Marktkenntnis intravenös

Another on-line service is the Care360 Physician Portal. The portal is used by over 100,000 physicians to order tests and receive test reports electronically. Recognizing that electronic prescribing would be a major thrust in the healthcare industry to reduce medication errors, we integrated electronic prescribing into our Care360 product. The integration of labs and meds in the Care360 physician portal gives physicians critical information when they need it and helps improve the quality of care.

Of course, emerging technology is another market force that determines what we are able to do for our customers. Using technology to drive innovation helps us to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. Pointof- care testing, in which the collection of samples, testing and reporting of results occurs within minutes in the doctor’s office or hospital, is growing as a practice in the health care industry as a whole. Quest Diagnostics has recently acquired several point-of-care product companies and is now working to enhance Care360 to interface with these products. This will provide physicians with an aggregated view of laboratory results, whether performed in their offices or our laboratories. Having all of that information available to physicians electronically provides a more comprehensive view of a patient’s health, which otherwise would require manual searches through multiple pieces of paper.

How to be a market-savvy CIO

One way to understand the market is to read about products from a range of industry groups, as well as from trade magazines and journals. On the IT side, we have architects and engineers who are responsible for looking at technology trends through similar methods. It can be hard, because we‘re inundated with so many different sources of information, but it‘s important to identify three or four key sources that are particularly valuable and try to stay on top of them. We also have people assigned to follow what‘s going on from a regulatory and policy point of view, and to summarize their findings on a routine basis.

Also spend time with your customers and business partners; ask questions, listen and learn. Combine that insight with your expertise in information technology and you are well on your way to being a market-savvy CIO and a generator of growth for your company. I was fortunate to work in marketing for our health care IT subsidiary, MedPlus, before I became CIO. There I was focused on growth and the customer. I brought that perspective with me to the CIO role; therefore, I did not make IT operations my singular priority as most IT professionals do. Additionally, having responsibility for marketing a customer product gave me a strong grounding in three important customer bases: health plans, physicians and patients. My experience gave me greater insight into the opportunities to leverage IT as a growth engine.

Sustain IT as a growth engine

No matter how well you understand your market, you will not generate enough ideas for sustained advantage by yourself. But creating the culture and passion to sustain IT as a growth engine is not going to happen overnight. To create lasting change, the IT organization as a whole needs to have passion for its responsibility to drive growth.