Check out the rest of the article here.

Mike

Check out the rest of the article here

Mike

My father, the consummate bargain hunter, has never heard of Moore’s Law.  Yet, on a regular basis, he takes advantage of the falling prices that are one its inevitable consequences.  My father has learned that he need only wait a couple of years after a new technology is announced for the price of products based on that technology to drop to the level he is willing to pay.   Paradoxically, the same rapid changes in technology that benefits consumers like my father may, in the context of long government procurement cycle, stifle innovation and lead to failed health IT projects.

In a 1965 paper, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore noted that “the complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year” and predicted that this “rate can be expected to continue”.  This prediction became known several years later as Moore’s Law and has been the source constant innovation in the IT sector for more than half a century.

The impact of long procurement cycles on IT related procurement has been evident in the defence and aerospace industries from quite some time.  A 2006 book on C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) for future naval strike groups prepared by the U.S. Naval Studies Board concludes:

“The current procurement process of the Department of Defense concentrates on buying ships, airplanes, tanks, and so on. Most of these items have lives that are measured in decades, with few major upgrades over their lifetime. Information technology is changing on the time line articulated in Moore’s law and does not fit into such a process.”

Closer to home, an article in Vanguard, a Canadian defence and security magazine notes:

“Today, the emphasis in federal government procurement is on inputs, with detailed specifications of what, in IT, are constantly moving targets.”

This same article quotes Kamel Shaath, chief technology officer of Kanata-based KOM Networks.  Mr. Shaath contends that “procurement even is inhibiting innovation at times because they [government agencies] are not able to take advantage of new technology.”  Mr. Shaath recommends:

“We need to foster innovation and to have procurement processes that allow the government agencies to embrace and adopt new technologies on a much more rapid pace.”

At the 2012 eHealth conference that took place in Vancouver earlier this year, the opening key note speaker, Dr. John Halamka, was openly critical of the processes used to procure health IT systems and claimed that these practices stifle innovation.    In a blog post written soon after the eHealth conference, Dr. Halamka asserts that “Traditional procurement approaches are likely to acquire technology at the end of its lifecycle.”

While procurement reform is certainly a hot topic, it will, by its very nature, take time to happen.  In the meantime, we might want to consider the advice of Chris Gunderson, a Research Associate Professor of Information Science at the U.S. Naval Post Graduate School and a retired U.S. Navy Captain.  Driven by what he call his “frustration at us Good Guys’ inability to get out of our own way when it comes to acquiring and applying to technology”,  Professor Gunderson is devoting the latter part of his career to “co-opt the government bureaucracy to consume my lessons learned about successful distributive, collaborative e-Biz ‘best practices’ in-spite of itself.”

In an October 2009 interview with Ubiquity magazine (an Association of Computing Machinery publication) Chris Gunderson makes a similar case regarding the challenges of IT procurement in the face of rapid technological advances as others quoted in this article:

“The downside of all these restrictions is that the time for the government to procure and deliver a major system is easily a decade or more. With the environment of use changing at the rate of Moore’s Law, the delivered systems are almost always obsolete or obsolescent.”

While acknowledging these challenges, he offers hope that they can be overcome:

“I’ve learned that the best way to achieve powerfully disruptive change is by subtly co-opting the existing processes. By “co-opt” I don’t mean anything subversive or underhanded. I simply mean we should introduce more convenient and efficient methods within the constraints of the existing bureaucratic requirements. The improvements will be adopted because they are perceived as both comfortable and useful.”

Mike

Mike

Mike

Check out the rest of my article in Technology for Doctors

Mike

Check out the rest of this article at http://www.canhealth.com/tfdnews0544.html

Mike

You can read the rest of my monthly Technology for Doctors column here.

Mike

Why do you want to join the COACH Board of Directors at this point in your career?

COACH is an organization that I have supported over the years while in progressively more senior leadership roles in both the private and public sector.   At this point in my career and as CIO of the South West LHIN, I wish to apply my broad and varied experience developing and leading high performance teams in the health informatics landscape.  I am uniquely equipped to contribute in a meaningful way by balancing and representing all of the COACH community and make a difference by leveraging my experience in and insight into the overall system of care.   Combined with my open and approachable leadership style, I am confident I will be an asset to COACH Board when it comes to addressing  current and future sector challenges – and I look forward to representing you on the Board.  

What unique skills, perspectives and contributions would you bring to the COACH Board?

