Lisa Rawlins
SVP, The Garner Group
What inspired you to pursue a career in Health IT leadership?
Starting in mid-level management and hospital administration at institutions like Shands Hospital at the University of Florida, and Grady Hospital in Atlanta, my interest in health information technology grew. I played a role in designing the ADT system and pioneered one of the first wait time studies, tracking patients through the emergency department where we had issues in relation to resource allocation. I transitioned to the policymaking realm, where I served for a decade on the Florida House of Representative’s healthcare committee. In 2003, I authored a significant healthcare reform bill for Florida called the Affordable Care Act for Floridians, a clause that would require the state of Florida to incentivize the adoption of electronic health records and look at developing a health information exchange. From a health policy perspective, the better you manage the population through technology, the better the outcomes and the less cost impact on the health care delivery. While at the Florida Medicaid Agency, I spearheaded the development of a health information exchange (HIE), making Florida a pioneer in this area. This journey led me deeper into health information technology.
Simultaneously, I worked on a transparency initiative for hospital systems, reporting on outcomes and costs. I collaborated with 3M to develop methodologies for calculating readmissions, influencing CMS's reporting on hospitals. This has had a tremendous impact on how health care is reimbursed today.
How has your journey evolved in this field over the years?
After leaving the agency, I became the head of quality and process improvement, overseeing CMS reporting from a provider perspective. While in South Florida, I organized the community to support the development of regional extension centers funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I managed a $17 million grant to assist local primary care physicians in adopting electronic health records (EHRs). Recognizing the significance of health information technology, I also played a role in establishing the Technology Committee for the South Florida Hospital Association. After implementing EHRs within 3,600 small physician practices across South Florida with the regional extension center, I joined an organization that created an educational data platform for schools to identify student performance weaknesses. I realized this platform was ideal for population health management. During the emergence of pioneer ACOs under Obamacare, I connected a vendor from South Florida with Massachusetts General Hospital, aiding in the development of population health platforms for both Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham Women's.
I then moved out to Seattle where I served as the Vice President of Population Health Informatics for Providence Health and Services, which is the nation's third-largest not-for-profit health system in the country. We had 52 hospitals in seven different states across the West. That’s been my career in a nutshell. I share this journey not only because I am proud of what I have accomplished during my career, but also to show that you can have a diverse career. There isn’t a linear path in healthcare technology.
What advancements and adoptions in healthcare technology are you proud to see in the industry? What advancements would you like to see grow and develop?
In my current role at The Garner Group, I'm closely involved with prescription digital therapeutic companies, and I've noticed a significant shortage of clinical professionals in our country, a problem we predicted years ago. The pandemic has exacerbated this issue, with most hospitals now having a 35% clinical vacancy rate. The retirement of baby boomers further compounds the clinical workforce shortage. I see digital therapeutics as a solution to this problem. For instance, Luminopia, one of our clients, is a great example of how health information technology is replacing typical clinical intervention in treating disease.
I'm also enthusiastic about population health management tools. We developed a system for Massachusetts General that has been adopted by Epic and is now the Epic platform for Population Health Management. This involves not only collecting patient data but also analyzing it to identify care gaps and predict future health risks. The first stage focuses on closing care gaps, while the second stage aims to prevent patients from reaching a chronic disease state. These are the two areas in health information technology that I'm most passionate about.
What advice would you give to aspiring women who desire to reach Health IT leadership roles?
Do not be intimidated at all by the corporate culture. One of the things that as a leader, I have always looked at is working with and hiring people who have a skill set that I may not have. Maybe I have a particular skill set, but I'm not as strong as someone else may be. My advice is to surround yourself with people who augment your skill set. In any type of leadership position, I think it's important that you help create an environment where people feel comfortable sharing ideas, especially from an innovation and health information technology perspective. No idea is a bad idea. You need to listen to what is being said to you regarding how you get to the next step both in your career and in the projects that you're working on.
Additionally, my advice to individuals coming into the healthcare environment from a health information technology perspective is to try to build from a change management perspective. Build consensus around the projects you're working on and educate, educate, and educate repeatedly on why your IT project is important to the organization. I must give you a real-life example. When I was working with a hospital system, part of my job was to meet with the medical chiefs of staff once a month with the CEO. I walked into those meetings with some assumptions that the chief medical officers, those MD, MPH, and PhDs, knew as much as I did regarding my subject area. That was a huge mistake because I quickly learned as I was trying to explain why we were implementing the patient satisfaction survey, that it was a requirement from CMS. I wish I had known earlier in my career to never expect individuals with diverse backgrounds to know as much as you know in this field – no matter how much experience they have. Come to the table as the subject matter expert and take the time to explain why you're doing the project, why the project is important, and how this will benefit not only the organization, but the individuals involved as well. All the change management principles that you could apply, you need to be able to apply those in just about every situation that you are involved in, whether it's a meeting of minds in hospital leadership or working one on one with your staff members; explain why the projects that you're working on are important.
My final advice is that just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean you can't get it done. When I wrote that piece of legislation that said we needed to report on hospital readmissions, I knew for a fact that had never been done before, but I felt like it was a real indicator of poor management of patients being discharged too early. I thought to myself, we'll figure this out as we go down this journey, and I did just that. I got the right partners to the table, and it had a tremendous impact on the industry that I never would have dreamt of. So, in closing, I'd say dream big, and just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean you can't do it.