Continue reading »]]> I received two emails over the weekend asking if I would consider posting more information about my work experiences. Although I replied to the two individuals that wrote, I decided to let everyone know that I have this type of information available on two pages here on the website. You can find out more “about me” in a general sense, including where I live and some personal information, at the “About” link at the top of the page. For those interested in my career experience, that information is available at my “Career” page, also listed at the top of the page. Of course, you can click on the links embedded in this post to go directly to those pages.

Thank you for your interest.

Spencer Hamons

Continue reading »]]> This week, we talk about the “Peter Principle” and the tendency for people to obtain promotions until they reach their own level of incompetence.  With that in mind, we discuss some very simple time management techniques that brand-new managers can use to help get their feet underneath them in that first or second management job.  Even if you aren’t a brand new manager, it is never too late for all of us to learn some new techniques.  I’m not going to spoil the podcast for you…instead, I will let you listen to the show and decide how valuable the content is on your own.

Mentioned during the show today is the blog Time Management Ninja by fellow blogger Craig Jarrow.  You know my feelings about the importance of life-long learning. Regardless of how long you have been a manager or leader, there is always something new to learn that has the potential to make you even more effective at your job.  Craig’s site is full of excellent time management tips presented in a very concise format.  I encourage you all to visit.

As always, I welcome your comments either here on the blog, or by emailing me directly at spencer@itpodcast.org.

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Spencer Hamons

Continue reading »]]> As I close on the last few weeks of my graduate degree program, I finally have some time to produce this podcast once again. I would like to thank all of you that wrote me over the past months asking where I was, checking to be sure I was okay, and for all of the well-wishes you have sent to me. Talk about making a guy who loves technology and operations feel like a rock-star.

This week, I revisit the necessity for all leaders in healthcare to work to improve communications with all of the various stakeholders that we serve.  Not only the hospital staff, but our providers, the Board, and yes…our patients.  Unfortunately, a recent study suggests that while transparency is taking hold in the healthcare market, technology staff has not embraced the concept to its fullest potential.

A recent Dell survey illustrates some of this disconnect.  This study focuses on electronic medical record implementations, but I contest that the concept of open and honest communication of strategy, tactics, and realistic goals expands much further than just how EMRs will be used in healthcare.  To see Dell’s report, click here.

The same concept of using your performance data to enlist the assistance of stakeholders whose value as partners is many times overlooked because of the perception of “being too hard to work with”, can be found here.  Specifically, this report confirms what we have been talking about on this show for a number of years…the necessity of involving physicians and other professional clinicians in the decision making, design, and implementation of successful solutions.  To clarify, I’m not just talking about technology solutions, but process re-engineering solutions as well.

I graduate from Colorado State on April 16th.  I promise, I will strive to deliver more timely podcasts once I complete this program.

As always, I welcome your comments either here on the blog, or by emailing me directly at spencer@itpodcast.org.

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Continue reading »]]> Todays show talks about a topic that I get a lot of inquiries from young managers about, and just so happens to be a topic of discussion in one of my classes at Colorado State…how to help move your technology organization from a tactically focused organization to a strategically focused organization.  For those of you that have listened to this show for a while, you know that I believe that the success of an organization is held within the people that make up the organization.  In today’s discussion, I talk about some ways to encourage your staff to perform in a more strategically significant manner.

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As always, if you have any questions, you are welcome to contact me directly at spencer@itpodcast.org. I respond to all emails and posts to this blog directly.

As always, I am looking for ideas for new shows. If you have topics that interest you that you would like to see tackled, please let me know. You can email those ideas to me, click on the link at the top of this post, then scroll down and click on “comment”.  I will admit that I get a lot of inquiries from vendors about being on the show, so if you are a vendor, be forewarned that I do not accept any advertising on this blog for a reason, and that reason is that I reserve the right to ask any questions of my guests that I want, and publish the answers to those questions.  If you are a vendor looking for someone to tout the wonders of your product, there are other websites you can look at.  If you want an honest discussion of the pros and cons of a product, please contact me.

Spencer Hamons

Continue reading »]]> On this show, I have an interview with U.S. Army Major Eric McClung and Lieutenant Colonel Robert Curee.  Maj. McClung is the Chief Information Officer for Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Ft. Gordon, GA.  LTC Curee is the Regional CIO for the Southeast Regional Medical Command (SERMC).

Our discussion is about who owns the EMR and EHR process in military medical facilities, as well as discussions around how the military’s medical facility operations parallel many of the operational fundamentals found in civilian healthcare facilities now.  We also discuss some of Maj McClung’s and LTC Curee’s thoughts about leadership certifications for CIO’s.

To hear the podcast, you can use the plugin here:

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As always, if you have any questions, you are welcome to contact me directly at spencer@itpodcast.org.  If you have questions for Maj. McClung or LTC Curee, please direct them to me and I will be sure to forward them on.

Also, I am looking for ideas for new shows.  If you have topics that interest you that you would like to see tackled, please let me know.  You can email those ideas to me, click on the link at the top of this post, then scroll down and click on “comment”.

