The next big thing for chief information officers will be business intelligence and, oh yes, information governance, a health IT researcher told a standing-room-only crowd of attendees at the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives' 2012 Fall CIO Forum educational session Thursday.

Even within an organization, data has tended to remain siloed with financial information in the finance department under the purview of the chief financial officer and clinical information under the control of the chief medical officer, said Violet Shaffer, research vice president and industry services director, healthcare for the IT market analyst Gartner Research.

That will change due to multiple pressures on organizations to plan and execute as accountable care organizations.

“You as the CIO are the human interface and collaboration engine across those silos,” Shaffer said. Pulling reports retrospectively simply won't do any longer, she said. The technology needed is an enterprise data warehouse where the information from across the organization can be gathered and analyzed in real time and also used for prospective planning and analysis. But the job also will require leadership and interpersonal skills.

“You have to have a strategy, how you're going to manage your clinical and financial data,” Shaffer said. “This is a not IT project, but it has an IT component.”

“The organization's marketing department will have data needs to engage and encourage them to use the CIO's organization,” she said. “Patients need to be 'sticky' and loyal” so “your alliance with marketing becomes critical. Together you will become the foundation for patient persuasion research.”

In addition, CIOs will be challenged to keep abreast of rapid changes in their field, Shaffer said, and, “I believe that your job as an IT leader and especially as CIO is to create the fusion of data for transformational change in you business.”

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