example is Karlie Kloss, a model who holds coding camps each year. These are the types of stories young females need to hear.
And I know we call it female fraud phenomenon, but men experience it too. They’re just not as persuaded by it. I think women listen to their internal voice more than men do in that regard. Men are more likely to shake it off, whereas for women, the self-talk is a little different. We start to listen to that little voice that says, ‘I don’t know about this. I’m not sure you’re the right fit or that you can do this.’ There are great authors out there and great TED Talks and great mentors who can help us realize we can do this. We have a really remarkable opportunity to sit in a space that hasn’t been occupied by women and make a really strong difference.
It’s a great privilege too. It is I say burden lightly, because it’s a privilege to be able to do this; to encourage women, whatever the job might be.
Gamble: It sounds like your organization is taking positive steps in that direction. It’s great to see; hopefully we’ll start to see more of that.
Lang: Exactly. The day we won’t discuss the first female this or that will be a great achievement; when it’s not really that impressive to be a female CIO. That’s when it will be done.
Gamble: I agree. Well, that about wraps things up. This has been really great.
Lang: You’re so welcome. Thank you for the opportunity to share about the organization that I love so much, and some of the successes we’ve seen here. It’s easy to talk to one person and think that person has just led this great success, but it’s all about the team. And I have to say, it’s easy to lead a team of high-performing, energized, engaged folks who understand their world and their role. I’m very fortunate to be a part of the team, across the organization and particularly in IT, that’s really passionate about the work we do. They make me look wonderful.
Gamble: That’s great. The passion really comes through in speaking to you. Thank you again, we really appreciate it.
Lang: Thank you, Kate. It was my pleasure.
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