Michael Bakerman, MD, and Richard Mohnk will deliver the keynote presentation, “CIO and CMIO Dynamics: The Evolving Roles & Relationships,” at this year’s Institute for Healthcare Technology Transformation’s CMIO Forum, which takes place Jan. 17-18 in Phoenix, Ariz.
As Chief Medical Information Officer for UMass Memorial Healthcare, Dr. Bakerman is responsible for overseeing and adaptation of the Cornerstone project implementation into clinical processes at UMass Memorial. Cornerstone is a multi-year, multi-entity corporate initiative to implement common patient clinical and financial systems and to reduce variability in processes and workflows across the system. In this role, Dr. Bakerman is also responsible for the development and deployment of a system wide integration strategy for affiliated and independent ambulatory physician practices.
A board-certified cardiologist, Dr. Bakerman was elected to the Board of the American College of Physician Executives in 2010 and has published a number of articles in the Physician’s Executive Journal related to HIT and physician leadership.
IHT2 Editor Joseph F. Jalkiewicz recently spoke with Dr. Bakerman about the Cornerstone Project, his role at UMass Memorial, as well as about the future of the CMIO role and its relationship to CIOs.
Where does UMass stand currently with the Cornerstone Project?
Cornerstone is going to go at least five years. I don’t anticipate it ending any time soon. We have three academic campuses, and then we have four community campuses, and they’ll be in various stages of work for the next several years.
Who has been your ‘go to’ person in the Cornerstone implementation process?
I work with Rich Mohnk, the associate CIO, and (CIO) George Brenkle (Ph.D,) is my safety blanket. I also have a clinical guy on the inpatient side who’s calling me all the time, and I have a couple of people on the ambulatory side. I don’t really have just one person. I’m blessed with having a very good team that I can really depend on to take care of things for me.
Looking past the final stages of Cornerstone, what is your biggest IT focus over the next five years?
I think the biggest thing will be the integration of data. Whenever I train physicians, it’s not just the implementation of the electronic medical record that’s key. It’s the ability to get discrete data and use that data to develop better performance, to produce better patient outcomes, to lower costs, and to produce better patient safety. Once we have the framework up, then it’s how we use that data, and that’s what will take our time over the next several years with Cornerstone---to get that into a place where we’d like it to be.
Can you talk about your role at UMass Memorial?
The CMIO skill set is clearly different in terms of the CMO and the CIO, where the CMO is the voice for the medical, patient safety and clinical side of things, [whereas the CIO is the voice for the IT side], which wants everything to run as seamlessly and efficiently as possible. I see myself as somewhat of a traffic cop, balancing the needs and wants of the clinical side with the needs and wants of the IT side.
What do you think physicians need to know most about the future of the CMIO position?
The CMIO role will be a huge growth opportunity for physicians in the future. They’ll need to have a different skill set from the CMO, in terms of having an appreciation for and understanding of technology, but also having an appreciation for and understanding of project planning, timelines resource development, and projects that the average CMO wouldn’t know or be expected to know. And then we’ll also be challenged with how to establish governance in a multisystem organization and then how to drive leadership and change. The CMO may or may not have those skill sets, but the CMIO is going to have to bridge all those gaps, and at the same time be able work with people who are trained in information technology and who have a clear idea how to build and engineer solutions, but may or may not have the clinical skills of knowing the doctor’s thinking or what the doctor needs.
CIOs work with their teams in a very much hierarchical structure, a top-down management structure. When the CIO goes to the medical staff, it’s no longer hierarchical, and the same skill set needed to manage hierarchically is not the same one needed to work with the medical staff. I don’t really deal much with a hierarchical organization. I’m used to dealing with everybody in this federated state. I have to learn how to work with {CIOs], and they have to learn how to work with me, and it’s the relationship between those people that determines the success or failure of these projects.
I’ve spoken with CMIOs who have come from internal medicine, pediatrics, and other specialties. Do you think any particular specialty lends itself to filling the CMIO position better or more easily than any other?
This isn’t for publication, but clearly the cardiologists are the smartest of the breed, and I don’t say hat just because I’m a cardiologist. [Seriously,] you don’t get through medical school by being a slacker. Physicians by nature are very smart and very hardworking. The CMIO role needs those elements, but [it also needs] an appreciation of and understanding of how to manage change; when to push when not to push; and an interest in technology.
That being said, any of the disciplines [can lead to the CMIO position]. I’m on the board of the American College of Physician Executives, an organization of 10,000 physicians, and we have a training program for health information technology certification. Physicians in routine practices, physicians in large community practices or large multisystem practices come to learn what they need to be successful in health information technology. It’s a very diverse background. You really just need to have some basic information; to understand the clinical situation and then have some experience in change management. Physicians, by and large, if they have an interest, are certainly able to do this.
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