Q&A with UPMC’s Chris Carmody: Healthcare’s “Target,” Cloud-based Analytics & Changing Care Pathways

As the role of the Chief Technology Officer becomes increasingly strategic, the skillset needed to succeed has evolved significantly. But the most important aspect of the position has nothing to do with technology, according to Chris Carmody.

“You have to be able to listen,” he said during a recent interview with Kate Gamble, Managing Editor and Director of Social Media. “Shut your mouth and let your stakeholders tell you, ‘here’s where we can get better,’ and ‘here’s where we need help.’” It’s a philosophy that has served Carmody well at UPMC, where he has held various IT roles for the past 25 years.

During the discussion, he talked about his most pressing objectives, one being the effort to migrate analytics to the cloud, which he believes will help “create a new data layer to apply our current tools and technologies,” and provide the scale needed to fully leverage tools like predictive modeling to improve care. Carmody also discussed the importance of being “tied to the hip” with key leaders such as the CISO and chief data and analytics officer; the “rigid” policy to help protect against third-party breaches; and why he has stayed in healthcare.

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Key Takeaways:



* On the CTO role: “You have to be able to juggle many balls in the air, and at the same time be available and be the person who can do the blocking and tackling so that leaders and teams can do their jobs most effectively.”

* On engaging with clinical, operational, and executive leadership: “You have all these great inputs and I think that makes us successful. I think it helps minimize and mitigate our risks because we’re not making decisions just for IT sake, we’re making decision that are best for our patients, for our health plan members, for our users, our clinicians, and staff across the many different business units of UPMC.

* On migrating analytics to the cloud: “We’re moving to cloud-based technology to really help us scale and grow and really accelerate those insights and place them back at the point of care where clinicians can take action on them.

* On third-party risk management: “Third-party breaches are very high up on the list for healthcare organizations because we do rely upon other companies and technologies to help deliver patient care or support our operations so it’s very important that we stay on top of that and establish the right partnerships.

* On healthcare’s bright future: “We’re transforming healthcare into a more consumer-centric service industry to give consumers options about how, when, and most interestingly, where they received their care. It couldn’t be done without technology.”





Q&A with Chris Carmody, SVP & CTO, UPMC

Gamble:  Hi Chris, thanks so much for putting aside some time to speak. I look forward to talking about your role at UPMC and what you’re doing. You’re the CTO, correct?

Carmody:  Yes. I’m CTO for all of UPMC and responsible for a pretty large component of the IT organization. Obviously, your traditional CTO role is usually responsible for the infrastructure and the architecture teams which I am, but my scope of responsibilities also includes cybersecurity, about four of our nine current EHRs in all the hospital regions and outpatient and ambulatory sites domestically, the corporate applications like the HR systems, finance, supply chain, interoperability solutions — for which we use DBMotion to connect all those disparate clinical and ancillary systems, along with our enterprise project management office, help desk, and PC support.