CMIO Roundtable, Part 1: Getting To The Root Of Physician Burnout

It’s amazing. You can find four CMIOs (three currently in the role and one retired) from four very different organizations, but the primary goal is the same: to help accelerate EHR implementation and guide optimization to ensure that systems are being utilized to their full potential, all while seeking to prevent physician burnout.

It’s a rather lofty goal, and it requires an individual with solid interpersonal and communication skills, participating in strategic planning, a solid understanding of the business, and of course, a strong knowledge of both the IT and clinical departments. It takes a certain type to fill this role, and we found four of the best in the industry — Maia Hightower, Brian Patty, Stan Huff, and George Reynolds — to talk about the challenges they face as CMIOs, how the role has evolved, and the skillsets all health IT leaders will need going forward.

In this three-part roundtable discussion, we’ll discuss why it’s critical to get to the root of physician burnout and dissatisfaction; the balancing act CMIOs have in working with vendors to determine where responsibilities fall; the need to act as a bridge between IT and clinicians; how the role of CMIO has gone from “checking boxes” to focusing on the health and well-being of patients; and it comes down to 90 percent communication, 10 percent technical.

Chapter 1



* 4 CMIOs, 4 different environments

* The “time warp” of going from value-based care to fee-for-service

* CHIO/CMIO model at Intermountain

* Getting to the root of burnout — “It’s driven by a sense of powerlessness.”

* Focus on “architecture and interoperability”

* End-of-migration dilemma: What do we do next?



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Bold Statements

The EMR often is blamed for physician burnout, and I think that’s not fair. There are many driving factors and there are a lot of changes coming our physicians’ way.

It’s a very targeted strategy, whether it’s providing resources to help the clinician become better at using the EMR, eliminating some of the wasteful clicks when it comes to our clinical decision support governance and how we govern alerts, or transforming of the care delivery model to really utilize our whole care teams.

Between the regulatory burdens, documentation requirements, and all of the external constraints that are placed on physicians today, they feel disconnected from the original mission of why they became doctors to begin with. They feel more like cogs in the system.

We now have to transition from an organization that was optimized for configuring and implementing the system and training docs to saying, ‘how do we now enhance the system to make it useful and productive, and to increase productivity rather than decrease productivity?’

Gamble:  Thank you so much to all of you for joining us. I think it’s going to be very interesting to hear about how where the CMIO role stands, along with some of the challenges you face and the really pressing matters on your plates. Let’s start by identifying everyone who is here.

Maia Hightower:  I’m at the University of Iowa Health Care and I’ve been here for a little over two years now. We’re the only academic medical center in the state of Iowa, so we provide tertiary and quaternary care to the state. We have a little over 750 beds (licensed for 800), and we have an adult and a pediatric hospital, as well as a psychiatric hospital. We provide ambulatory service as well to the surrounding Johnson County area.

Brian Patty:  I’m the CMIO at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. I’ve been there about two and a half years now. Prior to that, I was CMIO at HealthEast Care System in the Twin Cities. So I had a little bit of culture shock going from a market where ...