Scott Vachon, Director of IT, Littleton Regional Hospital, Chapter 2

Like any health IT leader, Scott Vachon has quite a few burners going, whether it’s leading his team through a major transition, crafting an effective cybersecurity strategy, or the ever-evolving quest to improve user experience. And although all of these areas are exciting, what he loves most about his role is “creating future leaders.” Vachon, who has had the opportunity to learn from industry icons like Liz Johnson and Tim Stettheimer, is giving back by offering his services to others in hopes of helping them to reach their goals.

In this interview, Vachon talks the key role leadership has played as Littleton Regional has become part of North Country HealthCare, how they’re working toward the goal of providing a “holistic community support system,” why he’ll never be satisfied when it comes to cybersecurity, and what he learned during his time with the US Marines.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Process improvement training – “Everyone is empowered”

* Focus on workflow efficiency

* Past experiences in security, consulting

* “It’s great to design projects, but my favorite thing is to create future leaders.”

* His CIO mentors

* Finding “hidden gems”

* Military background – “It was leadership 101”



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Bold Statements

Everyone is empowered to raise their hand and say, ‘I think we can do this better. I think we can do it more efficiently, and here’s how I think we can do it.’

I lead beside the people that I’m working with. I’m part of their team, and my job is to point them in the direction and then get the obstacles out of their way.

Any tool I can give you to be successful, I’m going to give. And if you have a desire to move up in your role, I’m going to make sure that happens, because I’ve had that opportunity for myself.

Sometimes I’ll push them a little bit out of their comfort zone. Not too much; not enough to stress them out, but enough to show them that if they can face some of those fears they have — if they can get past them, they’re going to turn those fears into strengths.

The amount of data that’s available is overwhelming, and so we’re going to need to leverage that in order to make smarter decisions, and analytics is absolutely a part of that.

Gamble:  Another area I want to get into is process improvement. What’s your philosophy as far as increasing efficiencies wherever possible? I’m sure that’s really important in a smaller organization.

Vachon:  Absolutely. We have lean training that’s been provided and continues to be provided throughout our organization. I think the greatest part of it is that everyone is empowered to raise their hand and say, ‘I think we can do this better. I think we can do it more efficiently, and here’s how I think we can do it.’ Teams come together, take a look at it, and figure out what the investment might be, what the return is going to be, and then they move ahead and implement it.

That’s one of the reasons why I love where I work — your voice can always be heard, and people trust you enough to act on your suggestion. I can’t point to any one department in particular that does it better than the others. Everyone just goes about doing their business every day. It’s really exciting to work in that type of environment.

 

Gamble:  Has it always been ingrained in the organization’s philosophy, or was it something that was introduced at a certain time?

Vachon:  It’s a combination. Probably three or four years ago, it became an organizational initiative, but I think that’s because the right people were hired who came fr...