CHIME President and CEO Russ Branzell explains why economic strain is moving health system technology leaders from installing software to redesigning work. Watch below or on YouTube.

Health system technology executives are now expected to change how care gets delivered, according to Russ Branzell, president and CEO of CHIME (College of Healthcare Information Management Executives). Putting applications in place has shrunk to a small part of the job. Speaking on a recent episode of the healthsystemCIO Show, Branzell said automation could remove a large share of hospital work. Capturing those gains, however, requires organizations to redesign their processes around the technology, he said. He also expects economic strain and workforce shortages to force that redesign on many hospitals, smaller ones in particular.

When Branzell was CIO of Poudre Valley Health System in Fort Collins, Colo., his work centered on implementing technology. He put applications in and got people to adopt them. In other words, a new EMR mostly meant computerizing the work clinicians already did. CHIME members still carry that responsibility. Yet he described it as a fraction of what they are now asked to do.

“What they’re really being called to do now is to change the very fabric of the way healthcare is being delivered in their organizations,” he said. In practice, that sometimes means playing bad cop. The technology leader has to push their own organization off its current way of working.

Specifically, at an event with executives from CHIME Foundation firms, he questioned four or five chief digital leaders on stage.

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