CIO Insights: How to Pursue Big Technology Opportunities and Satisfaction

Phil Sobol:

Welcome to the Cerecore Podcast where we focus on the intersection of healthcare and IT. From practical conversations to strategic thought leadership, let's unpack the decisions, challenges, and journey of those whose purpose it is to deliver technology that improves healthcare in their communities.

Today we're pleased to welcome to the Cerecore podcast, Kevin Olson. Kevin is the Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Jupiter Medical Center. A healthcare IT leader for more than 20 years, he has navigated the complexities of healthcare IT in a variety of health systems, including a large not-for-profit academic health system in Oklahoma and currently at Jupiter. Jupiter Medical Center has earned recognition as a top general hospital by the Leapfrog group in 2023, serving the populations in and around Jupiter, Florida. Kevin began his career in healthcare administration during his military service early on as an active duty flyer and later in cyber security. Kevin, welcome to the Cerecore podcast.

Kevin Olson:

Thanks, Phil. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Phil Sobol:

Well, it's our pleasure. And we touched a little bit in the intro on your military service. Did you happen to stumble into healthcare and technology in the military or was that always an interest for you?

Kevin Olson:

Well, a little bit of an interest beforehand, but I married into a healthcare family. So I had done, you mentioned it, flying around the world on AWACS. Then I pursued a masters in health administration, and then I went into medical service school in the military and ended up finalizing my career in cyber. But there's always something about sitting on the front porch of your in-laws house talking about world hunger and how to solve healthcare problems.

So it was really kind of one of those deals where one thing led to another. I have always done IT. Like I said, I pursued a masters in health administration. I was like, "Well, should I stick in IT or go down this ops?". I stuck it out obviously on the IT side. So that's the backstory there.

Phil Sobol:

Oh, that's fantastic. So perhaps the biggest technology news that's come out of Jupiter Medical Center recently is that you've recently completed an EPIC implementation, but this isn't your first. You've been through another, or at least another EHR platform migration. So maybe share with our audience, what's the difference between this implementation and others, and maybe some of the biggest challenges and opportunities that you've encountered during those transitions.

Kevin Olson:

Sure. When I first arrived at Jupiter Medical Center in 2020, I came across all these fragmented systems. So we had one platform for the inpatient side, another one for the ambulatory side, a product for registration, another one for billing. And from a patient experience standpoint, it was pretty fragmented with a capital F. So I'm going to take that at a provider level. It was complex.

And so I think it's a couple of things, this one. Going and having the opportunity to unify things from that world that we had in 2020 before is a big deal. And so I think we're three months into this now, and that remains to be... It's not so much a technology play, but it's more human behavior, following standards, processes. Because now you shine a light on those processes, they've had to latch together over those multiple years. So that's probably been the biggest opportunity.  I would say that's probably number one.

But then we also went into the AWS world. So I think we were the first ones to go as direct non-prod and production into a AWS environment. Everybody else has done a transition from a migration standpoint of their legacy data center and so forth. So that was a little bit of a new one, but I think at the end of the day, it's like this is where we're going.

Phil Sobol:

No, that's outstanding. We've had the privilege of being a partner of yours now for a few years with Level One Service Desk, some Epic IT staffing advisory services, ultimately with the end game being the support of the physician and clinician community. And so from your perspective, what's the most important factor or factors in maintaining that high physician satisfaction when it comes to delivering IT systems?

Kevin Olson:

Yeah, no, it's a great question. I have this little pyramid I show at staff meetings or other forums where it's kind of like infrastructure, cybersecurity, core applications, and the patient's at the top of it. Right below that is the provider. So we've kind of worked our way up that stack over the course of the last several years. But along that way, even though maybe sometimes technology... You don't get the infrastructure stuff too much with the physicians, but you want that input though to hear, "Hey, if we do X, Y, Z, it's going to impact the provider." Whatever matter might impact them. So I think having that kind of in the forefront of those decisions that you make is really, really crucial. 

And so again, the Epic decision, pretty straightforward when you think about that experience for the provider and for the patient. So I think that was right at there at the top of the list. I just came from meeting this morning with a physician. He's actually on our board talking about he's independent and talking about, "Hey, do we deploy Epic out to his practice through the Community Connect program?" So we're already starting some of that traction there. So that's pretty exciting stuff.

And I can't forget this one. This is where the CereCore relationship with JMC. So we kind of fumble back and forth what are we going to do with our contact center? We have to do something there because it's legacy. Well, CereCore went with AWS. We kind of learned from you guys, the good, bad, ugly of that. And so that's a recent development as well. So that's been a good partnership. 

