This position establishes a formal informatics leadership presence at the facility level. This formal presence ensures that knowledge of informatics is infused throughout the Lebanon VA Medical Center, and that health information issues affecting the delivery of care are clearly articulated and raised appropriately for action. The focus of this position is to optimize effectiveness of patient care delivery and systems management in support of the VHA mission and goals.
Duties:
- The aim of clinical informatics is to improve health care delivery processes and outcomes through effective use of information and knowledge. The clinician assigned as Chief Health Informatics Officer (CHIO) will use knowledge of patient care combined with the understanding of informatics concepts to achieve the following: assess information and knowledge needs of the health care professionals and patients; characterize, evaluate and refine clinical processes; develop, implement and refine clinical decision support systems; and participate in the procurement, customization, implementation, management, evaluation and continuous improvement of clinical information systems.
- As a minimum expectation, informatics personnel should demonstrate the following eight core informatics functions at the baseline proficiency level (VHA Health Informatics Functions Framework, 2020) -application support, business architecture management, enterprise data management, content management, system optimization, change management, requirements management, and partnership management.
- As the resident expert in clinical informatics and health IT, the CHIO serves as the primary advisor to the Medical Center Director, Chief of Staff, Associate Director, and other facility leaders. The CHIO is expected to be a strong agent for change and must demonstrate an ability to understand the needs of his/her professional counterparts, for example, nurses, physicians, pharmacists, etc.
- In addition, the CHIO must demonstrate understanding of the Lebanon VA Medical Center organizational structure and the role informatics plays within the organization…