Healthcare Executives Plot a Path Forward With Digital Health Transformation

CIOs and other healthcare executives gathered in Boston this week for the HealthLeaders Innovation Exchange, where they talked about moving past the pandemic and into a new era of connected health. The pandemic "was a splash of water in everyone's faces." Chaudhry was one of about two-dozen healthcare executives attending this year's Innovation Exchange, an annual event designed to bring CIOs and others together to discuss innovation strategy. When asked "who champions your causes most at the organization," 55% selected the CEO, indicating an emphasis on top-down support for innovation (10% selected the CMO or CNO, and 25% went with "someone else." But this question and the discussion around it highlighted the fact that innovation isn't necessarily channeled through one C-suite position or based in one department, and can and should be found in all areas and levels of the healthcare system. Bradley Crotty, MD, MPH, vice president and chief digital engagement officer at the Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin Health Network, as well as chief medical officer and chief product officer at Inception Health and an associate professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin, pointed out that the pandemic did give health systems a process that everyone followed to "get things done." That attention to one common goal worked, he noted, and showed healthcare organizations how to cut through the barriers to achieve a goal.