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November - 2013 - issue > CIO Insights
Consumerization of Healthcare
William A. Spooner
SVP & CIO-Sharp HealthCare
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Sharp HealthCare is a not-for-profit integrated regional health care delivery system located in San Diego, CA. Founded in 1955 the organization represents $1.2 billion in assets and $1.7 billion in revenue.

Spooner has been CIO for more than 15 of his 30 years at Sharp HealthCare. He has led an aggressive IT effort that placed Sharp on the Hospitals and Health Networks 100 Most Wired list for 12 of its 14 years. IT was cited for its contributions to Sharp's 2007 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Sharp was an early leader in electronic health records and has received several awards for its consumer web site. In 2010 Sharp launched its mySharp portal to more closely engage its patients in their care, followed by the mobile mySharp in 2012.


Recent years have been of great awakening in healthcare. We have an incredible agenda that includes amazing opportunities to leverage the many innovative technologies coming to market while also achieving regulatory challenges including earning incentive payments under the 2009 HITECH act and the transition to the advanced ICD-10 coding structure required for billing beginning in October 2014.

We are only beginning to witness the consumerization of healthcare, as patients are both encouraged and insisting to be more engaged in their healthcare decisions. While this seems obvious as compared to the customer partnership common to other industries, physicians and other healthcare providers are struggling to learn how they can interact most fully with the patient with whose care they have been charged.

The electronic health record is intended to move the patient's record of care online and improve quality and access to care. While the current software supports the basic needs, another generation of development will be important to ensure usability of the software by our caregivers.

Role as a CIO

The role of a CIO is evolving tremendously today. As we progress, I am less and less a technical leader and more part of the business. I communicate the perspectives of my technical team in terms of their impact on the business and ensure that technical goals support the business direction. While we CIOs identify many opportunities to do good work for our organizations, those most likely to be pursued are positioned by business leadership. Whether it is my idea or theirs, I like to have a business leader out in front.

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