Q&A with Atrium Health Floyd CIO Jeff Buda: Open Doors, Learning Curves and “Cutting the Cord”

“Transparency has always been very important to me.”

It’s not exactly a rare thing for an established healthcare IT leader to say. But Jeff Buda doesn’t just talk about being transparent; he has walked the walk throughout his 30-year career. For example, when Floyd Medical Center joined Atrium Health in June of 2021, his team was notified months in advance. And not just notified, but told in candid terms what it meant in terms of realignment, restructuring, and converting IT systems. “I’ve always had an open door so that if people had concerns, they could come in and feel comfortable expressing those.”

As the organization has continued to undergo changes — most notably, the merger of Atrium Health and Advocate Aurora Health, which created a 67-hospital system across six states — Buda has made communication a key facet of his strategy, whether it’s through asking questions, sharing observations, or the ‘Stump the CIO’ initiative that enables staff to ask questions anonymously.

Recently, Buda spoke with Kate Gamble, Managing Editor at healthsystemCIO, about his leadership philosophy — particularly when it comes to change management; how Floyd has leveraged Atrium’s resources and experience in rolling out and optimizing Epic; and why he’s a big believer in remote work.

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Key Takeaways



* Floyd Medical Center joined Atrium Health in June 2021, then experienced more change when Atrium merged with Advocate Aurora in 2022. “It tossed our salad again and put some things on hold as everybody figured out, what does this mean?’”

* Floyd went from having a “hodge-podge of systems” to implementing Epic and being able to deliver “a better patient experience from a portal and billing perspective” as well as virtual care technologies.”

* Buda’s team announced the decision to join Atrium to the staff “well before the transaction actually took place,” he said. “We were very transparent with our teams about what that means.”

* “Everyone is looking at AI with one eyebrow raised and trying to figure out, is there a place for it? Is it safe? What are the best places for it? How can it help us the most?”

* Buda’s key piece of advice for CIOs? “Ask a lot of questions. My philosophy has been for many years that we hire professionals to do a job. I’m not a micromanager. My approach is to let them do their job.”





Q&A with Jeff Buda, VP of Operations & CIO at Atrium Health Floyd

Gamble:  Hi Buda, thanks so much for your time. Just for some background, can you give an overview of Atrium Health Floyd — what you have in terms of hospitals and where you’re located, things like that?

Buda:  Atrium Health Floyd has three hospitals: two in the northwest corner of Georgia and one across the state line in northeast Alabama. The main campus is about 304 beds; the others are a 25-bed critical access hospital and 60-bed facility. A little over two years ago, we joined Atrium Health, and then about 8 months ago Atrium combined with Advocate, and so, we are now part of the fifth largest health system in the US.

 

Gamble:  That’s big. Now, does that work in terms of the reporting structure? Do you report to Atrium’s Health IT office?

Buda:  So, a lot of things are changing right now. I report to Andy Crowder, who is CIO for the Southeast Region of Advocate, and he reports to Bobbie Byrne, Advocate’s Enterprise CIO. I actually have a dual reporting relationship where I report to both Andy and our local CEO.

 

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