From the June 2011 print issue
What is the scope of your responsibility as CIO at Duke Medicine?
I am responsible for leading technology strategy, innovation, initiatives and operations across Duke Medicine, which is comprised of the Duke University Health System, the Duke School of Medicine, Duke School of Nursing and the Duke faculty practice plan. In addition, I work in collaboration with Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore and our other global partners to develop an IT strategy to meet our mutual goals. Importantly, my role serves as a key member of the Duke Medicine executive leadership team in charting and executing strategy for the organization.
How big is the IT team?
It is approximately 600 professionals strong.
What will be the first order of business – your first project?
Ensuring that we are organized properly and focused on delivering consistent service to our health system and academic/research customers is a key priority. The scope and complexity of an academic medical center such as Duke requires that we evolve to a service delivery structure and mindset, as each of our constituents has critical projects underway in their areas of interest. Our ability to inform, manage and deliver those projects, in a fashion consistent with an overarching enterprise architecture, will be the key to long-term success.
What do you think your experience at Ingenix might contribute to your new role?
In many ways, my experience at Ingenix was a perfect lead-in to this role. Ingenix is a large, complex organization that serves customers across provider, government, payer and life sciences markets. Core to what they do is the use of data to improve care and cost decisions. Similarly, Duke Medicine is a large, complex organization that serves ambulatory, acute, post-acute, research and academic needs. The ability to coordinate care and/or data across those focus areas is a primary need. I believe that my experience at Ingenix, working with many other healthcare organizations in solving similar problems, provides a great perspective as I work with the Duke team in addressing the needs here.
What excites you most about your new position?
What excites me most is continuing my part in improving our healthcare system, albeit doing it from a different perspective. True healthcare reform is going to have to come from the participants in the system in order to be sustainable. The vendors are a critical component of that change, but so are the delivery system and the research community. HIT and technology vendors will be instrumental in supplying the “muscle” to help create change but the “heart and soul” of meaningful change must come from organizations like Duke. For me, that’s exciting and humbling to be a part of.
What do you think will be the most challenging?
I believe that the ability to manage change is always the most challenging aspect to growth. Our industry in general, and AMCs are no exception, are faced with an unprecedented amount of change that will affect how medicine in the future is researched, trained, delivered, received and paid for. Technology in particular has to evolve from being simply a supporting function into acting as a true partner in the delivery of that future. Duke has a long heritage of innovation so I have no doubt that success is more than possible here.
What are you reading?
“The Games Do Count” by Brian Kilmeade. It’s an easy read and a great way to get insight into the formative experiences of pivotal leaders through the lens of sports. I’ve also been on a TED blog and video archive kick. It’s free and is a trove of innovative thinking on just about any topic you can think of.