Those that know me professionally as the CIO of a Crown Agency involved in the management and delivery of health care for almost 4 million Ontarians would say I bring a broad, non-partisan, system wide understanding of the health care system and the health informatics community; that I am a team builder, a leader by example and a strategist by nature. Those that know me personally would say I’m energetic, passionate and enthusiastic – about leadership, about affecting positive change, and about the industry that I work in.  I am an MBA/MHA, Honours Economics, Six Sigma Black Belt with 20 years of progressive experience that spans the health care spectrum in both the public and the private sector, including experience across: Regional care, acute care, community care, primary care and consumer care at the provincial, national and international levels. In terms of contributions, I have diverse experience in vendor/private organizations and promote the view of private – public partnerships to support health care delivery, innovation and change for the better in the eHealth community.  By way of example, I point to an engagement process I introduced called Vendor Fridays which contributes to the public and private sectors working  more closely together on eHealth solutions to healthcare issues.

 In addition to being bilingual in English and French,  I am an ex-Tank Commander (as you can imagine, there’s more than a few parallels between the battlefield and  the eHealth and healthcare informatics landscape).

 What COACH committees, task groups or activities have you volunteered on in the past 5 years and what were your most significant contributions to COACH’s work?

1. Member of CHIEF:  Canada’s Health Informatics Executive Forum
2. Member of COACH’s Pan Canadian Governance Task Group
3. Ongoing activity of addressing critical business issues, building leadership and forging relationships, enabling peer dialogue and debate and mentoring others in the COACH community
4. Provided leadership within Canada and acts as an active promoter of COACH nationally and internationally

5. Active contributor to eHealth conferences as speaker
6. Contributor to the Interoperability Showcase at the eHealth Conference

What other board appointments or relevant leadership experiences have you had in the past 5 years?

1. CIO at South West LHIN
2. Chair of the South West LHIN eHealth Steering Committee
3. Executive Lead for connecting South West Ontario (cSWO)
4. Chair of the South Western Ontario eHealth Delivery Council and Steward of the South Western Ontario eHealth Oversight Committee
5. Chair of the Erie St. Clair – South West LHIN Clinical Connect Viewer Project

Do you currently have your CPHIMS-CA credential? 

I am committed to achieving my CPHIMS-CA.

Brief biography including highlights of experience and expertise in Health Informatics

Glenn Lanteigne joined the South West LHIN as chief information officer in 2010 and is responsible for electronic and information sharing initiatives to promote, maintain and improve health care delivery throughout the region.  His first task was the creation and implementation of a shared LHIN-wide eHealth strategic plan to ensure an integrated, aligned, and community-responsive health care system; prior to joining the LHIN, Glenn was the director, healthcare at TELUS Healthcare Solutions providing overall strategic leadership for a full range of business and electronic health initiatives in regional care, acute care, community care, primary care, home care and consumer care.  Glenn’s current focus is governance reform, cost savings, and support the care reform needed to sustain healthcare delivery.  

Glenn has also held leadership roles with the Federal Government,  ECLIPSYS (now Allscripts), CLINICARE (now a QHR Technologies company) and GE Medical Systems (now GE Healthcare), TELUS Health Solutions, spoken at major eHealth conferences and is routinely quoted in health informatics publications.

What segments within our COACH community do you feel you can best represent?

I am pleased to be running for a seat on the COACH Board of Directors, and would very much appreciate the opportunity to earn your vote!

My extensive and varied professional experiences make me very well qualified to participate and contribute as an active member on the COACH Board of Directors. I have:
• Spent the last 16 years in healthcare informatics roles in large and small organizations, both in the public and private sectors
• Gained both breadth and depth of healthcare informatics knowledge and perspective at almost all organizational levels and in varying contexts
• Recently worked extensively within Telemedicine and would also bring to bear a clear and thorough understanding of tele-technology and what is necessary to integrate Telemedicine with other eHealth delivery channels

I am also a strong facilitator with a history of leading successful teams, and I have the ability to stay focused on the strategic, without losing sight of the tactical approaches that will be required in order to help direct COACH’s programs and resources.

With this unique blend of experience and skills, I would bring an innovative point of view and a deep understanding of both the healthcare industry as well as health informatics to the COACH Board. I bring structure and clear logical thinking as well as a strategic mind-set to all problem solving opportunities. Most importantly, I am very passionate about healthcare informatics and am a strong advocate of COACH and the work that it does for its members.

It is my sincere hope, in my capacity as a COACH Board member, that I will be able to positively affect change within the Health Informatics profession, and that I will be able to continue to work with and support your needs as members.