NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, June 6, 2013

I’ve recounted the story behind this headline before (here) but there’s a longer, more detailed version – and lesson.

I attended a healthcare event last year that needs to remain nameless. It wasn’t a big event. In fact, it was very focused and relatively small. That’s about as much as we need to know because our headline came from that conference and the Chief Information Officer (CIO) who served it up wishes to remain anonymous. That’s ok, of course, but the story and lesson are definitely worth reviewing.

Mixed among the various panels that day was one with 5 CIO’s from various healthcare facilities – mostly hospitals. It was the last panel of the day and the topic was loosely around their collective view, vision and use of technology at their own facility. As is often the case, the reference to Return-On-Investment (ROI) came up at which point one of the CIO’s recounted this brief story from his own personal experience.