Dan Magoc, the new CIO of Oklahoma City-based Integris Health, told Becker's he plans to build an "elite" IT department at the 16-hospital system.
He said that starts with making sure his staff does the foundational things right — "I call it the blocking and tackling of IT" — before focusing on digital transformation and artificial intelligence.
"My objective is to transform Integris into an elite IT organization," Mr. Magoc said. "I want to be elite. I don't want to be good. I don't want to be excellent. I want to be elite. And I know it's going to be a journey to get there. They have some good things going on now, but there's a lot of improvements that can be made."
Before joining Integris in November, Mr. Magoc spent 16 years at Chesterfield, Mo.-based Mercy, most recently as vice president of business transformation. During his time there, he led the creation of a data management program, which has allowed the 32-hospital system to do advanced AI work. He oversaw the implementation of mobile technologies, which "reduced the IT footprint in clinical environments," as well as location services.
To get to "elite," Mr. Magoc plans to change the culture by becoming more proactive rather than relying on a "request-reply model," making structural changes to "better align IT with the business," and being more cost-effective by focusing on transparency.
He also plans to tackle the biggest challenges in health IT, not least cybersecurity, with an emphasis on protecting medical devices and the Internet of Things.
"We've just got to be completely diligent at all times," he said. "It falls on every co-worker at the end of the day, every caregiver is responsible for cybersecurity, and you can't control that. So how do we build processes to mitigate that risk?"
Becoming interoperable with other organizations is also important, as is creating value from tech investments.
"We always want to collect a shiny new toy and implement that," he said. "Well, let's be great at what we have. Let's extract maximum value from what we've already invested in, and then we can continue to look at newer technology. But if we don't, we're just spinning our wheels."
Conversely, he said the biggest opportunities in health IT are "partnering the business to make sure we're aligned and delivering what needs to be delivered" and AI, in particular generative AI.
"I've already seen it with ambient technologies, how it can assist caregivers in reducing mundane task documentation," he said. "We're in the first inning of this game, so we've got a long way to go."
He said he envisions AI touching "almost every aspect of healthcare," from the back office to patient registration to precision medicine.
First, comes that foundation. "Everything builds upon itself, right?" Mr. Magoc said. "I can't do AI unless I have digital transformation. I can't do digital transformation unless I have a highly effective IT organization. So that's how we're approaching it."