Podcast Q&A with CDO Edmondo Robinson, Part 1: “Digital Powers Our Strategy.”

When faced with a major crisis, leaders have two choices. The first is to concentrate all resources on survival, doing whatever it takes to stay afloat. The second is to focus on surviving, while simultaneously figuring how to apply lessons learned going forward.

Edmondo Robinson, MD, falls into the latter category. Thanks to the solid foundation that had been established at Moffitt Cancer Center, the Covid-19 pandemic served as “an impetus for change and innovation,” and led to reimagining of the strategy in many areas, including patient-centric care.

Recently, Dr. Robinson spoke with Kate Gamble, Managing Director at healthsystemCIO, about how they’re restructuring to bring three core components — IT, data, and innovation — under one umbrella to ensure digital enables, accelerates and drive the strategy forward. He also discussed the vision Moffitt has to bake AI into “everything we do in cancer care,” the mission that drew him to the organization two years ago, and why being a CDO can feel “daunting.”

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Key Takeaways



* Staying true to Moffitt’s core mission of preventing and curing cancer “is what drives our strategic decisions. It’s what motivates us.”

* One of the challenges in pivoting quickly to remote work and virtual visits was keeping data safe — not just patient data, but research and team member data — without “hindering our ability to collaborate.”

* Prior to the pandemic, Moffitt had begun a strategic refresh to determine what changes were needed to support the rapidly growing organization and ensure the infrastructure was strong enough.

* When disaster strikes, leaders have two choices: focus only on survival, or focusing on growing from change and leveraging those lessons to come out “smarter, stronger, and further along.”

* The Center for Digital Health is “the physical or operational embodiment of the concept of digital accelerating and enabling the strategy.”





Q&A with Edmondo Robinson, MD, Part 1

Gamble:  Hi Dr. Robinson, I look forward to talking about everything your team is doing, especially with the Center for Digital Health. But first, can you give a high-level overview of Moffitt Cancer Center?

Robinson:  At a high level, it’s really all about our mission. Our mission is pretty straightforward; it’s the prevention and cure of cancer. It’s daunting, but that’s what we’re really about. Healthcare organizations always say they’re mission-driven, and they try to be, but it’s tangible. It’s what we are; it’s who we are. Especially when it comes to the Center for Digital Health and what we do on the digital side, staying true to that mission is what drives our strategic decisions. That’s what motivates us, and what we’re focused on. Everything we do should be aligned toward that mission of preventing and curing cancer.

 

Gamble:  Right. So, you started with the organization pretty quickly after Covid-19 hit, correct?

Robinson:  Yes. I started December of 2019, so I only had a few months before we were thrown into the deep end of the pool.

 

Gamble:  Can you talk about how the team was able to pivot and try to find a way to meet patients’ needs?

Robinson:  ‘Pivot’ is putting it nicely in terms of how we had to respond to the pandemic. I was brand new, and we were building our IT shop, which is part of the Center for Digital Health. The Center includes the IT team, as well as health data services and digital innovation. The digital innovation department didn’t exist then. IT was in the beginning of a rebuild,