Patient care, communication key to succeeding with health IT, Bria says

Big changes have arrived for healthcare organizations seeking to leverage investments in health information technology and meeting government mandates and incentive payment program requirements. But physician informaticists must balance these multiple concerns and still keep patient care at the forefront, about 200 physicians in health information technology were told Wednesday.

“Unsettled is the new normal,” said Dr. William Bria, president of the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems, during the keynote address to the 22nd annual Physician-Computer Connection Symposium in Ojai, Calif.

Bria, the chief medical officer for Dataskill, a data-analytics firm, posted a slide of a pie chart with the hypothetical proportion of the day-to-day concerns of chief medical information officers—meeting meaningful-use targets, dealing with vendors, communicating with medical staff members and chief information officers, and balancing budgets.

But Bria warned that CMIOs need to make sure they're not being distracted or confused about “what the real goals are.”

“We need to communicate with patients,” he said. “We need to talk with one another more than ever.”

Dr. Howard Landa, CMIO of Alameda (Calif.) Health System and AMDIS vice chairman, said in planning the speakers for this year's meeting there was a recurrent theme—data analytics.

“How do you get the data out of the system and deliver it in a way to get value out of it?” he said. “We're still trying to figure out how to make use of it.”

Landa, who is scheduled to co-present a symposium session today on new leadership roles for organizations and health IT, said the old top-level organizational structure in which the CEO, chief financial officer and chief operating officer ruled is changing. Its replacement structure, while broader—to include, for example, CMIOs and, more recently, chief innovation officers—isn't yet settled, Landa said. “Now, you have so many people in the C-suite, even consensus becomes a challenge.”

In addition to the annual presentation of the AMDIS Awards for outstanding achievement in medical informatics, Landa, a 16-year AMDIS member, was surprised with a special award from the organization.

“Howard is one of those unique people in life who doesn't ask for anything, is always willing to do anything, is always cheerful and has supported the organization from the very beginning,” Bria said. “Howard's passion for AMDIS has kept us growing and vital.”

Follow Joseph Conn on Twitter: @MHJConn