Kristin Darby, CIO, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Chapter 2

When Kristin Darby first considered the CIO position at Cancer Treatment Centers of America, she was intrigued by idea of being able to dip deep into cancer research and leverage technology to improve outcomes. But what really drew her in was the organization’s focus on patient-centered care and its commitment to innovation. Just over a year in, Darby is long past the getting her feet wet stage. As part of CTCA’s ultimate goal of personalizing cancer care, her team is rebuilding the analytics platform to more effectively harness data, and is utilizing the portal to educate and empower patients. In this interview, she talks about these projects, as well as how rounding has dramatically increased staff engagement, and how she manages the juggling act of being a CIO with two young children.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Patient engagement & entertainment platform

* Personalized treatment

* Rebuilding analytics — “It requires a heavy IT investment.”

* Using consultants

* Staff engagement — “It’s incredibly important to me.”

* Rounding & face-to-face talks to “feel the pulse of the facility.”



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Bold Statements

We want to make sure patients understand that through the science and the technology options that we have available, we can bring them into that care team in a way that truly does empower them to contribute positively to their outcomes.

It requires a heavy information technology investment and analytics to be able to deliver this to physicians at the bedside at a point that really provides them the information in a consumable manner.

We want to ensure we have an architecture that’s very nimble and can adopt as there continue to be new discoveries. What we’re reacting to today maybe different two years from now, and we want to make sure we have an architecture that enables us to shift as quickly as the science and the business demands.

As a leader, one of the things that I value most is having a team that loves what they do; that wakes up and cannot wait to get to work because they’re working on things that are so challenging, inspiring, and really give them purpose.

When you start to understand different patient journeys and understand our care provider process, you can then start to understand the connections between the work that you perform and provide, and how that connects to the overall service offering within the healthcare industry.

Darby:  One of the other things we’re in the process of doing is deepening our understanding. We’ve spent the last few months of reflecting on what does a patient value, and it’s recognizing that everyone has different preferences. Some demographic groups might prefer that personal one-on-one interaction, where millennials, for example, might prefer more of an electronic communication that’s not as much a one-on-one interaction. We want to make sure our patients are receiving a personalized interaction based on their preferences. And so as we start to deepen our understanding around that, one of the things we’re in the process of doing is implementing a new patient engagement and entertainment platform that will enable us to continue our journey around maximizing patient engagement but also enabling the personalized medicine journey that we’re on to start to resonate in a way that can be personalized for patients.

Basically what we’re looking to do is when a patient comes to our facility, whether they’re in an infusion room, in an inpatient room, or in the cafeteria on their own personal smartphone or iPad, that they have access to our platform,