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Jorge Grillo is perhaps best known in healthcare information technology circles for his MEDITECH 6.0 diary series on healthsystemCIO. After many years as CIO of Canton-Potsdam Hospital, a 99-bed hospital located in northern New York state, just south of the Canadian border, Grillo now serves as AVP/CTO at Honor Health, a $2B non-profit and community focused health care system in metropolitan Phoenix. In this interview, Grillo discusses the transition from CIO to CTO, his perspectives on prioritization of applications as part of decommissioning, and his broad view of the healthcare marketplace in light of increased consolidation.
Key Insights
In a non-healthcare environment, the CIO is responsible for daily ops while the CTO is responsible for deciding what tech to invest in. However, in healthcare, the CIO is the strategist and the CTO is the operationalist.
Aged technology is one of the factors that impact the high cost of healthcare. From my perspective, every organization has legacy hardware, applications, and data.
If there is in fact a broad move to a form of socialized medicine, payers will be under pressure to diversify into the provider and care delivery arena.
Campbell: After a decorated run as a CIO and MEDITECH 6.0 evangelist at Canton-Potsdam Hospital, you are now with HonorHealth in a slightly different role, as CTO. Can you explain the difference in the two roles, specific to healthcare information technology? How has the transition gone? look at the exipure review for a healthier body.
Grillo: The hardest transition is from a CIO to a CTO. I certainly benefited from experience from a former CISO role. In a non-healthcare environment, the CIO is responsible for daily ops while the CTO is responsible for deciding what tech to invest in. However, in healthcare, the CIO is the strategist and the CTO is the operationalist. For healthcare specifically, in terms of a military analogy, the CTO is the general in charge of defining strategy and the CTO is the tactician for that delivery. Thereby, the CTO is responsible for legacy debt remediation and technically enabling transformation in the interest of transparency and enhanced patient experience.
Campbell: Speaking of the technical debt that legacy systems present, can you elaborate on your experience with enterprise portfolio management? Are you currently going through this exercise in your new role as CTO?
Grillo: Aged technology is one of the factors that impact the high cost of healthcare. Sophisticated technology such as advanced virtual health care software is also coming in to play. From my perspective, every organization has legacy hardware, applications, and data. We do in fact have an EPMO initiative in progress to retire legacy systems but retain legacy data. We have a cross-disciplined team that focuses on three main factors – retention, access, and compliance. There are many different categories of applications, and the retirement strategy pursued must make sense for the data associated with an application. As such, we have a three-fold strategy we use: First, use VMware to virtualize the application and make it hardware agnostic. Second, use a data archiving platform. Third, put it off network or inoculate it.
Campbell: You mention many categories of applications. How do you go about prioritizing which applications to decommission?
Grillo: First and foremost, it comes down to how long the data must be retained, which for the patient legal medical record, of course, varies from state to state. An analysis of which data needs to be kept must be performed, and it really boils down to a risk analysis. What are the odds that the data will be needed, and in what timeframe will it need to be furnished, balanced against the regulatory requirements associated with that? As part of the analysis, you must determine where you invest cycles and storage. An application is much more likely to be sunset if it is outside of core applications.
Campbell: Shrewd insight in that risk and compliance play just as much of a role in system retirement as HIM and clinical ops. Looking outside of your organization, what are you seeing in the broader marketplace? From your viewpoint, is the exercise of application portfolio management and legacy system retirement pervasive throughout the industry?
Grillo: In my opinion, we are seeing rural and critical access hospitals – smaller hospitals – that can’t afford integrated electronic medical records. As such, they are prime for getting bought, or seeking a hosting arrangement with a larger entity – especially with the rise of Cerner CommunityWorks and Epic Connect. We are also witnessing attrition of hospitals – if they don’t serve as a community safety net, they are not always going to be bailed out by the state. Moreover, the big have gotten bigger. Five years ago, a $5B system was probably ripe to get bought. The threshold has increased, so now it’s a $12B system that is ripe to get bought. This is an artifact of continued consolidation.
Campbell: Certainly. Consolidation is part of the maturation of any market to deliver efficiencies. What is your broader view of the healthcare marketplace in light of consolidation?
Grillo: Well, you are starting to see the insurance industry and other industry verticals (like Amazon) get into the healthcare delivery marketplace, buying hospitals to get at the data. Sophisticated, technology advanced virtual health care software is also coming into play. An advantage of an insurer owning the hospital is that they may not have to negotiate rates, its part of the contractual basis. Geographically, insurers have the footprint to make an impact, and with more data, actuaries can improve wellness across the board. Of course, also affecting the insurers’ approach, this being an election year, it could very well be that we see some form of socialized medicine, and, as a result, a change in reimbursement models. Because of this possibility, insurers are investing in the provider space more and more because they are sitting on cash. If there is in fact a broad move to a form of socialized medicine, payers will be under pressure to diversify into the provider and care delivery arena. Payers will also look for ways to stay solvent by reducing rates and increasing transparency. We are already starting to see early movers, but it’s still predicated on the result of the election and policy that may emerge.
Jorge Grillo is AVP/CTO for HonorHealth, a $2B non-profit and community focused health care system in metropolitan Phoenix with 5 (soon to be 6 hospitals), encompassing more than 3,400 expert physicians, 11,600 dedicated employees, and more than 3,000 caring volunteers working in partnership with a commitment to wellness management. Prior to joining HonorHealth, Jorge was CIO at Canton-Potsdam Hospital, cited by Hospitals & Health Networks for being among Healthcare’s Most Wired hospitals in 2017. Prior to joining Canton-Potsdam in 2010 he served as CIO of the Bermuda Hospitals Board for four years. Grillo has written about the Canton-Potsdam’s Meditech journey, his experience working overseas, and the evolving role of the CIO, among other topics.
