Strategic IT Alignment for Health System CIOs: Tools and Takeaways

Hospital and health system IT leaders are caught in the middle of funding models, cost pressures, shifts in patient demographics, and data sharing struggles – not to mention the impacts of the pandemic. During a recent CHIME focus forum, CIOs gathered to discuss IT alignment, assessing value of IT projects to the organization’s strategy, and the frameworks and processes they find most beneficial.

Key takeaways included:

• The majority of CIOs in the group (64%) rated their top projects to be:
  • Telehealth, remote patient monitoring, AI-enabled patient health management, patient compliance. (Supports external-facing value.)
  • EHR optimization, medication management, pain management, and other disciplinary improvements (Supports internal and foundational operations.)
• EHR projects most often received a PEST or SWOT analysis before approval (57%).
• CIOs reported they are still dealing with changes and must-have projects from 2020.
• Not all IT projects are subjected to prioritization due to must-have items and time-constraints.
• Frameworks commonly utilized by CEOs are helpful to understand so that decision-making rationale is aligned.