Q&A with Dr. Patrick McGill, Part 2: Data Governance is “a lot of elbow grease and a lot of hard work.”

When Patrick McGill, MD, became involved in the Epic optimization initiative at Community Health Network, it was, admittedly, for “selfish” reasons. “I wanted to make Epic more efficient for me to maintain the practice I had,” said McGill, who already had a full plate as a family physician. “I wanted to have a seat at the table to make sure we didn’t lose what we had, and it just blossomed from there.”

Despite lacking a background in computer science or informatics, he was named Chief Analytics Officer in 2018, and has relished his time in the role. Recently, McGill spoke with healthsystemCIO about his core objectives to become a data-driven organization, maintain a solid data governance strategy, and leverage analytics to address social determinants of health.

He also talks about why CHN restructured to separate analytics from IT; how they’re partnering with community organizations and competing health systems to more effectively address social determinants; understand why gaps exist and identify strategies to address them; why having a well-rounded team with diverse backgrounds is critical; and how he’s leveraging analytic snapshots to tie his team’s work to the overall mission of the organization.

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Key Takeaways



* One of the key components of a data governance strategy is to establish consistent definitions, which can help ensure “consistency in reporting across different business units.”

* CHN created a Center of Excellence to serve as a “guiding light for analytics across the organization,” and develop capabilities for predictive modeling and machine learning.

* As CAO, McGill’s ultimate goal is to ensure analytics partners with business, clinical, and other departments to solve problems, rather than just being “the department that receives requests.”

* McGill’s most important advice for young physicians or executives? “Never close a door that opens for you, because you never know what it’s going to bring.”

* Building a “well-rounded team with diverse thinking, diverse backgrounds, and diverse personalities can make the whole team stronger,” especially when it comes to initiatives like digital transformation.





Q&A with Patrick McGill, MD, Part 2 [Click here to view Part 1]

Gamble:  Can you talk a little bit about the data governance model you have in place? There are so many different layers to it — how would you describe your strategy?

McGill:  That’s a great question. I know data governance means a lot of different things to different people. As an organization, I would say we’re probably closer to the infancy with data governance. Before I took on my role, this was not something we focused on or worked on at all as an organization. And so, once we got our feet underneath us and built some foundational, we’ve tried to start to focus on data governance.

Honestly, it starts with establishing consistent definitions across the organization around what a patient is. We have several different definitions for what is a patient and what is an encounter, and so we’ve come up with some basic data definitions so that we have consistency in reporting across different business units.

That’s where we started. We’ve also done some work on data quality and making sure we’re using good data in our reports and dashboards. We’ve taken a multi-disciplinary approach with data governance; there are business s...