Future of IT

You have just been hired as the chief informatics officer (CIO) for a new health system. The health system has 23 acute care facilities and 36 outpatient clinics. It serves as a regional referral center for three states in the Midwest.

Your installed base includes a vendor-supplied EHR from a national firm. Work on the data warehouse is just beginning. You have more than 300 varying applications across sites, including everything from a stand-alone pharmacy application for drug interactions to a cancer registry.

Your goal is to provide IT support for the organizational vision of being the premier health organization in patient safety for the region. One of the first things you want to do is to plan for the future of IT.

Given the information pertaining to the future directions of health informatics discussed in this chapter, select the two directions you want to emphasize. Describe these two directions in detail, providing a rationale for your choices. In your post, please cite any sources used, following APA formatting for citing sources.