Changing roles and responsibilities
1. With many hospitals and health systems facing significant financial pressures this year, CIOs are identifying which investments will have the biggest impact for their organizations. They are prioritizing platforms and partners that integrate with their existing EHR and can solve workforce and patient throughput issues first.
2. As CIOs face more uncertainty and budget constraints in 2023, they are striking a balance to invest in technology that can promote organizational efficiency while helping the health system reduce overall spend. Many CIOs have reported they are trying to find opportunities to automate processes that are taking up their clinicians' time, as well.
3. CIOs in the first half of 2023 prioritized investments in technology that can move the needle for their organizations more immediately than in the past. Health system CIOs need new technologies to demonstrate a clear return on investment within the first six months.
Areas of concern for CIOs
4. CIOs are still facing workforce shortages as they continue to compete with Big Tech companies for a limited amount of IT talent. Big tech layoffs in the first half of the year make it easier to recruit IT workers in the second half of the year, especially as more health systems embrace a remote workforce model.
5. A larger remote workforce does present new challenges for CIOs, especially around integrating team members into the health system's culture. Each health system has a unique mission and vision for serving patients, and hospitals are integral to the local community. CIOs are now tasked with spreading their system's culture to remote employees and making sure IT teammates working in distant locations care as much about the community they're serving as local teammates do.
6. IT workers with specialized skill sets in areas such as cybersecurity, digital, cloud and data are in high demand at hospitals and health systems, but CIOs told Becker's that the needs for these roles are increasing at a faster pace than the rate of new college graduates entering the workforce.
7. In addition, ransomware threats, which have targeted 15 healthcare systems operating 29 hospitals since the start of 2023, are top of mind for CIOs. As attacks get more sophisticated, CIOs have been laser-focused at making sure IT systems are protected, that all staff are educated on their organizations' cyber plans and that all vulnerabilities within IT systems are patched as soon as they are detected.
New areas of interests for CIOs
8. Generative artificial intelligence has been a big area of interest for hospital and health system CIOs. With the introduction of ChatGPT in November, many IT executives have been piloting and testing out the technology at their organizations to see how it can relieve administrative tasks for their staff.
Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Stanford Health Care and UC San Diego Health are some of the health systems testing out generative AI for administrative work such as answering patient inquiries in patient portals and testing out how ChatGPT can speed up review and improvement of computer system alerts that are used to support clinical decision-making.
Although generative AI isn't ready to conduct medical diagnoses, CIOs are optimistic about the future with the technology in reducing physician burnout that is frequently attributed to administrative work.
9. CIOs have also turned their attention to patient experience initiatives as the digital front door expands while the physical front door contracts. CIOs and digital chiefs are working with clinicians and patient experience experts to streamline the patient's online and in-person experiences as health systems shift from hospital chains to larger healthcare delivery platforms. Forward-looking health systems are bringing in digital leaders from other industries, including hospitality, retail and Big Tech, to bring the healthcare industry into the modern area of consumerism.
10. Cloud transitions are a huge undertaking for CIOs and chief digital officers, but unlock so much opportunity for better clinical care and more efficient operations. Data is the currency of the future as regulatory bodies begin enforcing interoperability and price transparency. Healthcare organizations with a cloud infrastructure are more easily able to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to their full potential as healthcare moves closer to predictive analytics.