Is digital health innovation overrated?

Our next HealthIMPACT CIO Summit will take place next Friday, February 27th, 2015**,** at the Union League Club in New York. Our conversation kicks off in the morning with Ed Marx, SVP & CIO at Texas Health Resources and 2014 IW Healthcare CIO of the Year, and Michael Restuccia, VP & CIO at University of Pennsylvania Health System. I will be interviewing Ed and Michael together on stage and we’ll focus on how to establish a process that will embed successful innovation into the culture of an organization. We’ll start by asking a provocative question:

Is “digital health innovation” overrated banter that we’re required to embrace for political correctness or is actionable innovation in complex health systems really possible?

Doing more with less has always been an IT leadership challenge. Population health management, value-based care, patient engagement, connecting patients and physicians, transitioning to ICD-10, data analytics for better clinical decision making, the list goes on and it gets longer every year. Just keeping up with changing requirements is tough enough but asking CIOs for disruptive innovation on top of it all may be too much.  How will CIOs handle the increasing demands for reliable and safe IT systems but also be at the forefront of “bleeding edge” technology simultaneously? I’m hoping that Ed and Michael will help us understand how to:

• Set the right priorities and manage demands for speed, change, and innovation while resources decrease or stay the same
• Increase the rationality and the accountability of priority setting for technology adoption to avoiding overbuying and under-utilizing
• Strike the right balance between proposed and planned projects
• Figure out how to evaluate which innovation projects are working and which need to be eliminated
• Create leadership strategies that replace a culture of blame with a culture of collaborative innovation
• Support fast and agile delivery of new ideas but retain patient safety, maintain systems reliability, and data security
• Work with Start-Ups and other disruptive innovators to not disrupt but measurably improve care and workflow processes

Space is filling up fast so if you haven’t registered for HealthIMPACT East already, please register today.