Kristin Darby, CIO, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Chapter 3

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

Chapter 3



* Rounding checklists

* Going through a “surprise” acquisition by Tenet

* 12 years with Fresenius — “I was able to dive very deep and understand that disease.”

* A portfolio of innovation

* From Boston to Arizona

* Work-life balance with 2 young children — “It’s a very supportive environment”



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Bold Statements

It really does create that personal connection that I think if individuals just stay in their office and focus only on their narrowed task responsibility, they don’t have the same level of engagement and purpose.

The normal portfolio of EHR optimization, ICD-10, and Meaningful Use — these are all things we do, but the personal enjoyment I get and what really excites me is being able to do things that I know directly affect the patient.

It’s an area of massive development right now from a scientific perspective where I think we’re very close to really turning this more and more into a chronic disease, and with all that development, there’s a significant amount of innovation opportunities.

That was incredibly attractive to me to know that when I see opportunity or my team has different ideas, we can actually bring it up within an organization that’s going to support us pursuing those types of innovations.

You become much more engaged, much more productive, and it really does give you naturally that balance. You’re flexing different muscles when you’re at work and engaged really in a different advanced level of knowledge, then we you go home it’s much more of the nurturing emotional connection with your children.

Gamble:  That’s really interesting and when you said that at first that there is some hesitancy, did you find that as soon as one person had a positive experience they’d share it with others, and that maybe they were surprised by what they experienced when they first started doing it?

Darby:  Absolutely. One of the things I gave them was just a checklist that takes two minutes to fill out. Every month when you go to do your rounding, it’s ‘did you hear any new ideas?’ ‘Were you able to solve a problem while you were rounding?’ Just different things like that that are very quick and easy. It’s amazing the little things that came out — simple things people could fix that they would see. We’ve made a significant amount of changes to workflows and to overall entertainment options for patients — different things that we wouldn’t have done if we weren’t out there actually listening to our customers. Those learnings, I think, really empower people because oftentimes it’s not advanced technology that’s needed; it’s just hearing the customer and tweaking something,