Aaron Miri, CIO, Dell Medical School & UT Health Austin, Chapter 2

One of the most common pieces of advice offered by those in leadership positions is to take risks. Get out of your comfort zone. It’s solid guidance, and for the most part, isn’t difficult to follow — unless, of course, you’ve been on the losing end of a big gamble. In 2015, Aaron Miri accepted a leadership role with an organization that aimed to make patient care a luxury experience. But after just a few years, Walnut Hill Medical Center closed its doors due to financial troubles. For most, the experience would be enough to scare them away from risky moves.

Fortunately, Aaron Miri isn’t most people. Last summer, he assumed the CIO role at Dell Medical School at UT Health Austin, a cutting-edge organization that places a high value on value-based care, innovation, and using social determinants to improve care. For Miri, the opportunity to return to his home state of Texas and work alongside some of the brightest people in the industry was too good to pass up.

In this interview, he talks about why he was willing to take another leap of faith, why he’s a strong believer in ‘open-door leadership,’ and the importance of building a solid professional network.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* “Tethering” multiple missions together

* Board members Michael Dell & Karen DeSalvo – “I’m just so amazed with the caliber of individuals.”

* Focus on social determinants, value-based care

* Creating an IT road map: “How do you bring everyone together and get a consensus?”

* Vivek Murthy’s talk on loneliness

* Power of networking – “I lean on my academic CIOs all the time.”

* Governance as a major pillar

* A “true” open-door policy: “You have to get out of your office and talk to people.”



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Bold Statements

It’s understanding where we want to go and helping to plot that out by saying, ‘If we want to build a world-class simulation lab, let’s talk about it. Let’s partner with the key people out there doing these things. Let’s see what we can do with leveraging new technologies.’

We have people here who truly understand healthcare and are helping to blaze a trail with things like social determinants of health, value-based care — all these dynamics. We feel like the world is our oyster at this point.

There’s so much opportunity for trailblazing with this segment of a larger population. We’re all connected and we’re all intertwined — so how do we use technology in a way that enables that?

I lean on my network of other academic CIOs all the time to say, ‘I’m hearing this. What are you hearing at your shop? What’s going on there? What challenges do you have?’ It’s amazing how much symmetry there is between facilities.

Gamble:  So you’ve been in this role for about six months or so?

Miri:  That’s correct, about a half-year.

 

Gamble:  What has the adjustment been like? How have you worked to get to know the people and get to know the organization?

Miri:  A couple of things. Dell Medical School opened officially in 2016. It was a startup — it was hiring people and getting programs launched. So they started the school, then a year later, the practices opened up and grew like gangbusters. Then the research teams came together; they started to research some fantastic projects and major grants were awarded. We have these different missions — people traditionally call them divisions, but we call them ‘missions.’ These missions were growing, and they needed a CIO to tether it all together so we can begin to operationalize, make things efficient, and grow pragmatically.