The final decision-making role of the CIO within an
organization’s leadership team is being widely debated and discussed by both
CIOs and line-of-business executives. CIOs are realizing they will have more
influence inside their organizations if they partner more effectively with
others in the executive suite.
To shed some light on this topic, XChange events and IDC
Health Insights conducted a study of CIOs who attended our recent Healthcare IT
Summit and the results were somewhat surprising. Only 20 percent said they are
the final decision-maker on IT budgets with a slight majority—58
percent—stating that they are on the team that makes decisions on IT budgets.
The remaining 22 percent said that they have an influence on budgets, but are
not responsible for hard decision-making.
These results show that the large majority (78 percent) of
IT leaders in the healthcare space are thoroughly involved in the
decision-making process, along with the team of other C-suite leaders in their
organization, and/or are the final decision-maker in regard to IT budgets. What
do the results tell us?
For one—CIOs and IT leaders in the healthcare industry are
working more collaboratively with their line-of-business leaders, and according
to the CIOs that we spoke with, it is definitely beneficial for IT departments.
It also tells us that with more influence on the budget, IT leaders are able to
impact the organization through the use of IT tools, while better integrating
those solutions into the rest of the business infrastructure.
“Being the final decision-maker, and being a part of the
budget decision-making team, positively affects our IT department because it
allows IT to have the input and voice needed to guide our organization from an
IT perspective,” said Brian Sterud, the director of information management at
Brookings Health System.
It also could potentially leave room for innovation on the
IT leaders’ part—the sky’s the limit. “My role in the budget decision-making
has been beneficial for IT because it really helps us get the things that we
want and need, especially during the changes that are coming around the bend
(meaningful use, etc.), and I am afforded the latitude to make those
decisions,” said Sterud.
Richard Corovessis, chief of information technologies at
Health Quality Partners, said, “I make the decisions on what is going to be
valuable to us and important to the success of our organization. I am the king
of the IT department so it is very positive for me to have such a large role in
the IT buying process.”
