If you ask Aaron Miri, the biggest problem with healthcare is that it was designed in the 20th century using a waterfall model. “To flip that on its head,” he said, is going to take “a long time and a lot of fortitude.” It’s going to require abandoning the 5 and 10-year strategies of the past and adopting an “iterative planning cycle where you’re constantly reassessing.”

It’s an approach that has served Miri well, both in his current position as Chief Digital and Information Officer at Baptist Health, and in previous roles with organizations such as Dell Medical School & UT Health Austin, Imprivata, and Children’s Health. During a recent interview, he spoke with Kate Gamble, Managing Editor at healthsystemCIO, about the “continuous learning environment” his team has cultivated at Baptist; how they’re leveraging robotic automation to enable clinicians to practice at the top of their license; how philosophy when it comes to fostering innovation; and why he believes “courage and conviction” are such important qualities for leaders of today and tomorrow.

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Key Takeaways

* Opening a new, state-of-the-art hospital comes with state-of-the-art challenges, said Miri. “It all has to come together into a symphony of everybody playing their part really well so that opening day goes as smoothly as possible.”

* The best way to determine whether the right workflows are in place? By “getting in there, talking to folks, partnering, and rounding.”

* “We cannot grow our nursing, medical staff, and allied folks fast enough. What we can do is enable and empower them so that they’re working smarter, not harder,” said Miri when discussing Baptist’s approach to robotic automation.

* True innovation doesn’t come from buying shiny new toys; it comes from having the right approach. “You have to have a definitive why, you have to want to do it, and you have to have the courage to ruffle some feathers.”

* The biggest problem with healthcare? “It was built in the 20th century with a waterfall methodology. To flip that on its head takes a long time and it takes a lot of fortitude.”

Q&A with Aaron Miri, CDIO, Baptist Health

Gamble:  Baptist Health just had a new hospital open on December 19. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Miri:  Yes. Baptist Medical Hospital Clay, a state-of-the-art hospital serving Fleming Island. It’s our seventh hospital. I was looking at the census, and we’re almost at capacity. We were almost there two and a half weeks after opening. It’s crazy. It’s good for the community because the demand is clearly there, but bad if you think about the people in the area — what were they doing before this?

But that’s indicative right now of healthcare in general. Everyone is dealing with a massive tidal wave of demand. Everybody is sick.

 

Gamble:  Opening a new hospital is something you’ve done before. But it’s never really easy, is it?

Miri:  That depends on how you define easy. But no, it’s not. There are so many things to navigate. At a high level, you have to navigate construction and material delays, right? That goes into technology as well.

You have to navigate people. When do you hire your staff to start? When do you get them trained? There’s a cost consideration there. Then you’ve got process. Are you redesigning units? Do modifications have to happen because you’re going to provide a different type of care? Are there certain services you’re going to offer on Day 1 versus Day 60? All of those things have to be ideated.

And of course,