by
Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter | August 28, 2014
From the August 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
New and changing roles
CMOs used to just focus on credentialing doctors and served only the medical staff. Today, they have to address requirements revolving around meaningful use, implementation of electronic health records and standardizing care between doctors and the hospital.
Historically, CIOs were in charge of making sure the hospital got paid and staff was capturing the data from the system for coding. Their jobs have also become more complex. “It was a simpler job and now the CIO is responsible for clinical information and data — not just financial and administrative data — across wider, complex clinics and outpatient facilities and long-term care facilities — not just the hospitals’,” said Keckley.
In the future, he thinks that a role will be created for managing care and additional roles will be developed around retail health and noncore businesses as a “corridor for growth.”
Banding together
Keckley says CEOs are realizing they can’t do it all on their own and that they need help from physicians, which can be a challenge.
“Positions in hospitals have sometimes been like a bad marriage — you know you need each other, but you don’t really like the marriage,” says Keckley. “That’s where the doctors and the hospitals are again.”
But that’s changing. “If you’re a hospital CEO, you look at your medical staff and you say, ‘By the way, the same thing I’m facing, you’re facing,’” says Keckley. “So now these two become more codependent.”
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