Jeff Sturman, SVP & CIO, Memorial Healthcare System, Chapter 2

When an organization gets a new leader, the inevitable questions faced are: “What’s your vision? Where are we going?” And it’s quite understandable. But if a leader wants to guide the health system in the right direction – and make sure the right pieces are in place to enable progress while also keeping the trains running on time – there is no immediate answer. At least, not until the CIO has taken the time “get to know your people,” according to Jeffrey Sturman.

When he assumed the role at Memorial Health last summer, his first task was to become familiarized with everyone from the internal IT team to operational leadership to vendors. And only then did he start to shape his vision.

Recently, Sturman spoke with healthsystemCIO about the key objectives his team has identified, why he returned to Memorial after six years in consulting (and how he hopes to leverage that experience), and how the organization is transitioning from a reactive to a proactive strategy when it comes to data security. Sturman also discusses the “people side” of project management, what he would’ve done differently during his first stint with Memorial, and what it takes to grow leaders.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Coming back to Memorial – “I missed the day-to-day operations.”

* Leading the selection & implementation of Epic

* 6 years in consulting

* Change management: “It’s more cultural than technical.”

* Bridging the gap between IT and operations

* First priority at Memorial: “Getting to know the people.”

* Value of CIO networks



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Bold Statements

I knew what I was getting into to some degree, but this was a much bigger animal; deploying Epic enterprise-wide at six hospitals and all the physician practices and ancillaries was a huge project

Bridging IT with operations was key. The whole change management program and change in culture was successful largely because of our ability to work so effectively with our clinical and business owners.

You have to know what someone is good at, and more importantly, what may not be their strength, and you have to judge and balance appropriately so that you can surround yourself with enough talent to move things forward.

We spend a lot of money, and I want to know where that money is going. I want to make sure our partners are truly what I would call ‘partners’ and are collaborating to make us successful.

Gamble:  You’ve been with the organization for about six months now, but you had previously been with Memorial a few years ago for a big chunk of time. What was it that brought you back to the organization?

Sturman:  Memorial is just a wonderful place. It’s a very family-oriented organization, and when you work here, as I did many years ago, it kind of gets in your blood. So from that standpoint, I feel like I have two families. I have my family at home — my wife and my kids — and they’re extraordinarily important to me, so part of it was getting to spend a little bit more time with them. But then I also have my family at Memorial, and I found that I missed the day-to-day operations and the leadership role of helping a healthcare system like Memorial move forward. So when I was thinking about the next stage of my career and what I really wanted to do it, it made sense to look at Memorial and see if the opportunities could align, and they did. I’m really fortunate that things did work out and I’m happy to be back here. It’s about professional development in terms of taking my career to the next level from a leadership standpoint,