| | December 20178UTLOOK Healthcare Tech By Laura Wilt, Systems VP & CIO at Ochsner Health SystemIN MY OPINIONHealthcare IT EvolutionTechnology Innovation and the Role of a CIOWith rampant technology innovation, the role of a CIO has evolved from managing infrastructure to a key player in the decision-making process of an organization. In the wake of the increasing digitalization and deeper technology integration in the healthcare ecosystem, a healthcare CIO's responsibilities have only increased. Apart from making the right choices in selecting the equipment, the CIO in a healthcare organization needs to collaborate with various teams in the organization for effective technology decisions. As a CIO, I have to be up-to-date with the recent technology developments in the healthcare industry. Some of the technologies that we are focusing on are exclusively related to data and analytics and how they provide more information about patients, operations and the organization as a whole. EMR and Epic Implementations The importance of EMR and Epic implementations in hospitals are evident in all operations. EMR implementations are part of most of the operations in a hospital, whether it's a doctor examining a patient or working on the revenue cycle in the billing section. In this context, Epic implementations help us understand patient better. One of the challenges that we see in the healthcare solutions arena is to have right people working with operations and clinicians to understand the business. This is something that we are working on to improve our capabilities. Epic Implementations consume the great amount of time as it involves complexity; hence there is a need to stabilize the existing systems as we incorporate new technologies. With the help of these implementations, we can span many different constituents of stakeholders. Laura Wilt
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