I just wanted to let IS know how honored I am to finally be onboard and how much I appreciated the welcome from IS. I’ve been able to meet a number of our Renton caregivers as I got my bearings on campus here, and received some warm notes of welcome via email. I also want to thank our nearly 500 caregivers who joined last Thursday’s IS Open Forum call to hear some my very early thoughts having just joined and come out of our January 28 Board retreat.
I think my take away’s were:
- Awesome to have so many join Open Forum, so let’s keep it going! Let’s have more of us join our Feb. 19 call.
- Many of you have questions about our roles, our service and support models, and what the future holds for IS – some that I can’t provide clarity on yet because I’m ramping up and working with your leaders to assess.
- Many of you see technical debt and other opportunities to address to make us an even more highly-performing organization. I love the passion!
- I shared my style for open, transparent, non-sugar-coated communication and how we’re going to have to focus on our passion for technology and adapting to change to be successful in our evolution.
I know some of you have read some of the press clippings that have been shared about me joining PSJH from Microsoft. It was my professional home for 26 years and I held a number of operations, finance, and technology leadership positions there before looking around and not finding “the next big challenge” that was going to fulfill my curiosity and desire for growth. When I heard about the position from my former Microsoft colleague, Venkat Bhamidipati, our PSJH CFO/EVP (and now my boss), about the search for a CIO, I was intrigued. And after meeting almost 20 PSJH leaders in my interview process and learning about our Mission, I was convinced this was a place I could apply my passion for leading IT in the area of healthcare and supporting our inspiring vision.
I’m learning the complexities of the healthcare space, and the systems and nuances of IS and PSJH, so I will be seeking out the expertise of many of our caregivers and leaders. Just last week, I had a great meeting with the TEO leadership team of David Endicott, CTO/SVP of that large and critical group, and have more meetings planned.
I know one observant Open Forum participant had read one of the articles from the news of my hire and picked up a little tidbit about my wife, Shari. (Yes, I read the chat window, Geneva!) Shari McClure is an exec. director of oncology for the Halvorson Cancer Center, Evergreen Hospital, so now that I’ve joined her in the health sector, we have even more to discuss at the dinner table! We live in Bellevue, with our two dogs, and have made the Seattle area our home for 27 years. I also have two children, Lauren, 22, and Blake, 19.
I’m a pretty open guy, so we’ll learn more about each other as the months go by. I’m always happy to engage as time allows when I’m in my Renton offices (splitting my time between Gamelin and 4th floor of Southgate II) or when I’m traveling out to our regions. Also, always happy to get hear from you via email.
One thing I do want to encourage, as I mentioned, is participating in our Open Forums and our other tools for dialogue, which I’ll stay highly engaged with in my initial months. Also, we’re going to try to produce a scrappy webcast in mid-February and solicit some of your questions ahead of time via Yammer, so look for more in the coming weeks from IS Communications. Then, on March 5, we’ll have our standing quarterly IS town hall, which I want all to participate in, so we can go a bit more in-depth. I’ll also be traveling extensively and hope to meet many of you in the coming months. More to come!
Thank you for your warm welcome, your inspiring dedication to our Mission, and for supporting my learning curve as your leader.
-B.J.