Healthcare CISO Boot Camp

The Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Security (AEHIS) was formed under the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) in 2014 as a platform to provide networking and educational support for senior healthcare security leaders. After the CHIME19 Fall Summit, CHIME, in coordination with AEHIS, held its first-ever Healthcare Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Bootcamp. The event exceeded my expectations.

Having been both a Certified Healthcare Chief Information Officer (CHCIO) and a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP) for many years now, I enrolled in the boot camp with a few questions regarding any additional value, I would gain from attending. One thing that I did know was that whatever event CHIME hosts, it is always done very well. Besides always feeding us well, another thing that the staff of CHIME excels at is bringing in top-notch speakers and presenters. This year’s faculty included Dan Bowden, VP & CISO, Sentara Healthcare; Ed Brennan Senior Risk Analyst, National Health ISAC; Samantha Jacques, Ph.D., FACHE, Director Clinical Engineering, Penn Health System; Will Long, VP & CISO, Children’s Health Systems; Theresa Meadows, CHCIO, SVP & CIO, Cook Children’s Care System; Anahi Santiago, CISO, Texas Children’s Hospital; Tim Stettheimer, PhD, FCIME, LCHIME, CHCIO, VP Education, CHIME; and Karl West, CISO & Assistant VP, Intermountain Healthcare.

This inaugural class had 36 attendees. The interactions and sharing of ideas back and forth between faculty and participants were phenomenal. The course material covered six critical success factors: Setting vision and strategy, making change happen, instilling customer service as a core value, building high-performance teams, building networks and community, and contemporary best practices in the security industry. These sessions were capped with a data-driven discussion by CHIME’s VP of Education Tim Stettheimer, revealing some great insights around “Achieving leadership through life/work balance”.

Some of the group decided to stay after the boot camp to challenge the Certified Healthcare Information Security Leader (CHISL) exam and be among the first to earn the distinction of earning CHIME’s newest certification. I believe some lifetime friendships may form as this group remains in contact to bounce ideas and best practices between themselves over their careers. The health systems that invested in their staff members and sent them to this event spent their money well, and will definitely reap the benefits.