Podcast Interview with CTO Chuck Christian, Part 1: “We’ve Learned Together.”

As healthcare IT leaders grapple with the day-to-day challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, while keeping a close eye on the strategic goals established by the organization, it’s important to ask this question: “How much change can an organization consume at one time?”

For Chuck Christian, who is VP of Technology at Franciscan Health, it’s become clear that some initiatives need to be put on hold — or at least, decelerated — to enable the IT staff to focus on what matters most: responding to the needs of providers. Recently, healthsystemCIO spoke with Christian about how the leadership team at Franciscan, a 12-hospital system based in Indiana, is prioritizing to ensure patient care is front and center, while also keeping the trains running. He also talks about his core objectives as VP of Technology, what it takes to lead during a crisis, and the lasting effect COVID-19 will have on the industry.

Part 1



* About Franciscan (12-hospital, faith-based system providing care in Indiana, Illinois & Michigan)

* Reorganizing the IT department

* Main priorities: lead technology & structure the department for success

* Bringing in VPs of innovation and analytics to “do things we’ve never done.”

* Dividing and conquering during COVID-19: “It was the perfect storm of expertise and experience we needed.”

* Limited downtown during Epic upgrade

* Managed services through Virtustream – “It’s more of a tango than a waltz.”

* Focus on remote work



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Bold Statements

We’re doing architect and design work a little bit differently than I’ve done before, and so I’ve taken on more of a consulting role to work with those folks.

There was a lot of conversation and debate, but because of the way we orchestrated it, the only downtime our end users experienced was about two hours and 40 minutes. That’s pretty good.

Our instances of ServiceNow are integrated so that if we put in a ticket on our side that should go to them, it goes right to them. It’s like a dance, but it’s more of a well-done tango than a waltz.

How do we do that better? How do we leverage the tools Epic has and our own workflow expertise in order to limit some of the work and actually let the tools do the work themselves?

That’s what we’re looking at: how do we care for our patients and how do we look at what services are going to be essential? What do we need to do? What do we need not to do?

Gamble:  Since the last time we spoke, you took on a new role as CTO at Franciscan. Can you tell us a bit about the organization?

Christian:  Sure. Franciscan is a Catholic organization. It was started by the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration about 150 years ago. Our corporate office is in Mishawaka, Indiana, which is right next to South Bend. We have 12 hospitals and more than 400 locations, including imaging centers, lab draws and physician practices located mostly west side of Indiana, all the way to south Chicago and into southern Michigan.

We have two data centers: one in Beech Grove, where my office is, and one in Lafayette. We’ve done some outsourcing. When I got here last year, one of the first things I did was move our Epic instance to Virtustream, which is a Dell company. That was the last gift that Bill Aker, who was the CIO before Charles Wagner, gave to Franciscan. Before he retired, he signed the agreement to host Epic remotely. We did that in May or June of last year.

Our primary data is in Sterling, Va., with the second in Las Vegas.