By FRANK FORTNER

This week, I have had the pleasure of attending the CHIME Fall Forum event in San Antonio, Texas. What I like most about this event is being able to talk to CIOs and hear their thoughts on this rollercoaster world of healthcare IT – to hear first-hand what challenges they face, what keeps them up at night, and what they are doing to solve these issues. As a vendor, we always strive to provide the best solutions and the best services possible that meet the needs of our customers. In this hectic world of regulations, deadlines, and competing priorities, it’s easy to lose sight of what is important and why we all do this in the first place. Ultimately, it comes down to doing what is right for the patients.

Although not all of the vendors attending CHIME offer the same solutions, nor do the attendees from different hospitals have the same challenges, there is one common theme among healthcare IT vendors, hospital CIOs, government officials, etc. At some point in our life, either ourselves, or someone we know, will be a consumer of the healthcare system seeking care. You want to be assured that the hospital or healthcare provider has done everything they can to be efficient and give you or your loved one the care that is deserved

So how do we, as a vendor, play a role in this? By listening to our customers about the challenges they are facing, and working with them to solve them. The greatest reward as a leader in a healthcare IT company is when we can grow a relationship and collaborate with a CIO to come up with the right solutions to their problems which ultimately benefits the patients. This may include streamlining a process so the patient gets results faster, or safe-guarding their medical information, or making the jobs of the clinicians easier so they can focus on the patient. These results make all the hard work worthwhile.

We have this type of relationship with Frank Fear, CIO of Memorial Healthcare in Owosso Michigan. We have been working together for many years, solving a long list of issues together.  If you are attending the CHIME Fall Forum, today you would have heard CHIME recognize this partnership by presenting our organizations with the 2014 CHIME Collaboration Award.  We, along with Frank Fear, received this award as a result of our collaboration to help Memorial Healthcare monitor and track Meaningful Use. This initiative began when few realized the implications of Meaningful Use monitoring, tracking and reporting. The collaboration continued, including connecting Memorial’s patients and doctors with a single, enterprise patient portal. We are very honored to accept this award with Frank, and I want to thank him publicly for his continued collaboration, partnership, and leadership.

We also want to share the exciting outcomes of this collaboration, so Frank and I are presenting a CHIME College Live session together on November 5 at 12 p.m. ET.   Frank will share his experiences of succeeding in this complex world of Meaningful Use. You will hear how he keeps his team motivated and focused on their other priorities, and what he has learned along the way that can help as we approach Stage 3.

Please join us for the webcast on November 5^th. It’s a great opportunity to hear from your CIO peer as you continue in your own Meaningful Use journey!

Frank Fortner is a president with Iatric Systems.