On February 17, we had one of our largest-yet IS & RESO Open Forums. Thanks to the over 1,900 who joined us to hear updates and asked questions of our execs. It was also very inspiring to hear RESO’s efforts carrying on our Mission with their work on supportive housing.
I hope you saw my message on Monday about the launch of our new quarterly peer-nomination IS & RESO Awards program. The new SMIle Awards will help us honor individual caregivers and teams who demonstrate our IS & RESO principles of Simplify, Modernize, and Innovate, lead with excellence, and, of course, live our values and Mission.
During my update on Open Forum, I had shared a little bit about the exciting announcement of our Truveta data consortium launching with 13 health systems nationwide. Our work on our own health data platform, as well as its integration with other massive data sets can drive tremendous improvements in our care and our approach population health and is one of our key priorities.
In this edition of Update, I hope you’ll check out our article about how the IS Healthcare Intelligence team laid the groundwork for Truveta’s launch and ensured this incredible dataset is compliant and preserves patient privacy. We can feel very proud of this groundbreaking work.
It’s also exciting to see both RESO and IS sustainability efforts around WE ACT starting to take off, with tangible progress being made toward our goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030. We shared some of RESO’s work in Eastern Washington on our February 17 Open Forum, but in this issue of Update, also look at what IS has begun driving around technology-driven environment stewardship.
When our last Update came out, I was getting ready for my sixth Fireside Chat that we recorded with Providence President & CEO, Rod Hochman, M.D., back on February 4. I encourage you to check it out if you haven’t already. We had wide-ranging conversation around everything from how he sees Providence being at the intersection of Innovation and Compassion, a bit about his personal life, and why he made the decision to bring IS and RESO together under my leadership as the org to drive the workplace and health delivery model of the future.
Speaking of my Fireside Chats, back in September of last year, I did one of these leadership conversations with our then-new EVP and Chief Legal Officer, Verona Dorch. She shared her passion for supporting our communities through pro bono legal outreach, including helping immigrants and exposing students to law. She also shared her inspiring story as an immigrant who went on to Ivy League education and a dynamic career in finance and law, before being drawn to Providence’s Mission. Sadly, last week, we learned that she had passed away. I’m so glad we had the chance to introduce her to IS & RESO and get to know Verona a bit and experience her warm personality. Our condolences go out to her family and the Legal Affairs team.
On a happier note, with many of our IS & RESO caregivers now vaccinated and the rollout continuing with approval of the third vaccine variety from Johnson & Johnson, we can feel cautiously optimistic about the current leveling-off of COVID rates, even as our nation acknowledged the tragic milestone of 500,000 COVID-related deaths last week.
I look forward to gathering the combined IS & RESO organization together again on March 19 for our next Open Forum.
Here’s to a brighter 2021 ahead!
-BJ
B.J. Moore
EVP & CIO, IS & RESO