Ed Marx, Chief Digital Officer for Tech Mahindra Health and Life Sciences and formerly the CIO at Cleveland Clinic and NYC Health & Hospitals, joined us on the podcast to share stories from his extraordinary career from a guy who calls himself very ordinary. For those of us who have worked with Ed, we know he is anything but ordinary. He is full of enthusiasm, curiosity and drive, and his has used those tools to expand his own horizons and to act as catalyst to define the role of the post-modern CIO for the healthcare industry.
Here are some highlights from our conversation:
- On healthcare technology: “We save lives. I always found it helpful to sort of have this vision that what we’re doing in healthcare technology is really sacred, and should be treated as such. It’s really helpful to always have that north star. The teams that I served with have leveraged technology to definitely improve patient safety and outcomes, but also literally save people’s lives.”
- On writing books, and other professional success: “It doesn’t take any magic to be [successful or high-achieving]. I’m just really average…but I would volunteer [and speak] and do these different things and then I found myself separating from the pack. If you just do the basic stuff, others aren’t doing basic stuff, and you can surpass them. If it’s writing a book, you just set your mind to it and you can do it.”
- On digital healthcare transformation, post pandemic: “Virtual visits are definitely going to stick…Sometimes you make an advance like when you’re climbing a mountain in order to succeed and reach the summit, you purposefully climb high, sleep low and that’s how you acclimate and make it. And perhaps that’s what we’re doing now in healthcare and digital transformation is, we did like 5,000 feet one day [in response to COVID-19], and we’re going to come back down, but at least we made a significant advance.”
- On the role of the community hospital: “The reason why I think it’s important that community hospitals continue to have a strong existence is, they are like the town center of many cities… It’s really important for communities to have such a vibrant living organization, because it takes care of the community, its people, and it’s really thinking about keeping the community healthy.”
- On what it means to be a post-modern CIO: “Look at where you spend your time. If you spend your time is in IT, then you’re probably not a postmodern CIO.”
- “A post-modern CIO is a business leader that really knows the business. And my litmus test to this, is that if a guest comes into your C-suite, they don’t know that you’re the CIO.”
- “Another aspect is being a change agent…If you yourself are not changing with the times, then it’s going to be hard for you to bring change to your organization.”
- “The third thing to be a talent scout. My success is predicated upon the people around me, and I tell you, if it was just me, now we’d be in big trouble. We’d be pretty average. So I always look for people better than me.”
- “Really, technology is sort of last on this list, but reimagining how technology might work, now things automations, keeping your eye on the horizon to start bringing in what is vogue right now, AI machine learning. Being on forefront with really smart people that have great ideas and just learning from them.
- On becoming 1% better as a leader:
- “Hang out with life givers. They say you’re just like the three to five people you hang out with the most, so spend time with people where iron sharpens irons. You learn from them and they inspire you and hopefully you have something that benefits them as well.”
- “Have a mentor and mentor others. You always want to be a cycle of putting yourself back out to others what people have poured into you.”
- “Change hobbies every 3 to 5 years. You should always have hobbies outside of work that give you rest, give you pleasure, whatever it might be, but change them. Because it’s through a variety of experiences that you learn more and get more creative. And I think great leaders are very creative.”
I know you’ll enjoy this conversation with Ed – he is an expert storyteller and a humble leader.
-T
