October - 201919CIO insightsSarah S. Kramer, MD, CIO, Yuma Regional Medical CenterTHE TRANSITION FROMCLINICIAN TO INFORMATICIANAs someone who was in clinical practice and ambulatory operations for roughly 30 years before transitioning into an Informatics career, it's been my pleasure to observe and advise other health care professionals who are considering making such a move. Historically, many of my industry peers chanced into such a career change, typically via partnership with their colleagues in information technology. Increasingly, it is becoming a more deliberate choice. Some find this change to be a true calling. Others find the work to be less satisfying, and eventually return to operations.Here are some of the common themes that should be considered before making the leap:1. You can generally only lead through influence: Professionals used to having more traditional "command and control" method of decision-making may struggle with finding the degree of consensus needed to install and optimize enterprise-level software systems. As such, it is rarely the "tech-savvy" individual that ultimately succeeds in Informatics, but the individual who acts as an effective facilitator and translator of the business needs. 2. Informatics can be a lonely job: Yes, there are meetings, but there is also a lot of time spent looking at computer screens, reading through feature sets, and preparing comparative documentation for purposes of garnering consensus as mentioned above. I've met extroverts in this By
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