Career Planning

Itching to get a new position in healthcare IT? There are key questions to answer, and until you do, there will be no clarity.

Bishop is often the only woman in the room, but she has a few techniques for getting her point of view heard, and she's quit apologizing automatically.

A webinar featuring the CIOs of two award-winning hospitals will share their thoughts about how to improve morale and inspire their staffs. 

Hohmann talks to Women in Health IT about strategies for achieving gender equity and what it’s like to be the only woman in the room.

Transitions of leadership are going on all the time in our organizations: a new CEO, a new VP, or new management at another level; it is change. As I’ve written about, I just completed such a transition. I have served as an interim CIO for eigh plus months. The agreement for the engagement was that I’d stay through the successful transition to the new CIO. We envisioned a 30 day overlap. As the start date for the new CIO approached, 30 days seemed very long. Wouldn’t the new CIO want to get in and get started without me around? But as she and I started planning that time, 30 days seemed reasonable for all that we needed to do. When it came time to start the transition, there was so much else going on each day we found it hard to find the time to focus on the transition work. In the end, we both agreed 30 days was the right amount of time and extremely helpful to her.  [Also: Best Hospital IT 2016: CIOs share secrets of managing a happy IT team] But a 30-day overlap and transition period can be a luxury. Organizations often go through leadership transitions with far less time or even no time for the old and new leaders to work together. When I took the interim engagement, I had an hour conversation with the previous CIO on his second to last day; that was it. I’ve observed another successful leadership transition this year at AAMI. The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation is a nonprofit organization founded nearly 50 years ago. It is a diverse community of nearly 7,000 professionals focused on advancing safety in healthcare technology. I serve on the AAMI board and executive committee and was on the search committee this year for our new president. Our current president, Mary Logan, announced in November of 2015 that she would retire at the end of 2016. Over the past year, she diligently prepared for a leadership transition to her successor while the search committee found a new leader, Rob Jensen. He started this week. At our most recent board meeting, Mary shared what she called the “bus book”. It’s all the information and background a new president could possibly need to effectively step in if something happened to her. Mary had been developing it with her senior leadership team over the past few years. Knowing she would be turning things over to a new president, she went much deeper in putting it together. Having just completed the CIO transition at University Hospitals, what I saw Mary do was beyond anything I could have imagined doing. But it’s something I’d now consider a best practice. Of course, in a retirement situation with plenty of lead time, this is doable and maybe even expected compared to a resignation with just several weeks’ notice. A challenge for the outgoing person is to provide all the needed information without biasing the new person. You need to let them know the “gotchas” and the potential problem areas. You need to let them know who’s who and the most important relationships to nurture internally and externally. I’ve been advising an internal interim CIO the past few months, helping him be successful in his role while the organization conducted the search process. The new CIO starts next month and the interim is now trying to figure out his transition plan for her. Bottom line I told him his task is to support her through onboarding and help her be successful. And that certainly includes letting her know the “gotchas” and problem areas she’ll need to deal with. Leadership transition assessment and planning is one of the services that my new firm, StarBridge Advisors, will be providing. When there is a leadership change at the CIO level, we can work with executives to assess the current state and the existing IT leadership team for development opportunities, and make recommendations for the next CIO position specification. We can provide interim leadership and assist with the search. And we can serve as a trusted and seasoned senior advisor to the new CIO if needed in their early months. The core values and mission of an organization don’t usually change when a new leader takes over. Finding the right person to build on the best of what is already there, to change what needs to be changed, and to successfully take the organization into the future is the key. Smooth leadership transitions are an important part of this process – for the success of the organization and everyone involved. This post was first published on Sue Schade's Health IT Connect blog.

My first professional event since moving back to New England is tonight, November 7. Boston Health 2.0 is a chapter of the national Health 2.0 organization. They hold monthly meetings to promote and catalyze new technologies in healthcare. The November event is a panel titled “The Power Women of Health IT: Path to Success”. All powerful women have advice to give others and stories about obstacles they’ve overcome. This group of women panelists is no different and I’m excited to be part of it. Helen Figge, senior vice president, Global Strategies and Development at LumiraDx, USA; Cara Babachicos, corporate director/CIO, Community Hospitals, Partners Healthcare. The panel will cover advice on entrepreneurship for women, how women can influence the health IT industry, differing perceptions of competency in men and women, importance of mentorship, how men can be more supportive of professional women, and obstacles we’ve overcome in our own paths to success. But which obstacle should I comment on? Looking back to my early days in management, unfortunately there are many stories to share. There was the male colleague who had it out for me during a five-year period when I was the only woman on the IT leadership team (it was the 80’s). One of the things he did early on was to spread a rumor that I was only in management because I was related to a board member with the same last name. It was so not true; I didn’t even know the board member. As he continued to be combative and uncooperative in our work together, he told me he’d deny anything I said that he said just to intimidate me. He even came into my office one day, shut my office door, held the doorknob and threatened me. Yes, I survived all his bullying behavior and eventually let our boss know what was going on. But it was our next boss who eventually showed him out the door. In a different situation, I had to report a male colleague from another department for sexual harassment and face all the questions and doubts about what happened. And for years, I balanced the responsibilities of two young children while moving up the management ranks and attending an MBA program in the evenings. Were these obstacles? Yes. But they all made me stronger. The takeaway is you must speak up and not tolerate bad behavior from others. And be sure to create a strong support system at work and at home. On the eve of an historical election day when the first woman from a major party is the presidential nominee and stands a very good chance of being elected the first female president of the United States, why not talk about “power women” in health IT and their path to success? This post was first published on Sue Schade's Health IT Connect blog.  

The U.S. Department of Labor gives $7 million to group launched by AHIMA, AHA, AMIA, NCHL.

Skillsets are changing rapidly. Hospitals must move quickly to keep pace. Experts from Advocate, Geisinger, University of California San Francisco and University of Mississippi Medical Center share best practices and lessons learned. 

In another big surge for healthcare hiring, the industry added 44,000 jobs in April -- representing more than a quarter of the 160,000 jobs created that month, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

My mother had to go to work to support four children after my father died from cancer. I was active in the women’s movement in my college years. So, I can’t imagine women not having a career outside the home if they so choose or if they have to support themselves and their families.