[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Health Data Talks where industry experts offer bite sized tips and trends for managing legacy data.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Welcome to Health Data Talks where industry experts offer bite sized tips and trends for managing legacy data. I'm Eric Johnson, the VP of Marketing here at Harmony Healthcare it and today I'm joined by Scott Smizer, industry veteran CIO over 20 years. And we welcome Scott into our podcast today to offer a variety of perspectives on some pretty timely topics as we start out 2026.
With that being said, every year HIMSS brings together thousands of hospital IT leaders to talk about the future of healthcare technology.
And the conversations happening on that conference floor tend to reflect what's keeping CIOs up at night this year. The agenda is packed with sessions on AI, cybersecurity, EHR modernization and work workforce transformation. And if our recent research is in the any indication, those topics are hitting close to home for IT leaders across the country.
We recently surveyed CHIME members about their top priorities, investment plans and biggest challenges for the year ahead. And the findings paint a picture of profession at a genuine inflection point. IT leaders are gaining more strategic influence than ever. Budgets are growing and the pressure to deliver measurable results are intensifying.
So with that as a backdrop and Scott joining us today, and really, Scott, after offering two decades of your experience, we're really interested in digging into what the CHIME survey findings mean in practice and what IT leaders should be thinking about as they head into HIMSS and beyond.
So with that, I'll tee it up. Scott, for the first question is the CHIMES survey found that 80% of hospital IT leaders report greater involvement in strategic business decisions over the past three years.
Does that match your experience and what do you think is driving the shift right now? What's different?
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Yeah, Eric, thanks for having me. You know, as I look at just hot topics that are facing our industry every year, I think about, you know, obviously Chime's got a strong response rate of 80% are saying that they're getting more involved with business decisions. I think what's driving that, Eric, honestly, is that a lot of organizations are trying to shift their technology stack, their IT department from a cost center to a value center.
So I think in doing that with responsible AI, with automation, et cetera, that they're really being seen as a digital partner in a lot of organizations, which is great as a value center that can bring value and efficiency to the organization. So I think that's what's driving from what I'm seeing in organizations, what I've seen myself firsthand is that even some shops are renaming it to digital.
And I've been in organizations where I'm like, how long is that gonna take to stick? And then you see pretty quickly that it'll stick in an organization and you'll be on a call where service line leaders are saying, do we have a digital partner on the call to help us with this?
So I think in a lot of ways just the cost pressures do not give up in healthcare. And I think organizations that are smart, that are seeing it as a value center and not a cost center or a utility that's back of house, is really what, in my opinion is driving them at the table to be there when the decision's made.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Very interesting.
Yeah, really, really interesting to see how that evolution has happened. And to your point, right. The evolution of different kinds of roles and titles and really the evolution of the digital practice being much wider within an organization, I think to your point, is a real reflection of that.
Second question.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: And kind of not unexpected.
AI and automation top the list of areas where our organizations plan to increase IT spend in 2026, cited by 76% of respondents in the same QIIME survey.
But the survey also found that data management priorities, things like legacy system consolidation, cybersecurity are equally top of mind.
How do you recommend to CIOs who think about balancing those foundational priorities against the pressure to adopt the latest and greatest technologies? Right. And how do you see those things either conflicting or complementing each other? Right. When again, to your point, when the organization is trying to really pivot to be seen as a revenue driver, how do you do a little bit of both?
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a balancing act, Right. It's a high wire, high stakes balancing act for most CIOs today. And what I know for sure is AI, automation, digital workforce standing up. Those services, those functions are the cool shiny objects on the table for a CIO and their respective teams to show value prop to the organizational leadership.
But there's this stuff that you talked about in this question. I'll call it ktl Keeping the lights on. Right. I mean, if you don't have an investment of resources into those not as shiny objects on the portfolio of work to be done, you know, those have to be balanced in such a very deliberate way and you have to have resources focused on both.
And you know, I think if you don't have strong foundational infrastructure, network, et cetera, you really can't. All the AI and automation and everything that you're wanting to do, it's not going to be reliable. If you don't have that core foundation of your infrastructure there solid and you've invested capital and people into making sure that that's a highly fault tolerant environment and that you're focused on cybersecurity and Legacy Systems consolidation, etc.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Makes sense.
Next question.
Nearly 40% of the hospitals in the CHIME survey are planning EHR migrations in 2026, yet only 48% are feeling highly confident they can complete a migration without major challenges.
What would you say to a CIO who's planning a migration project right now? Given that timing and kind of given that sentiment. Right.
