In collaboration with CHIME, Becker's Hospital Review's "Life of a Healthcare CIO" series features leading hospital and health system CIOs from across the country who are sharing their experiences, best practices and challenges.
To recommend a CIO to be featured in this series, please contact Helen Gregg (hgregg@beckershealthcare.com).
An interview with Arlyn Broekhuis, vice president and CIO of Sanford Health in Fargo, N.D., and Sioux Falls, S.D. (Interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Question: How long have you been CIO of Sanford Health? How has your job changed since you began?
Arlyn Broekhuis: I've been the lead IT person for 25 years, but I've been with the organization for 30 years.
IT has always been a support department. Twenty-five years ago, our role was mainly to support billing and claims, the financial areas of the organization. That role has changed to supporting all clinical operations with the electronic health record system. Now we really support all areas of the organization.
The other change for us has been our growth and integration. We were a small health system 25 years ago, and now we have 35 hospitals, 1,500 physicians, a health plan and a research arm all spread out over 220,000 square miles in 120 communities in nine states. We also have international clinic sites in Ghana and will open one in China later this year.
Q: In your time with Sanford Health, what has been your biggest accomplishment?
AB: I think we've built an amazing team here in IT. We have 700-plus people that support technology across the system, but it is never just an IT effort. The IT team has partnered with the whole organization to implement the EHR for all the hospitals and physicians. And I think there's another big partnership I should mention — we've worked very closely with Epic to get this done.
Q: What do you see as your biggest misstep or mistake?
AB: When we were rolling out the EHR, we decided one location wouldn't follow the standard build. This caused issues on the billing side of the system. Since that time we've followed a standard build for all our implementations. It has helped guarantee our success.
Q: In the past month or so, what project has taken up the majority of your time?
AB: We've been working on getting the 35th hospital and their physicians on the EHR. We have had a very successful implementation of the Epic system at our Bismarck, N.D., location.
Q: What is the biggest challenge you're facing right now?
AB: I think the biggest challenge now is the optimization of the EHR. We've spent the last 10 years installing ours, and now we need to make it work better for our clinicians and our patients. I include patients because now ours use the EHR — we have 225,000 using the patient portal, and they are users just like the clinicians.
One of the exciting things with the patient portal is the new e-visit capabilities. [Editor's note: Through the patient portal, Sanford Health patients can now message a provider for treatment or prescriptions for select minor, acute conditions.]
Q: What is one lesson you've learned during your career that you'd like to share with other CIOs?
AB: It starts with building a talented team. You have to have that team because this is not easy. It takes a team and a partnership with the rest of the organization to get it done.
More Articles in the "Life of a Healthcare CIO" Series:
The Life of a Healthcare CIO: UPMC's Dan Drawbaugh
The Life of a Healthcare CIO: Penn State Hershey's Rod Dykehouse
The Life of a Healthcare CIO: Mercy's Gil Hoffman