Jessica Cornelius, CIO, Hendricks Regional Health, Chapter 2

The difference between being a management consultant and a permanent CIO is big. In fact, Jessica Cornelius compares it being a plane that goes from 50,000 feet to 10,000 feet. “There are things you see,” she says. “It’s been more work than I ever anticipated, but it’s been extremely rewarding.” In this interview, Cornelius talks about the huge lift required to upgrade a 15-year-old infrastructure, the key component in change management, and how she’s working to transition the organization out of “break-fix” mode and into value-add mode. She also discusses Hendricks Regional’s biggest priorities for 2017, the importance of having mentors that give honest feedback, and her key takeaway from CIO Boot Camp.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Focus on systems & applications in 2017

* Getting “out of break-fix mode”

* From a large academic to a community hospital — “There’s more agility there.”

* Keys to leadership: listen & stay engaged

* Mentoring — “The relationship has to be organic.”

* Advancing women in health IT

* Lessons learned from CIO Boot camp



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Bold Statements

The role of IT is changing, so we’re looking at how do we change the look and feel of our IT departments to match these initiatives? It’s getting out of that break-fix, commodity work and moving to that value-add working as liaisons in the organization.

When you’re flying at 50,000 feet, once you get down to 10,000 there are things that you find. So there it has been a challenge, and it’s been more work than I ever anticipated. But it’s been extremely rewarding

It’s important that leaders are always getting constructive feedback. My best relationships have been where people don’t tell me that I do everything perfect and it’s all great and pat me on the back, but tell me what I need to improve on.

There are times that we make mistakes in our careers and wish we had done things may be a little bit differently, and I think that trust carries you through those times. ‘Yes, this happened, but this is what we can do to correct this, or this is what we may do differently next time.’ I really value having that trust.

Saying that we’ll only work 9-to-5 is a little naïve. It’s not what IT is. We support patients and work 24/7. And so knowing when to take that downtime and making sure that you don’t miss the personal things in your life and making that time for family is really, really important.

Gamble:  What are some of the other big priorities that you have right now?

Cornelius:  This year we focused on all the infrastructure projects that I talked about. For next year, we’re really be focusing on systems and applications. The EMR assessment is a big one for us. We’ll make a decision by the end of 2016, and in 2017 we’ll look to implement. Whatever decision the organization makes, that’s what we’ll go with.

We’re also looking at business systems. We’re looking at an enterprise resource planning system, and we recognize as we look at the EMR, we have to assess our business systems as well. So we’re doing that. We would plan to run these projects in parallel and that assessment process is going on right now for the ERP.

I had mentioned voiceover IP — we’re in that assessment phase, so we will look to implement in 2017 as well. As we look at all of these projects, the role of IT is changing, so we’re looking at how do we change the look and feel of our IT departments to match these initiatives? It’s really getting out of that break-fix, commodity work and moving to that value-add working as liaisons in the organization — getting out of the basement, so to speak.