Do You Know Your HIT?
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
A Black Book Report uncovered the fact that health IT knowledge is a greatly desired skill for hospital executives.
Knowledge of health IT is a critical skill for CIOs in the medical field, according to a recent survey from Black Book Rankings. iHealth Beat reports the survey of 1,515 industry stakeholders was used to determine the most sought after skills for hospital executives.
“The power of data and analytics is profoundly changing the healthcare business and clinical landscape, and once again hospitals need more top-management tech muscle,” said Doug Brown, Managing Partner of Black Book in an announcement. “It's evident that without added C-suite horsepower at this crossroads of value-based payment reform, population health and accountable care opportunities, that stoking the forces of advanced technologies and data analytics will be very difficult for most hospitals.”
According to the report, the 10 skills and traits most hospital boards and senior human resources directors indicated overall among all current executive team searches in 2015 are:
- Technological & Data/Systems Management
- Advanced Analytics
- Deployment and Execution
- Strategy/Planning/Marketing
- Finance & Reimbursement
- Leadership
- Relationships/Team Building
- Communications
- Change Management
- Integrity
“Eighty percent of hospitals over 200 beds relied on an internal, c-level executive to champion the organization’s IT vendor selections and implementations,” Black Book reports. “The use of consultants is not decreasing in terms of engagements or dollars spent, but the dependence on the consultant as the sole initiative leader is dwindling according to 65 percent of hospital CEOs.”
EHR Intelligence writes technological skills were more important than finance management skills, as compared to survey results in 2013. In 2013, nearly 42 percent of hospital boards were looking for executives with finance backgrounds, while in Q1-Q3 of 2015, hospital boards have been looking for executives with technology backgrounds to keep pace with the growing technology in facilities.