The CIO: Healthcare's New Million Dollar Man

Retained, executive search firm, SSi-SEARCH focused on the recruitment of healthcare technology leadership conducted a national survey May 2013, aimed at understanding how life has changed since HITECH for the Chief Information Officer.

Why “million-dollar man?” The fact is that today’s healthcare CIO is a man (more on that later) who today commands a significant portion of capital investment and operational budget. He typically oversees significant clinical IT deployments. Costs of large-scale software deployments to automate the paper record to an electronic health record can be staggering, exceeding a billion dollar terms for larger health systems. Even more staggering is the massive work load associated with the task.

So how has life changed since HITECH? The survey queried 178 CIOs exploring the CIO’s reality post-HITECH and, looking ahead, what CIOs believe the next five years will look like. It considered 4 areas:

• Responsibilities
• Challenges
• Compensation
• Career path

In general, the SSi-SEARCH survey took a look at the satisfaction level of the CIO and, specifically, it looked at how responsibilities have increased and how compensation has kept pace (spoiler alert: it hasn't). What is the greatest frustration for the CIO. What is the greatest underutilized skill? Finally, what do CIOs see as their greatest victories since HITECH.

The question is not what is changing but rather how fast it is changing. This will greatly depend on how fast the IT team can get it done.

Check out the whitepaper "Healthcare's Million Dollar Man"

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