Siloed IT teams in healthcare organizations are becoming obsolete. Health systems are embracing the benefit of IT collaboration across departments, and especially with clinicians, to optimize workflows and share ideas to support organizational growth.
Brian Doerr, senior vice president of information technology and security and privacy officer for Community Hospital Corp., joined the "Becker's Digital Health and Health IT" podcast to discuss how the IT team is evolving and big investments for the future.
Mr. Doerr said the mindset of team members is critical to the success of Community Hospital Corp., a large hospital chain based in Plano, Texas, with locations across the U.S. The best candidates have a growth mindset and are flexible and nimble to withstand change.
"What we need is people who will engage and collaborate and not look at the box that they live in today and think that's the box they will live in for the future," he said. "We're looking at creative ideas and bringing in people who have healthcare experience. We're also bringing people who have no healthcare experience but do have experience in other industries that we could leverage in the healthcare space."
New ideas are prized on Mr. Doerr's team, and he encourages all members to think about simplifying processes and leveraging technologies. Community Hospital Corp.also has plans to invest in additional informatics specialists and bring on people with both a clinical and technology background to optimize workflows.
In the long term, he also sees the cybersecurity team growing.
"Where there will be a big focus in the next decade from a pure technology perspective is cybersecurity," Mr. Doerr said. "We're continuing to hire additional staff and resources for cybersecurity all the time to make sure that everything we do starts with a security mindset, so we're thinking about how we give access and making sure that we're intentional about the security and privacy aspects of what we're delivering to our clinicians and patients."
Beyond informatics and cybersecurity as the biggest investments, Mr. Doerr anticipates continuing education for clinicians on new technologies will be a high priority.
"You think you understand healthcare today, but tomorrow it's different, right?" he said. "It's also like that with technology. We are educating everybody on the care team at all times. It's what we do every day."
He said the IT team constantly connects with clinicians to make sure they understand the value of new technologies. Those same conversations help the technology teams get a better understanding of what is valuable to the clinicians and what would be even more valuable to them in the future.