Why Hospital CEOs Have Little Time for Outsider Tech Talent
By: Sherri Douville, CEO at Medigram | IEEE/UL 2933 Trust SG Co-Chair | Founder & Chair, Trustworthy Technology & Innovation Consortium
The Complexity of Hospital Operations
Hospital CEOs manage clinical care, an extraordinarily diverse workforce in every sense of the word and dimension, technical infrastructure, policy compliance, reimbursement, and overall governance. This role demands medical expertise, policy, technical, business acumen, and more — making it extremely complex and time-consuming. If Tech wants to be respected, trusted, and useful by adding value to healthcare; much of the time they will have to completely transform the game they’re playing and skills they’re bringing to the healthcare table. For truly top tech talent with real passion, commitment, character, competence, intellect, and far reaching connections; they can and should make a profound difference in healthcare.
Pressures and Priorities
1. Clinical Operations:
- Quality of Care: Ensuring high standards of patient care and safety.
- Staff Management: Overseeing the hiring, training, and retention of medical professionals.
2. Technical Infrastructure:
- Health IT Systems: Implementing and maintaining EHRs, telemedicine platforms, and other digital tools.
- Cybersecurity: Protecting patient data from breaches and cyber-attacks.
3. Policy and Reimbursement:
- Regulatory Compliance: Navigating complex healthcare regulations and policies.
- Financial Management: Ensuring efficient billing, reimbursement, and financial sustainability.
4. Management and Governance:
- Strategic Planning: Setting long-term goals for hospital growth and development.
- Operational Efficiency: Streamlining operations to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes.
Knowledge Gaps and Political Challenges
Knowledge Gaps:
- Lack of Understanding: Tech vendors often don’t understand hospital environments, needs, and regulations.
- Fragmented Expertise: Because of knowledge gaps, they can often contribute massively to coordination challenges and can fail to contribute to the operations and infrastructure required for mutual success in a meaningful way.
- Solution Mismatch: Tech solutions frequently don’t integrate well with existing systems or workflows from technical, people, and process perspectives.
Political Work Environment:
- Power Struggles: Hospitals are politically charged due to influential stakeholders like physicians, administrators, regulators, and insurers.
- Blame and Accountability: Tech failures can reflect poorly on internal leaders, deterring engagement with vendors.
Why Insiders Have Little Time for Outsiders
Hospital CEOs and insiders lack time to engage deeply with most external tech talent (except the most exceptional) due to the pressures of managing stakeholder interests, maintaining operational continuity, and ensuring regulatory compliance. Tech vendors must bring comprehensive interdisciplinary knowledge and world-class operations, management, leadership, and governance skills to the table to be useful at all.
Why Outsiders Present Political Risks
Disruption: New technologies can disrupt existing workflows and hierarchies.
No Accountability: Failures in technology integration can reflect poorly on internal leaders.
Competing Interests: Different stakeholders may have conflicting views on the value and implementation of new technologies.
Action Items for Tech Vendors
- Understand the Environment: Learn about all the unique pressures and complexities of healthcare operations.
- Only Enter Healthcare: if you’re willing to embrace the requirements for vendors to bring world class leadership including interdisciplinary command and leadership, management, operations, leadership, and governance skills.
- Offer Comprehensive Solutions: Provide solutions addressing specific pain points and regulatory requirements.
- Build Relationships: Establish trust through consistent and clear communication. Limit entering healthcare unless you have the same values as decision makers.
Solutions for Better Tech Integration
1. Interdisciplinary Leadership Teams:
- Form teams with diverse expertise in clinical care, IT, policy, and management.
2. Continuous Education and Training:
- Invest in ongoing education for leadership and staff on technological advancements and regulatory changes.
3. Change Management Programs:
- Implement structured change management initiatives for technological transitions.
4. Collaborative Partnerships:
- Partner with tech companies, academic institutions, and other hospitals.
5. Incremental Implementation:
- Use pilot programs to test and refine new systems before full-scale deployment.
By addressing these dynamics and implementing strategic solutions, tech vendors can become actually valuable partners to healthcare leaders, helping them navigate challenges and drive meaningful improvements in patient care and operational efficiency.
Sherri Douville BIO
Sherri Douville is the CEO of Medigram, where she leads the development and integration of innovative AI-enabled healthcare communication solutions to drive safety, efficiency, and profitability for health systems. She founded the Trustworthy Technology and Innovation Consortium (TTIC), advancing healthcare technology standards. Sherri contributed to the development of the CHIME Certified Digital Health (CDH) for Cybersecurity and has taught for ISC2’s CISSP CPE three times. She served on the NorCal HIMSS board, co-designed and launched the corporate board readiness curriculum at Santa Clara University for privacy and cybersecurity, and is the IEEE/UL 2933 Trust SG Co-Chair. Additionally, Sherri is a series editor at Taylor & Francis.