Phil Sobol:

Oh, that's fantastic. And good to hear. We touched on it earlier, you've been a CIO across different types of health systems, academic, private, public, different geographic and regional markets. I'm curious, and I'm assuming our listeners are as well, what are some of the differences between the different types of health systems? And how have those differences perhaps influenced some of your leadership approach, your IT strategy? Maybe just share some insights for our audience there.

Kevin Olson:

I think the crucial, regardless of market, I think there's some just basic things that we all have, that I think are important to a leader and CIO in a healthcare organization, regardless of the market. But it's like have that ability to tell the stories to say, "Hey, we're doing okay over here," infrastructure, for example, "But we kind of modernized the experience for the patient and the physician over here." So again, back to the Epic example, but I think that is kind of a common thing. So being transparent, being able to share those stories of how we can improve things for folks, but at the same time know those differences. Because when I first got to Florida, I was like, "Wow, this is different. It's a little bit different in terms of this in a good way." There's a lot of people moving to South Florida because of what it is.

Phil Sobol:

That's right.

Kevin Olson:

It's a gorgeous place to be. But with that, the demographic of patients that kind of split between markets. They may have been New York for six months and then they come on down to South Florida for the other six. So I think having that understanding and what that means for a patient maybe sitting up in a third floor room, patient room, trying to get information to his provider back in Jersey, you got to understand what this technology means to help them on that front. And we actually have seen that. And we've, again, the deployment's changed things in a good way.

But it's a very competitive market, and so there's more competition moving in. So I think it's important that you know what that competition can provide in terms of technology in the healthcare space and how do we leverage to the nth degree everything that we've invested in for the organization.  So that's a few words on that front.

Phil Sobol:

Yeah, I think it's critical. And you absolutely nailed it, which is when a CIO will move into a new market, you've got to understand the market. You have to understand the players, you've got to understand the demographics, you have to understand your end customer, those patients, because each one of those regions is just a little bit different. And once you know, then you can serve.

Kevin Olson:

Absolutely.

Phil Sobol:

So I think that's perfect.

Kevin Olson:

For sure. And kind of a unique, I don't want to over-unique it, but it's a fact. The community really cares. This is a community-based hospital, so it's not owned by a big system. But there's that sense of community. And so just having that ability to share those stories with the board, who then can help you take it to the community, that's kind of important stuff.

Phil Sobol:

Yep. Well, you touched on the board and certainly, they're a critical component. And there's lots of stakeholders. You've got your physician champions, you've got your board members, you've got other senior leadership. You're over the IT perspective, and certainly there's always... We talked about the EHR. We talked about the fact that it seems like every time we talk to any CIO, top of the list is got to get more out of that EHR, that optimization. But there's also certainly other investments from an IT perspective that are catching people's attention now.

And so I'd love, if you could just share, what are some of those non-EHR optimization IT investments that are top of mind for you? And maybe share a little bit about how all of those other stakeholders play into how that list comes to be, and then the execution of that list.

Kevin Olson:

Yep, yep. Absolutely. One that pops into my mind right away is so onboarding. So you want to get a physician or a nurse, whoever the caregiver is, to work top of license as soon as possible. So we put in an identity management system that's integrated with our EHR certainly, but with our ERP, with ServiceNow, to automate as much as that as possible and allocate those resources out to that person based on the rule. So it fills a nurse on the fifth floor. Let's get Phil. He needs to do his job on the fifth floor.

But with that, I took a lot of input by the stakeholders. So that's physician input, that's medical staff credentialing, that's nursing, that's C-suite input. So what I'm getting is the governance piece of this. And I think it's identifying those things that are really, really crucial and important to the business, be able to say, "These are the ones we're going to focus on for this next year." In this case, we've got a new patient tower coming up. Well, what are we going to do there from a experience standpoint? But in this case with identity management, it's like being able to kind of vet and then say, "Well, this thing over here that has less of an impact on the pillars of the organization can probably wait as we get this one that's really, really important for the provider." So it's having that governance structure that I think is really crucial.

And so we pivoted during the Epic implementation to the Epic governance, but now we're pivoting back to get back into our ways of doing this at a little bit more global level.

Phil Sobol:

Well, and that's so good to hear. So many times that we come across organizations that aren't as mature on that governance side of things. And you tend to see then a lot of projects that you question, well, why is that taking place? Or why is this taking place? What's that spend? Why is that happening? And they can't point back to the pillars that you were referring to. And I think it's because it was just the loudest voice and the loudest voice got the attention. And so it's so refreshing to hear that there's a governance in place that pushes back and looks back with the lens of the pillars to determine where those investment dollars need to reside, and then why it's so important to the organization meeting those pillar objectives. So that's great to hear.

