Cletis Earle, VP & CIO, Kaleida Health, Chapter 1

He’s been in the news recently for his advocacy efforts, but if you know Cletis Earle, you know it’s just one of the many passions that drives him. In addition to heading up CHIME’s diversity initiative along with Liz Johnson and Myra Davis, he’s set to begin a term as Board Chair in 2018. On top of that, Earle is one year into the CIO role at Kaleida Health, an organization that’s going through a period of rapid growth. Recently, he spoke with healthsystemCIO.com about the “adapt and adopt” approach he brought as the new CIO, why leaders need to not just think outside the box, but traditional healthcare when it comes to population health, and why he believes we’ve entered a “new day” with cyber warfare. Earle also shares his thoughts on how his team is looking to “tap into the social experience” with patients, and how the CIO role will continue to evolve.

Chapter 1



* About Kaleida

* Bringing 6 facilities on board

* “IT is a major staple in how these organizations are going to operate.”

* Cerner as core vendor, affiliates using multiple EHRs: “We’re figuring out how to connect all the systems.”

* Getting his “sea legs” as the new CIO

* Adapt & adopt

* NY’s DISRP initiative



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Bold Statements

I think this organization is a perfect example of how healthcare is going to mature as we move into the value-based world; in essence, not necessarily as one component of healthcare from a particular provider, but multitudes of different providers, and how they’re going to collaborate.

The rationale in growing is that you can have a more robust clinical care paradigm, and in order to do that, your systems have to talk to each other. From the core infrastructure to the application layer, the systems have to uniquely be integrated.

When you come on board a new organization, you have to find out exactly what’s going on, how’s it operating, and what kind of enhancements you’re going to do if things need to be changed. And on top of that, you have to continue to align yourself with the business strategy.

The biggest thing you really have to tackle is different cultures; understanding the culture and being astute enough to take notice of how an organization operates, and be able to adopt.

If you’re able to establish a good trust factor, then you can almost ensure success. But it takes time to get that trust up.

Gamble:  Hi Cletis, thank you for taking some time to speak with us today.

Earle:  Thank you, it’s always a pleasure.

Gamble:  Since we last spoke, you started a new role with Kaleida Health. So I think the best thing to do is to get some basic information about the organization in terms of size, where you’re located, things like that.

Earle:  Kaleida Health is a comprehensive integrated delivery network with approximately 12 to 13 different types of facilities. We are affiliated with multiple organizations in some way, shape, or form throughout the western New York/Northwest Pennsylvania region. Kaleida is the largest healthcare facility in New York City, to be practical, outside of Westchester. So we represent a wide variety of services throughout the community.

It’s exciting. As this organization has grown exponentially since I’ve arrived, and as we continue to grow, there are, in my opinion, a couple of organizations that are going to be left standing within the healthcare segment: those that are being acquired or those that are doing the acquiring. The leadership at Kaleida has decided to be acquiring side, and that’s actually very beneficial.

We’ve done a considerable amount of collaboration. Interestingly enough, with how Kaleida operates, we are collectively involved in multiple joint ventures,