George Hickman, EVP & CIO, Albany Medical Center, Chapter 1

Whenever an organization’s core vendor is acquired, there’s going to be some trepidation. But when a CIO has the opportunity to sit down with leaders and talk about the intended roadmap, those fears can be quickly assuaged — especially when that group includes John Glaser and Kent Gale. In this interview, veteran CIO George Hickman discusses his feelings on the Siemens-Cerner merger, why his organization is happy to serve as a reference site, and what has helped NY’s HIE remain successful. He also talks about the prioritization challenges facing CIOs (which he handles using a Ouija board), the “Henry Kissinger skills” he picked up as a consultant, and the road that took him to Albany.

Chapter 1



* About Albany Medical Center

* Being a Soarian development site — “There were a lot of fits and starts.”

* Siemens-Cerner merger

* “There’s a direction there and an investment pattern that’s going to continue.”

* Meeting with John Glaser & Kent Gale — “They gave us an early preview of the intended roadmap.”



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Bold Statements

There were a lot of fits and starts in the early days, as is usually the case when you’re trying to do something brand new.

There’s a direction there and an investment pattern that’s going to continue for at least 10 years. I think that’s a very important position for Cerner to have taken if you consider that many organizations are fairly new in their implementations.

I think the general feeling walking out of the room by our senior management team was that this is a very good thing for us. We were working with a company that was under international ownership and the HIT piece of that company was a very, very small piece of its business, and perhaps one that it wouldn’t emphasize.

We were glad to see that it was Cerner that made the acquisition, and I will say also that their leadership has very much engaged here and have likewise been very good to engage me and others in what we consider a very important directional conversations.

Gamble:  Hi George, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.

Hickman:  Hi Kate, thanks for inviting me to do so.

Gamble:  Sure.  So to give our readers and listeners some background, can you just talk a little bit about Albany Medical Center — what you have in terms of bed size, ambulatory, where you’re located, things like that?

Hickman:  I’d be glad to. Albany Medical Center is located in Albany, New York, which is the capital of New York State and we play a unique role to this region of upstate New York. We serve, as our primary catchment, about 25 counties.  We’re the only academic health science center in the region. We’re the largest acute care hospital, right now standing somewhere between 750 and 800 beds, given that number keeps changing; we keep opening beds.

We’re the area’s only level 1 trauma center and one of the busiest trauma centers in New York State. We have a helicopter transport. We’re the region’s only children’s hospital. We have the region’s only level 4 NICU, the only PICU, the only children’s cancer center, and the region’s only pediatric-trained general surgeons, heart surgeons, and neurosurgeons. We have an organ transplant program. We are a state-designated AIDS treatments center and we like to refer to ourselves as the hospital to other hospitals. Our transfer rate between 2004 and 2014, from other hospital providers to us has grown more than 200 percent in that span. So, I’d just say, in short, we are kind of the tertiary and quaternary services provider for 25 counties of New York State.

Gamble:  And now as part of that you also have the medical college and a physician’s group?

Hickman:  That’s true. Albany Medical Center has two hospital campuses.