IT Delivers Value to Both Patients and Doctors

Recognized for its expertise and developments in clinical care and research, Houston-based Texas Children’s Hospital operates the nation’s largest pediatric care network, serving more than one-and-a-half million children a year. The hospital recently embarked on a $1.5 billion expansion, which includes a neurological research institute, a maternity center and a new West Campus hospital.

As it expands its facilities, Texas Children’s Hospital depends on Vice President and CIO David Finn and his team of 290 IT professionals to ensure the availability, security and privacy of the hospital’s information assets. The way Finn sees it, at the end of every computing device and process at the hospital is a sick child in need of the best, most responsive medical care available. Finn discusses how his team and their technology partners provide the IT infrastructure to help meet that need.

For many organizations, determining the value of an IT initiative, infrastructure or service is measured in dollars. The goals are to increase efficiency, eliminate downtime and maximize the value of existing investments, and to meet other business metrics.

In the health care industry—particularly pediatrics—the value of IT is also measured in the quality of care it enables. As a result, our IT professionals must be aligned with the business of caregiving. After all, if we do not understand our caregivers’ needs, how can we expect to help meet them?

We must also be able to articulate the value of our initiatives in terms that caregivers and patients understand—using the language they live and breathe every day. As IT aligns more closely with the business of caregiving, we are able to present technology-based options that deliver value to patients, physicians and other stakeholders.