From value-based care to artificial intelligence, Drex DeFord shares what’s top of mind for healthcare CIOs in an interview with Healthcare IT News.
DeFord will be one of 20 “social media ambassadors” for the annual Health Information and Management Systems Society conference February 19-23 in Orlando (find the full list here).
He’s moved on from his industry posts--the former CIO at Steward Health Care in Boston and Seattle Children's Hospital & Research Institute now does independent consulting.
His Twitter followers are “all interested in the transition to value-based care, and how to provide better, faster, cheaper, safer easier-to-access care for patients and families,” DeFord tells Healthcare IT News, a HIMSS publication.
Honored! -- Introducing the #HIMSS17 Social Media Ambassadors - Health IT’s Conduits for Change https://t.co/wipvgAU5he
— Drex DeFord (@drexdeford) December 13, 2016
“On the blocking and tackling end of the spectrum is security and privacy; that keeps execs up at night. On the cool end is artificial intelligence, with the potential to change almost everything about healthcare delivery,” he says.
He also talks about his “healthcare hero,” saying he was lucky to work with Scripps’ CEO Chris Van Gorder. “He's a front-line guy; going to where the rubber meets the road every day, seeing how policy works, talking to patients, and really getting to know all of his staff, holding them accountable, but giving them everything they need to get the job done,” he says.
Other topics in the interview include what’s he’s looking forward to at HIMSS17, his pet peeves and the one thing his social media followers don’t know about him.
In other news, HIMSS announced today that H. Stephen Lieber, president and CEO of HIMSS will retire at the end of 2017. Lieber, 63, assumed the role in April 2000.
“The past 17 years at HIMSS have been the most exciting and rewarding time of my professional life,” Lieber said in a statement emailed to FierceHealthcare.
“I feel that our work at HIMSS has resulted in considerable improvements to the quality of care delivered to patients, to the safety of the treatments they receive and to the value of care provided. I hope that, in some way, I can continue this work of making care better and safer through information technology.”