CIO of the year: John Halamka

John Halamka holds many different prestigious titles which include: CIO of Beth Israel Medical Center, CIO at Harvard Medical School, Chair of the US Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel, among other titles. During his presentation John Halamka explained his career and what is expected of him. It's no surprise that Loyola has chosen John Halamka as CIO of this academic year.

Dr. Halamka's life is very demanding, he is constantly making important decisions. Dr. Halamka focused a portion of his presentation on how he faces many demands during the day but cannot meet most of these demands. He mentioned that for him it is important to budget his time and allot enough time to speak with the people he finds most demanding and difficult. Dr. Halamka joked that he wears a certain kind of suit just incase someone throws water at him (which someone did)! The title of CIO is very challenging and tends to be too much for most people, according to Dr. Halamka most CIOs only hold their position for about two years. Dr. Halamka has been holding his position for 10 years, which shows he must be doing something right!

Dr. Halamka gave an example of a time when his job as CIO was not easy. He spoke about an instance where one of his former employees breached a privacy standard and stole tons of records from one of the hospitals computers. He explained that when something to this degree happens the hospital is responsible for publishing the breach in the media. Luckily for Dr. Halamka the previous day a huge story unfolded which took the spotlight to his incident. In this case Dr. Halamka held full responsibility because of his position as CIO. Through this example it's easy to see why most CIOs only last two years.

As Dr. Halamka continued on with his presentation he noted that he is involved with many different IT projects right now. One project include Radio Frequency Identification Tags. I found this project particularly interesting because the night before the presentation I had been researching Radio Frequency Identification Tags for my Strategy and IT outline. In my company (Wal-Mart) they were implementing these tags as well. It was interesting to see how differently the same IT product can be used in a store such as Wal-Mart and also in a hospital.

Dr. Halamka also mentioned that he is involved in projects which will allow for electronic medical records and electronic prescriptions. As we spoke about in class the other day, this seems like a hot topic because of privacy.

Overall I found Dr. Halamka to be a very interesting person. He seemed so down to earth and level headed as he spoke and carried himself much like a businessman; it was hard for me to picture him as an emergency room doctor. I really enjoyed this presenter and agree that he deserves the title of Loyola's CIO of the year.