Changing Roles for Medical Informaticist Executives: One Recruiter’s Perspective

Another interesting offshoot about the associate CMIO, and I just finished two searches this month about this—they’re bringing in a physician to manage the ambulatory networks. And this is so interesting, because there’s such a trend for these systems to acquire practices now, and so this has created a huge need in these systems for a doctor to oversee bringing in these practices, making sure their electronic health records are compatible or putting in new ones. So, putting in EHRs compatible with that of the mother ship, and training the doctors, all that is such a huge job. And it’s so attractive to the physicians for their practices to be acquired, and for the systems, too, to acquire these practices, and the system CMIO can’t possibly handle all the work.

Do you know of organizations that have both, where there’s an inpatient associate CMIO and an outpatient one?

Yes. But all the titles differ, depending on the organization.

So much is happening all at once. How do you feel about all the confluence of all of these different trends?

I think that this is a very exciting time to be a physician with IT expertise. While some of the changes taking place in healthcare right now are promoting volatility in the job market, at the same time, we are seeing more opportunities in which physician informaticists can have a significant impact on patient care. Now is the time to be open to change and to be prepared for the future.