What do you feel like is getting at this lack of confidence, you know, as you're undertaking something that is pretty significant in a EHR migration project, but yet not necessarily being confident about it, what do you think's behind that?
[00:07:01] Speaker A: There could be a lot of things behind it, Eric. Honestly, I mean top of mind for me. You know, I mean it's still amazing to me that, you know, 40% of the hospitals responding are still looking for an EMAR solution.
I think we've seen over the last 10 to 15 years such a change in that space in the EMR market where you know, organizations today that are doing an EMR transfer from vendor A to vendor B, they've been with that product 20, 25, 30 years now.
It's entrenched in the organization. A lot of times it's customized to the point where you're not going to have a like for lack functionality in a new product. You're going to have to redesign processes. So I think a lot of that can we do this without major problems gets at just the operational impact that these EMR projects mean. ERP is the same way there is equally offendable in my opinion to the organization, but conversely they're also the most transformational endeavors you'll get to do to really bring the organization forward in a meaningful way. But I think that's probably some of what may be driving some of the insecurity and just CIOs and leaders of these initiatives knowing that it's not going to be an easy road. Right.
And I think my advice to them would be getting the right people in the right roles for the right reasons is a mantra I've always tried to stick by. But I think more importantly thinking through for Harmony in particular and you and I have been able to work on a couple of different projects together that starting that lights out, decomming archiving effort earlier in the process and don't let that be an afterthought, you know, three ways around the racetrack here. We're almost live in three months. Oh, we got to get off the old system and we're thinking about that now. That's not the time to be thinking about that. It's really getting that work stream and those resources and archiving, decom effort, team, center of excellence, whatever you want to call it, because you're going to be lights out archiving and turning off a lot of these legacy systems. Get that done early.
That way you've got the Runway to really do it effectively. But these aren't easy projects. If they were easy, easy, everybody would have done them, you know, years ago. And again, I think the organizations you're seeing today, they've just been on the same product for quite some time that they know it's going to be hard to pull it out.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
A couple more questions, Scott.
And this kind of goes down a little bit different path, but again, staying, you know, a bit more towards that, you know, the financial challenges, if you will. Right.
The survey also revealed a notable gap. Many IT leaders report that little to no increase in collaboration with CFOs over the past three years, which is interesting. And, you know, given a time when there are budgets that are under scrutiny and ROI is expected, you know, why do we think today that maybe there's a gap that might persist there between leaders of finance or potentially leaders in the IT organization? And did you. And so even though that's the academic response, just curious, did you ever experience that and how did you navigate that? Right. And what do you think are some of the causes of that? If there's diametrically opposed kinds of initiatives that sometimes, you know, how do you overcome those?
[00:10:44] Speaker A: That's a good question, Eric. So, you know, I think I've seen IT in both organizations. I've seen organizations where IT reports up through the cfo, whereby I feel like those organizations have a closer tie. It's more, again, maybe a cost center driven, control the cost, monitor the spend.
And I've seen organizations where, you know, finances appear with the cio.
What I know for sure is in every organization, whether you're fighting or advocating for operating dollars or capital dollars, you know, when I've been in organizations and we're fighting for capital dollars, you know, as an IT leader, I'm fighting for dollars that are needed for a new parking garage or a new elevator or a new building, a new roof. So, you know, I've got to have a good story together, right. Of what the value proposition is for this request and what's it going to bring to patient care? So I think in organizations where they're, you know, there's a notable gap, I would just encourage technology leaders to really shift the mindset from, you're not a cost center, you're a value center. You can generate revenue, you can generate efficiencies. In my last organization, we were doing a lot of automation and we would go out in departments and service lines and say, hey, if we can save you $300,000, can we claim half of that value?
Because we've got all these tools that we can deploy to you that'll make you more efficient, more cost effective. You know, you save 150, we get to claim 150 worth of savings.
Those kind of moments where you're showing an investment in, you know, the input into it, but you're seeing the output, which is, you know, 2x3x fold in those situations are things that CFOs and accountants respond to because they're like, okay, you wanted a dollar and you gave me back $2.50, so I got a two and a half percent return here, 250% return, rather. So, you know, I think I would just encourage folks to try to bridge the gap if your reporting structure is not there. But again, get out of the mindset that it's a cost center, it needs to be a value center. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, why are you doing it? If it's not driving value, patient outcomes or your patient delivery services, why are you doing that function or spending that dollar? Because we may need a parking deck more than we need some infrastructure. Right? Right.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: So keep the lights on. That's excellent.
One more question, Scott, before we wrap up here.
Looking ahead, where hospital IT is headed? Governance, AI governance, cybersecurity, legacy system modernization, workforce, workforce challenges.
