Kathryn Crous, Network CIO, Kings County Hospital, NYC Health & Hospitals, Chapter 3

Most CIOs deal with a great deal of complexity, but what Kathryn took on when she started with Kings County Hospital nearly a year ago takes it to another level. The hospital is part of NYC Health & Hospitals, which recently began an organization-wide conversion to Epic, while at the same time going through a major governance transition. Adding to it is the fact that NYC H+H is a public system, meaning all leaders report to the mayor’s office. In this interview, Crous talks about what it’s like to lead through change, the advantage she had in having to “test drive” the organization as a consultant first, and her thoughts on the evolution of patient engagement. She also discusses her leadership mantra — “listen twice as much as you speak,” her interest in EMR forensics, and why healthcare shouldn’t be compared to other industries.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3



* Her mantra: “Listen twice as much as you speak.”

* EMR forensics consulting — “Taking complexities out and making it simple.”

* Understanding the architecture of EMRs

* Building a bridge between IT and clinical

* CIO’s role in strategic & business planning

* “Biology isn’t as predictable as dollars and cents.”

* Patient engagement’s evolution



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Bold Statements

Listen more than you speak, and make sure that you have a good answer with several options. Many times people think there’s only one direction to take, but if you listen and really understand the problem, simplify it, and explain it in a way that people can understand, I think that’s really helpful.

How things look in the system and how things print out in paper are so very different. What the date and time stamps mean and how the data got into that format — all of that complexity, most people can’t explain, because they know a piece of it but not the entire architecture of how the technology works.

If you don’t have the healthcare background, you really need to bring in some trusted leaders that will give you the truth and honesty about what’s going on in the environment, because people’s lives are at stake.

The more that family or caregivers can participate, I think the better outcomes we’re going to have. I love the fact that patients are becoming much more engaged and that we’re really reaching out to them and trying to make it a better experience.

Gamble:  So really your strategy was to kind of just build trust over time and establish yourself and show what you could do and kind of let things go from there?

Crous:  Sure. One of the mantras in my life has been there’s a reason we’ve been given two ears and one mouth — so that we listen twice as much as we speak. I remember when I was the CIO at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. We had a core leadership team that would meet regularly and I didn’t speak a lot; I would always speak up when I felt it was necessary, and one of my counterparts that was at North Shore University Hospital always said that when I spoke up, everybody listened, because they knew I wasn’t just going to bloviate and talk about something unnecessary.

I bring that strategy to every place that I go — whether I’m a consultant or a permanent employee — to listen more than you speak, and make sure that you have a good answer with several options. I think many times people think there’s only one direction to take, but if you listen and really understand the problem, simplify it,