When Jeff Sturman’s title was changed from CIO to chief digital officer a few years ago, the rationale was clear. Memorial Healthcare System wanted more focus on the consumer experience, and they wanted it to come from the top. As part of the shift, call centers now report to the CDO, which provides the opportunity to shape the experience from the beginning

“We have to figure out our competitive advantage,” Sturman said during an interview with Kate Gamble, Managing Editor at healthsystemCIO. “Instead of patients coming to us, I think we need to get to them, and that means delivering where they want.”

During the interview, he talked about his team’s core objectives – including moving to a new ERP system; how they’re leveraging analytics to improve patient flow; why partnerships are more critical than ever; and the ultimate goal of taking the friction out of healthcare.  

LISTEN HERE USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR SUBSCRIBE THROUGH YOUR FAVORITE PODCASTING SERVICE. 

Key Takeaways

* The rationale behind Memorial Healthcare System’s restructuring was to improve access and intake, and figure out how to “manage patients and consumers differently.”

* By maintaining strong relationships, executives are able to “translate technology speak into everyday operations or strategy.”

* Unlike in the past, hospitals can no longer rely on patients to come to them. “We need to know how consumers want care delivered, and we need to be able to deliver.”

* Creating hospital-at-home models requires a sizeable lift. But if organizations can’t figure it out, they risk “missing out.”

* For healthcare leaders, the ultimate goal right now should be to remove the friction and make it easier to navigate.

Q&A with Jeff Sturman, Part 2 [Click here to view Part 1]

Moving into the Chief Digital Officer role

Gamble:  Memorial did a restructuring a few years back with you being moved to the chief digital officer role. What did that mean in terms of your responsibilities and your areas of focus?

Sturman:  When I was changed to the chief digital officer title about two years ago, the rationale behind that was our focus on consumer experience and engagement, looking well beyond the digital world to figure out the problems we have from an access and intake standpoint.

Now, the call centers report to me. The way in which we interact with patients from that first call to our healthcare system to make an appointment, that rolls up to my responsibility as well.

We’ve brought in all these disparate call centers into a centralized manner through which patients engage with us. That’s a journey; it’s not done. And it’s a multi-year journey — probably five or six years in the making, and we’re probably two years into it. We started with underlying technology, swapping out the call center technology and implementing a very modern solution.

“Consistency means something”

We then also looked at the organizational structure and the way in which we’re managing it. Again, consistency means something here. It sounds silly when patients call different numbers for our healthcare system and they hear different voices. We took that out of the mix and got everyone on a single voice so that there’s a single message that’s consistent with how they engage them to get care. Whether they need an imaging study in our hospital, a primary care visit in our physician office, or anything in between,