Kevin Olson:

It goes back to the transparency discussion too. When I first got here, I did an analysis of everything that was being spent from an IT function standpoint. So applications had a big piece of the pie, as you can imagine, because of the fragmentation I mentioned earlier. Well, I just looked at this the other day. It's squeezed back to a little bit more normalized state in terms of looking at some Gartner data and others. So it's good to see that, but now to your point, it's like what are those things that are going to move the needle that we need to focus on next? We're trying to get that governance spun up to where it was before the implementation, because backburnered a few projects.

Phil Sobol:

Of course. You have to.

Kevin Olson:

Yeah, we got to key them back up.

Phil Sobol:

That's right. Oh, that's great. Well, we've touched on the military service a couple of times. First, thank you for your service. And I'm always interested to ask the question of folks that have served in our military, and that is, are there specific skills or lessons that you learned early on in that military service that have kind of stuck with you, become a core and that have been helpful to you as a healthcare leader outside of the military?

Kevin Olson:

All of this kind of, at the end of the day, it boils down to the people. And I think you've got to have that collegial kind of spirit in terms of getting it done. It's not about me, it's not about you, but it's the greater good that we're trying to accomplish for the greater good.  So I think that's probably the one takeaway.

This is a kid that grew up in North Dakota, so it's like probably the first or fifth person you met from North Dakota. So kind of exposure to a lot of people from all across the country was limited then, but that opportunity provides so much option to meet different people from different backgrounds. That's probably my biggest appreciation for my service, really.

Phil Sobol:

That's excellent. Well, I mean, I don't mean to surprise you, but I've spent considerable time in Fargo, so just throwing it out there. I've met a few people from North Dakota over my years. Well, great. Well, we've talked a lot about different topics. Everyone is talking about AI and automation and machine learning and certainly cybersecurity. If you wouldn't mind, there's a lot of noise around that. But at the same point, I always love to ask the practical questions of CIOs. So if you wouldn't mind on some of those topics, just cut through the noise for us. And what do you think leaders should really be paying attention to around those topics?

Kevin Olson:

Yeah. First, I think it's real. There's some real good use cases on that, but then there's some other stuff you're kind of like, "Yeah, I'm not so sure." So this kind of goes back to the governance piece of this and the continual learning that we all have to do. I signed myself up for a AI course not long ago. I'm deep into it just because I think having exposure to the models, not to like I'm going to sit there and develop a large language model with all this neural network stuff behind it. It's not the intent, but I think it's at least to know the background of what this stuff does.

So you can speak intelligently about bias or hallucinations or whatever these things can create and make sure that, again, governance is in place. Because it is easy to just bring in a solution without the governance and say, "Hey, this is going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread." and that may be misidentified or not identified at all if they didn't have a solution. But managing that risk, because there's always a risk of anything you bring on, for the patient first for the provider and the organization, because it is. If these things don't work right, there's some exposure there.

And I think it's easy to get caught up in the AI buzz, but I think having a little bit of a practical eye, to your point about what this stuff really is and what can it do I think is really, really, really important, really important. 

Phil Sobol:

So particularly around AI, and you talked a little bit about governance, who are the critical groups that need to be represented in that governance structure around that?

Kevin Olson:

The physicians and the service line leaders, nursing. I can give you one example we've got going on right now with... We've got some solutions in place today. One, I mentioned, it's called Optellum I don't know if you want me to bring up names of companies, but it's really, really solid. It's done a remarkable job. But there's others that we are vetting. And I think now it's time, again with EPIC, someone behind us. Now it's time to build that maturity around if I introduce this solution, because a lot of times people get knocked on the door by the physician to say, "Hey, I need X, Y, Z. I'm representing the doctor," but let's have the discussion on what this really means to service the service line. If you're trying to again, grow a service line, what it means again to the organization and the provider in terms of risk, I think those are all discussions that need to be more and more enhanced. We're part of that.

Phil Sobol:

Indeed. Indeed. No, that's great.

Kevin Olson:

And I think the other thing I'd add to that, Phil, is I think this came up when I was speaking to somebody just the other day. They were talking about a different PAC system. Traditionally that's like a radiology, cardiology, discussion. Now we've got AI over the top of this stuff holding on. So now you've just exposed that PAC system to other stakeholders that may have an interest in what we select if we're going to go down different path. So again, oncology, respiratory, it's starting to shift the paradigm a little bit where we need to be a little bit more broader in those decisions.

