Q&A with Health First VP and CIO Michael Carr: “Don’t Create Roadblocks.”

“Sometimes as technologists, we overplay the technology aspect.”

In today’s digitally driven world, one might think that statement was made in jest. But Michael Carr, CIO at Health First, is completely serious. During a recent conversation about his team’s core objectives at Health First – which include an Epic migration and planning new construction – he talked about the approach they’ve adopted and why he thinks it’s the best course.

“We wanted to find the right balance between cutting edge and fit for purpose,” he said, which means holding off on some promising solutions. “We’re trying to be budget-conscious while also offering a great experience.” The key, Carr noted, is being careful “not to overload it with technology.”

It’s a bold stance, but one that has served him well, both at Health First (where he became CIO in 2023 after spending three years as CTO/CISO), and in his prior experiences with Legacy Health and Providence Health. Throughout his career, his passion has been to help deliver the best possible tools and services, and doing so in a way that “really helps our clinicians do the right thing and is not a barrier.”

During the interview, Carr talked about how his team is able to achieve that balance while also striving to become a high-reliability organization; why it’s so important that initiatives are led primarily by clinicians rather than IT; the key difference between CIOs and CTOs; and the valuable lessons he learned while serving in the US Army.

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Bold Statements

‘Who’s going to make decisions for this workflow, this application, this position?’ We spent a lot of time thinking through who needs to be involved in those decisions, because we wanted those decisions to be made close to the work as possible

 ‘You’re the experts. You should be the ones to decide what the workflow looks like in the ED or in the OR.’ A lot of work has gone into the governance.

On the technology side, we’re looking at how do we modernize without having to get too creative? What is it going to look like when we have Epic there? What is it going to look like from the perspective of workflow and patient experience?

We want to find that right blend between cutting edge and fit for purpose. We want to be practical. We want it to be a great experience. Sometimes, I think as technologists, we overplay the technology aspect of that.

The realization was, we can do a lot. We can improve the experience for our patients and our members. We can provide better care. We can get in front of some of the things that tend to be dissatisfiers for patients or lead to poor outcomes.

My passion has always been around tools and services and creating an experience that helps our clinicians do the right thing and is not a barrier.

 

Q&A with Michael Carr, VP & CIO, Health First

Gamble:  Why don’t you give kind of a high-level overview of Health First — what you guys have in terms of hospitals, where you’re located, things like that?

Carr:  Sure. Health First is an integrated delivery network located in the space coast of Florida. We’re about an hour east of Orlando and primarily Brevard County. We have four hospitals. We have a 500-member physician group, and we have a health plan with a little more than 80,000 members. It’s starting to grow, not just in Brevard, but across central Florida and across the state.

 

Gamble:  Being located where you are, do you get a pretty decent seasonal population, or has it evened out somewhat?