CHIME begins effort to empower diversity in HIT leadership

Those leading HIT leadership departments are leading staffs that have become more diverse, and that is increasing the requirement for expanding diversity among the execs that lead them.

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is taking on that challenge as it starts plans to establish programs that expand leadership training for females and minorities.

The agency, which represents healthcare IT executives nationwide, claims it will empower HIT leadership among females and minorities through mentorship and focused professional development.

Increased executive diversity is critical because the sufferers that healthcare agencies serve are more diverse, as are the staffs they direct, CHIME board members claim.

“The sufferer is the ultimate customer,” states Liz Johnson, CHIME’s board chair and CIO for acute care hospitals at Tenet Healthcare. “IT strategy and decision-making must include having an understanding of the diverse population that is being served.

“There is no better way to do that than to increase diversity, not merely at the HIT leadership level but entire throughout IT and from within the staffing ranks.” Johnson adds. “This will develop an atmosphere that promotes distinctive perspectives, creative approaches and opportunities to better meet the requirements of our customers and organization.”

Healthcare, like other industries, has struggled to expand leadership to females and minorities. For instance, minorities represent only 14% of hospital board members, 11% of executive leadership positions and 19% of first- and mid-level managers, in accordance to respondents to a 2015 survey from the Institute for Diversity in Health Care and the Health Research and Educational Trust.

And, previous year, an analysis by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society discovered important disparities in compensation between male and female respondents to its recent yearly surveys.

Within CHIME and its related agencies, of about 700 members who recognized race or ethnicity on their membership profile, 136 said they belong to a minority group. And about 25% of its membership is female.

It is time for CHIME to take a leadership role in the initiative because the traditional CIO role is evolving.

“We require being responsive to that,” she claims. “We require being mentoring those who are following in our footsteps. We identify that the workforce that is coming behind us has many diversity. It is just significant that we recognize that there is tremendous change occurring.”

The progress in diversity underscores the requirement for healthcare IT leaders to have new skills and HIT leadership traits, claims Myra Davis, CIO and senior vice president at Texas Childrens Hospital, and a CHIME board member.

“As the healthcare IT atmosphere continues to evolve, it mentions a requirement for competencies in areas that we did not have in the past,” Davis says. “We need to promote opportunities to increase awareness that anyone, of any background, can be a leader. We’ve a chance, as CHIME board members and leaders in our field, to promote that change.”

Cletis Earle, vice president and CIO at Kaleida Health and a CHIME board member, agrees that the CHIME initiative is timely and sorely required.

“When you’ve a diverse culture, you require a more dynamic workforce to have different ideas and thought procedures,” Earle states. “As an African American, there’s not a lot of folks who look like me in the workforce. We require doing something about it and providing a conduit to permit the workforce to equalize, to open the doors up to a larger constituency.”

The CHIME initiative is in the early stages, discussing the issues and challenges that presently exist in increasing diversity in HIT leadership, and will utilize that dialogue to formulate education and services that the agency can deliver.

“It is important for CHIME to take a stand and appreciate that the workforce is changing,” Davis says. “If we do not do that, who are we fooling? We’re looking for a different kind of leader and a different type of workforce that can be the innovators of health IT.”

The emphasis to increase the number of females and minorities entering into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education programs also is timely, Davis points out. “In healthcare, we’ve a chance to educate the population we serve and share what we do in the world—how do we convey that message that you can be one of us?”

The CHIME push comes at a time period when the HIT is struggling to fill positions, and it is significant for HIT leaders to indicate that top management ranks are open to women and members of minority groups, Johnson notes.

Next week at its spring forum and during the HIMSS conference, CHIME will seek opportunities to network with diverse populations to inquire what it can do and otherwise collect intelligence that will assist direct future efforts, Johnson claims.

“What’s significant is that, in coming from CHIME, it’s the senior-most IT executives in healthcare taking a stance to say we’re going to address (diversity) and improve it,” Earle says. “From that as a base, I look forward to what’s going to come.”