Phil Sobol:

And I'm so grateful that you brought that up because I do think that with AI, with the way the technology is headed, there's more stakeholders now at play in every decision where there didn't used to be. And so creating that cross-functional governance is just so critical anymore, because you can't make decisions in a vacuum or inside of a singular pillar even anymore. It has to be cross-functional. So I greatly appreciate you sharing that.

Kevin Olson:

It's never going to be perfect, but you've got to reach out and try to make sure you've got the voice of the customer. Because I think it's a shift in terms of it's traditionally been a PAC system, for example, and now you've got these other tools that can be layered on. Now you've just, you've broaden that horizon in terms of the voices you want at the table.

Phil Sobol:

Indeed, indeed. So we've talked an awful lot about work. So let's talk a little bit about work-life balance. And I know that some people poo-poo that, some people really buy into it, but I do think there needs to be a balance, particularly from a health standpoint. So a little birdie has told me that you have gotten into cycling.

Kevin Olson:

I have.

Phil Sobol:

Do you use cycling? Is that opportunity to have a little bit of a mental break, recharge your batteries and get out there?

Kevin Olson:

Yeah, it helps, especially in Colorado, because we used to go back and forth, and go to Colorado a lot. And it's nice to get up there on the side of the mountain and just let go a little bit, right? At least for a little bit to kind of think about things that are going well, we can do better.

And I think everybody needs that. This last 18 months of this implementation is intense for the team, the leaders on that team. So I think everybody deserves that kind of breakaway. I say this in the best of intentions, some folks that are new to healthcare IT, I don't think they realize how intense it can get during these times. And I think for those folks need even a little bit more sometimes to recharge your batteries because it's a marathon , it's not a sprint, this stuff. And so you've got to have the opportunity to kind of unload and just kind of not think about it for a little bit.

Phil Sobol:

Yeah, healthcare is certainly a calling. It is a 24/7, 365 operation.

Kevin Olson:

That's right.

Phil Sobol:

And I think the people that truly understand the mission, that can weigh on you sometimes. And having the opportunity to get out, whether it be cycling or something else, those are needed opportunities just to clear the mind and get some clarity, get a little bit of recharge.

But at the same point, and I was previous podcast talking to a physician, Dr. Woodard, and he made mention of something very similar, which was just that taking that opportunity to take a step back, breathe a little bit, let ideas, thoughts percolate. That clear mind then allows you to be much more impactful and focused on a go-forward basis.

Kevin Olson:

Yeah. And then they'll come back. Kevin was on vacation last week. What great ideas are you going to come back with this time? But who knows? But I think that's right. With the holidays coming up, we've tried to implement no change through our change management board leading into the holidays just to help on that front a little bit. So that's been helpful.

Phil Sobol:

Indeed, indeed. Well, Kevin, I always like to wrap these up just with an open call for any final words of wisdom that you might want to impart to our listening audience.

Kevin Olson:

Man, it's a long list, but one thing that's kind of popped in there and relate. It's like we had our holiday board meeting or get-together dinner the other day. We're just talking about stuff. AI was around the table. We were talking about that, the Epic implementation, so forth. But I think it's important for folks to really have that avenue to kind of get out of their own box. Kind of goes back to the work-life balance thing a little bit, but have those peers and mentors you can reach out to share the good, bad, and ugly of things like you're experiencing. It doesn't have to necessarily always be in healthcare. It can be in other sectors. Think having that avenue to bounce ideas off of people is crucial. It's really crucial. So that'd be my little factoid of the day, Phil.

Phil Sobol:

Well, and that's a great one. At the end of the day, we are in the people business.

Kevin Olson:

That's right.

Phil Sobol:

That's what healthcare is. And so being able to have those folks that may have different viewpoints, perspectives, insights, backgrounds, you name it, having that collaboration, it opens all of our eyes. And ultimately, the end result of that is always going to be something better for the patients that we serve.

Kevin Olson:

Absolutely. And if you aren't in a senior leadership role, you've got probably some kind of unique folks on your board, broad backgrounds. And if you can tap into that, it's pretty interesting stuff.

Phil Sobol:

It is. Indeed, indeed. Well, that's great. Kevin, thank you so much for your time today. I greatly appreciate all the conversation, the insights, and certainly your partnership over the years as well.

Kevin Olson:

Thank you. Appreciate you, Phil.

Phil Sobol:

Thanks for listening to the Cerecore podcast. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform for more episodes. Connect with us on LinkedIn. Visit our US website at cerecore.net and for those abroad, visit cerecoreinternational.net. Learn more about our services and find resources. At Cerecore, we are healthcare operators at heart and know the difference that the right IT partner can make in delivering quality patient care 24/7. Let's help make IT better. Here's to the journey.