Inside CHIME: The Value of Thinking Global

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gmcculloch 2.4.16 by George McCulloch, MA, MBA, FCHIME, CHCIO
CHIME Executive VP, Professional Development and Membership

CHIME has seen growing demand for its services internationally. Health IT leaders around the globe are facing many of the same challenges and CHIME is better positioned than any other organization to offer support to healthcare CIOs everywhere.

More than two decades ago, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives was founded on the belief that better information sharing could be a critical part of both an individual’s professional development and their organization’s success.

As we’ve seen over the past 24 years, we all benefit by learning from each other. The growth in and success of CHIME’s programming — CIO Forums, College LIVE, LEAD Forums, Focus Groups, and more — are a direct result of the desire to network and share ideas. Not only do we grow as professionals through information sharing, but we give our organizations a chance to improve.

CHIME has always been about sharing; locally, regionally and nationally. With the globalization of healthcare and healthcare IT, this need continues to grow.

Reimbursement in the United States now has payment and care delivery models that have been utilized for years elsewhere around the world. This is particularly true in the area of population health where other countries have nationalized healthcare delivery and are looking to use information to balance cost, quality and access.

Similarly, there a number of international standards are important to healthcare IT:

  • ICD 10: Although a few months old in the United States, other countries have been managing under this classification system for care delivery for many years.
  • HL7 as a standard for interoperability.
  • ITIL as a model for managing the IT enterprise.
  • Technology standards like ISO/IEC and COBIT.

The drive to develop CIO leadership, organizational skills, and learning to innovate is not just a phenomena in the United States. International healthcare IT executives are looking to do this as well. Over the last several years, CHIME has hosted and participated in education and leadership development events in a number of major countries. There’s growing interest from international CIOs in CHIME membership. By expanding these collaborative efforts, we can further elevate the role of health IT leaders worldwide and spread best practices that will ultimately improve patient care.

Please contact me for more information on CHIME’s international activities.

More Inside CHIME Volume 1, No. 10: