All's fair in love and business…. As long as there is passion…

Read this article in the CMIO Magazine website about losing IT resources to high-paying consulting firms, and having to juggle this against the dwindling reimbursement.


CMIO Magazine article

The title of the article was posing us a question “All’s fair in love and business?”. Before answering this question, we need to understand what makes it “fair”. Bottom-line for “love”, “war” and “business” is passion. Passion for the cause makes war fair, passion for emotion makes love fair, passion to excel makes business fair…Without getting into what is right or wrong, it is certainly a motivator for anything.

When institutions go through a major transformation, like an EMR implementation, there is pride and passion from everyone involved. This is because they are working toward “cause”, “emotion”, and “purpose to excel”. But, as soon as a project like this is complete there is a void. The duty to support an application does not trigger the same amount of pride as realizing the strategy itself.

Sometimes, pride and passion is no match for “life changing” compensation. Nevertheless, as leaders we should lay the path for future strategy and align our staff to that strategy. This is easier said than done. It is about aligning the leadership to strategy first, and then clearly articulating this to staff.

Remind everyone that EMR is the first step towards a larger strategy, and relate it in personal terms. I would love to hear from other CIOs, CMIOs and IT leaders on how they are managing this?

Technology execs should think like venture capitalists

New trend in venture capitalist investments. – Kaiser and Washington Post did this article.

This article is meant to challenge technology executives in healthcare to act like venture capitalists and focus on strategic initiatives that will increase efficiency and productivity.  

1.     Overall venture investing declined by nearly one-third as the economic recession set in.

2.       Venture capitalists are still looking for strong companies in all sectors – drugs, devices, and services – but, cost concerns and other factors have led to changes in demand. Investors are wagering customers will pay attention to the promise of lower costs.

3.       Venture capitalists are increasingly interested in nuts-and-bolts businesses like data mining and grassroots care management.

4.       Investments are happing in many grass root hospital operations

a.       Technology in Infections prevention

b.      Software based Billing efficiency

c.       In room televisions to walk patients through doctor’s orders

d.      RFID for inventory and staff management

e.      Home health to prevent “readmissions”

This article summarizes the importance of technology in cutting costs and improving efficiency.


Article Link