Michael Marino, Chief of IS Operations, Providence St. Joseph Health, Chapter 2

Every career has a pivotal moment. For Michael Marino, it was a lunch meeting with the CEO of St. Joseph Health four years ago, during which she asked if he wanted to serve as CMIO. Marino, then CMO at St. Jude Medical Center, knew it wouldn’t be easy; the system was using nine different instances of Meditech. But he accepted the challenge, and now he faces another in leading St. Joseph through the merger with Providence that become official last summer. In this interview, Marino talks about having an “evolving” IT governance structure, the work they’re doing with predictive analytics, why leaders can never stop learning, and the fine line CIOs must walk in balancing consumerism with the burden placed on clinicians.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Focus on patient engagement

* “They don’t just want the Marcus Welby experience anymore.”

* Working with big vendors & small startups — “You’ve got to be agile.”

* Predictive analytics pilots

* Managing clinician expectations — “They’re tired of us crying wolf.”

* Creating new care models through the Mental Health Initiative

* The clinician burnout crisis — “You’ve got to feed and water the horses.”



LISTEN NOW USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR iTUNES PODCAST FEED

Bold Statements

Consumers just don’t want the Marcus Welby experience anymore. They want care where they want it, when they want it, how they want it. You can’t do it one way. And so we have to make sure we have the technologies to support that.

It’s much different to manage that relationship and work with a behemoth like Epic or Meditech that’s very structured. You’ve got to be agile and be able to work in both spaces if you’re going to be in leadership in IT these days.

The science is getting pretty sharp, but what do you do with that crystal ball experience if you don’t know what the intervention is? Do you really want to know that you have an 85 percent chance of having a heart attack in the next months if the doctors don’t know what to do to keep it from happening?

If I went into a room with 50 directors of emergency departments and asked what’s your one wish, it would be having psychiatry when they need it.

The push from the marketplace is to get more and more data from the consumers and respond to the consumer need. But if you don’t care for and feed the core people doing the work and respond to their needs, eventually, you’ll have a revolt. You’ve got to feed and water the horses.

Gamble:  What would you say are the biggest priorities on your plate looking at 2017?

Marino:  You can put them in two buckets. We have the core things that we need to do from an integration standpoint because of the merger, but more importantly, the technology space is rapidly changing. We’re looking at innovation partners where people have been using the EHRs now, depending on the hospital, for 10 years. That’s great, but people need other things to change the care. And at the same time, consumers just don’t want the Marcus Welby experience anymore. They want care where they want it, when they want it, how they want it. You can’t do it one way. And so we have to make sure we have the technologies to support that. For example, patient engagement platforms that expand on the original portal idea that was an MU driver — telehealth that is both physician to physician and consumer-driven, and being able to do something that sounds simplistic in every other part of the world except healthcare: scheduling online. I change my flight on the fly in the airport on my cell phone, but I have to wait on hold to go see my PCP once a year.

Gamble:  Right.

Marino:  So we’re working the merger,