What do you think is the one conversation the industry needs to really be having right now? And if you think about all of the initiatives that are out there, what comes to your mind that you feel really passionate about, that is an important topic based upon your 20 years. That is something that all IT leaders really should be thinking about right now.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: I think it's twofold. If I could break that question into two answers, I think one is, first and foremost, never do technology for technology's sake. I see too often organizations just chase the shiny penny, the shiny object, because someone down the street, down the road, across town is doing that. And it really isn't driving value to where their strategic plan is. So I think one of the discussions we need to always be having is why are we doing this technology, this system, the service, is it going to bring value?
I wish I would see the second part of that question. I wish I would see more organizations diving deeper into app rationalization.
I think we see a large health system today that really came together over many, many years and often many different cultures and systems that merged together.
At the point that the merger and acquisition took place, did they do due diligence in saying, okay, there is a vendor of choice for this solution? In the capability model, we only have one of those, we're not going to have six of those or four of those. So I see too often in some of these organizations there's so much duplicity in software systems, hardware systems sometimes, but it's just a byproduct of merging together, right? And it's kind of, it's not the cool, sexy stuff we want to talk about. When you talk to a peer about it. App rationalization, like, I know, I know, I know we need to do that, we need to do that. But in doing that, you really get laser focused on, you know, who's your vendor of choice, that VOC is your partner. But then you also get out of the business of supporting a paying for multiple systems. Now granted, that opens up a whole myriad of questions, right? Like, okay, well, out of the three systems that we need to rationalize on this solution, which one wins, which to lose? What happens to the data in the old system? Where's that going to go live? So there's all this bartering with operational leaders that, you know, it's never a comfortable situation.
But I think if you've got strong leadership at the top, that feels like there's value. And I've seen organizations where, I mean, this could bring 60, 70 million dollars of efficiency into just a medium sized IDN. Based on what you're seeing in the portfolio matrix and the capability model, that's a lot of money that could be redirected in a more meaningful way. And as a cio, you could say, look, you know, we pulled back and saved $4.8 million of our budget by doing this. We're going to redirect that money into more people or we're going to go buy that system this next year. So it's being better stewards of the funding that each healthcare leaders allocated, I think needs to be top of mind. And then again, why are you doing it? You know, I asked some leaders, I'm like, why are you doing that? And they're like, well, everybody's doing it. Okay, but don't do technology for technology's sake. You've got to really line it in to clinical operations and clinical outcome delivery.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: That's excellent. Last question, of course, Scott, really interested, as we sit here in, you know, the early part of the year, in February, with the year still unfolding, you know, what's the prediction that you have in terms of emerging trends that you see that as you, as you think about from a strategist that you see kind of happening over the course of 2026?
[00:17:29] Speaker A: You know, I think first and foremost it's AI. It's not going anywhere.
Every conference I go to, every time I, you know, pull up an email, AI is somewhere woven into that message. Right.
I think my prediction for 2026 is obviously AI is not going away.
I think organizations that do a good job of embracing AI in a meaningful and a responsible way will have a competitive advantage against others in the markets they're serving that ultimately benefit the patients they're trying to serve. But I think having a strong governance model and process around, how are we as an organization going to use AI in a meaningful way?
I think all of that's still playing out. If I've, you know, when I talk to people about AI, it's like, okay, it's Thursday afternoon. You're an AI expert today. Call me next Wednesday at 10. You may not be, because it's just moving so quickly, right.
That you've got to get a handle on it. And I think organizations are reluctant for obvious reasons to, you know, are you doing on prem modeling? Are you doing cloud, private cloud?
You know, are we putting phi data into. We don't want, you know, once you put something in it, can you pull out the data set that really model up against it? So I think every organization I talk to is struggling with that of how to use it in a meaningful way. But I look at the propensity that AI has got to the market in healthcare in particular, to really break down all of these old 1980 and 1990 ways of doing business still in 2026. Right. That we could, you know, be smarter and not work harder by using AI in the appropriate way. So I'm curious to see how all of it plays out. I think it's going to be top of mind for pretty much every leader. It's what you hear every conference you're going to.
But I think watching it play out this year is going to be interesting.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Well, Scott, thanks for joining us again on this episode. Appreciate your takes as always, and thanks again for joining.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having me, Eric. Good seeing you.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: That's it for this session of health data talks. Check out other helpful
[email protected] and follow us in your favorite podcast app to catch future episodes.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: That's it for this session of Health data talks. Check out helpful
[email protected] and follow us in your favorite podcast app to catch future episodes. We'll see you next time.
