Applying Health IT Strategic Plan Lessons: An Example for CIOs

Explore how CIOs can leverage the lessons from an exemplary health IT strategic plan to drive technology adoption and meaningful use in their organizations while ensuring privacy, security, and user empowerment. Learn how to inspire innovation, measure progress, and adapt to achieve your IT goals.

Health information technology (health IT) holds remarkable promise in today's fast-paced, data-driven world. It can securely collect and exchange vast amounts of health data about individuals, potentially empowering individuals, increasing transparency, and paving the way for improvements in care, efficiency, and population health. Despite these potential benefits, health IT remains considerably underutilized.

As of 2010, only 25 percent of physician offices and 15 percent of acute care hospitals leveraged electronic health records (EHRs). Remote monitoring and telehealth technologies witnessed even fewer takers. While many consumers routinely accessed their banking information online, a mere 7 percent utilized the web to access their personal health information.

This underutilization existed despite recent legislation establishing a promising health IT agenda. The health care system was poised to adopt and meaningfully use health IT to improve health. The ultimate goal was to leverage health IT as a critical enabler for broad transformations in health care.

The central challenge lay in strategizing and implementing a plan that could bring about meaningful use of health IT. This must revolve around widespread adoption and information exchange to improve health outcomes. It was crucial to design health IT policies and programs that could meet individual needs and expectations and provide individuals with access to their information.

IT was equally important besides adoption and usage, inspiring confidence and trust in health. The digitization of health records presented new challenges related to health information privacy and security. Moreover, to truly empower individuals and improve the health care system, the public had to have a voice in designing national health IT policies and programs. They also needed access to their health information through valuable tools, a considerable feat.

A leading health organization proposed an innovative IT Strategic Plan in response to these challenges. This plan was structured around five key goals:

1. Achieve adoption and information exchange through meaningful use of Health IT.
2. Improve care, population health, and reduce health care costs through Health IT.
3. Inspire confidence and trust in Health IT.
4. Empower individuals with Health IT to improve their health and the health care system.
5. Achieve rapid learning and technological advancement.

Each goal addressed the key issues facing health IT adoption and effective use. The organization aimed to facilitate the widespread adoption of EHRs and health information exchange, focus on improving care, population health, and reducing per capita costs, and work on inspiring trust in health IT. They also sought to empower individuals with access to their information and facilitate more robust consumer health IT markets while enabling innovation and improvement of health care knowledge across populations.

This IT Strategic Plan is a powerful example for other organizations, illustrating how careful planning and focused efforts can enable the effective and meaningful use of health IT. By outlining a clear vision and mission, this plan set the groundwork for leveraging information and technology to improve health and health care for all individuals.

The learnings from this health IT strategic plan can provide Chief Information Officers (CIOs) with valuable insights into their approach to their organization's IT planning and implementation. Here's how they can apply these learnings to real-world challenges:

1. Develop a Clear Vision and Mission: Just like the health IT strategic plan, CIOs need to have a clear vision and mission for their IT strategy. This clarity is a guiding principle for the organization's IT efforts, providing direction and alignment for all strategic decisions and actions.
2. Widespread Adoption: The health IT plan highlighted the importance of widespread adoption of IT solutions, such as EHRs. CIOs can apply this learning by focusing on driving the adoption of new technologies in their organizations through comprehensive training, clear communication of benefits, and providing support during the transition.
3. Emphasize Security and Trust: Privacy, security, and trust are critical in the digital era and are especially crucial in health IT. CIOs in any industry can take heed of this and ensure that they prioritize security in their IT planning. Building robust security measures, educating employees about potential risks, and implementing data privacy regulations can help foster trust and confidence in the organization's IT initiatives.
4. Empower Individuals: The plan underscores the importance of empowering individuals by giving them access to their data and incorporating their needs into the design of IT policies and programs. CIOs can adopt a similar approach, focusing on user-centric design and ensuring that end users, whether they are employees, customers, or partners, can easily access and use the IT services provided by the organization.
5. Promote Innovation and Learning: The fifth goal of the strategic plan is to achieve rapid learning and technological advancement. CIOs can apply this principle by fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation in their organizations. This could involve encouraging the exploration of new technologies, offering ongoing training and development opportunities, and establishing a framework for rapid iteration and improvement of IT systems and processes.
6. Measure Progress and Adapt: The health IT plan involves tracking national progress toward achieving the set goals and updating the plan based on the experiences and insights gained. CIOs should also emphasize the importance of monitoring and evaluating in their IT strategies, using key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress, and be ready to make necessary adjustments to their plans based on the data and feedback received.

Overall, the learnings from this health IT strategic plan can be invaluable for CIOs, offering guiding principles that can be tailored to their organization's unique needs and context.