Spencer Hamons

Continue reading »]]> Well, the Kuskokwim River is starting to break up here in Bethel, Alaska…the geese and ducks are here for the summer, and we are getting our sunset around 11:30pm.  I knew I needed to get a podcast out soon, because I know it will be tough as soon as the salmon runs start.

On this show, I talk about whether some of the differences that we see in our different employees is really “generational”, or are some of the differences “geographical”. It’s a little different take on the typical discussions about the generational differences found in our employees and the U.S. workforce in general.

As always, I have links to the technology news that I talk about in the podcast. In this segment, we talk about these items in the news:

Siemens Medical Malvern, PA facility raided by the Pentagon Criminal Investigation Unit.

United States Electrical Grid Penetrated by Spies – China and Russia use Malware to get into the U.S. power grid.

Domestic Terrorism in the U.S. – Fiber Optic Cuts in California cut 911 and other services.

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As always, if you would like to comment on this podcast, you can either email me at spencer@itpodcast.org, or you can click on the title of this post and on the new page, scroll down to “comment”.

Thank you for listening.

Spencer

Continue reading »]]> In this week’s podcast, in addition to our normal news topics, we discuss what I call DRIP (Data Rich and Information Poor), Data Analysis and we also touch on the topic of disaster recovery and business continuity.

As always, I welcome your comments either here on the blog, or by emailing me directly at spencer@itpodcast.org.

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The articles that I reference in the podcast are linked below:

Consumer off-site data store LinkUp fails

19 Hour Laptop

You never know what may show up in those search engine cached pages

I thank you for listening to this podcast, and as always I welcome your comments either directly to this blog…or you can email me directly at spencer@itpodcast.org.The next podcast will be available on September 6, 2008.

Continue reading »]]> This week’s podcast is short and sweet, pretty much because I didn’t do my typical research that I do for my news section.  But hey, it was summer and we just had our biggest hospital foundation fundraiser of the year on July 18th.

Today’s show is continued discussion from show 114 about how to keep the CIO position relevant as technology becomes more of a commodity in today’s business world.  This post is a bit old now that we are in 2011, but the information will likely hold value for many of you struggling with this topic today.

As always, I welcome your comments either here on the blog, or by emailing me directly at spencer@itpodcast.org.

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The next show will be released on August 2, 2008.

Thank you,

Spencer

Continue reading »]]> Because I was unable to get the interview with executives from Meditech this last week, we will fall back to our typical format with news and information, followed by some questions about leadership and what happens when leaders become stagnant and stop learning.

I will be taking my first vacation in about 4 years over the next week, so emails that you may send to me will likely have delayed responses.  Please don’t let that stop you, I promise I will return all your emails when I return.

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The following articles are referenced on the “In the News” section of today’s podcast.

U.S. Firm fined for hiring violations with H-1B visas

Video of Cohen & Grigsby Speech about how to not hire U.S. Workers

Purdue University Supercomputing Barn Raising (trailer)

AT&T Opens up Wi-Fi to iPhone Users

MedAssets Acquires Accuro Healthcare

The next podcast will be released on May 17, 2008.

Continue reading »]]> On this week’s show, we talk about the CMS “Never Events” and talk with San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center’s Director of Quality and Patient Safety, Coryee Hamons about how these never events are going to affect hospitals and the challenges we face.  I have not forgotten about the multi-part series to talk about the various integrated hospital information systems that are out there, but so far, I have only had McKesson’s Paragon group and Meditech respond.  If I don’t get more vendors interested in participating, I plan on going forward with interviews with McKesson’s Jim Pesce as well as some (at this time unnamed) executive from Meditech.

I need you to get the information out to your vendors and have them contact me at spencer@itpodcast.org so we can set up a time to talk with them.

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Here are the links for the stories mentioned in the news segment of the show:

Alamosa, Colorado Salmonella Outbreak Update

11 Year Old takes school network by the horns

Cautious VoIP Approach

Safari Web Browser Catches Businesses by Surprise

National Institute of Health Division Laptop Stolen

Antioch University Sun Solaris Server Breach

Thank you for listening.  The next show will be released on Saturday, April 19, 2008

Continue reading »]]> This is a very abbreviated version of the typical healthcare IT podcast.  The reason for the short show is primarily because I have lost my voice due to a cold and can’t really do a full show.  Secondly, here in Alamosa, Colorado…we are dealing with a salmonella outbreak in the city water supply that has required a lot of additional work for me at the hospital and at the county Emergency Operations Center.  This extra work took away any chance of doing the research necessary for the show.

If you want to listen, you can hear it here:

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I will be doing my research and intend on getting the next show out on Saturday, April 5th…which is a week earlier than normal.

Also, I would like to specifically send a thank you out to McKesson Provider Technologies.  When McKesson heard about our salmonella problem in Alamosa, one of their sales executives, Ted Pazur, went and rented a UHaul truck, went to a store in Denver and bought all the water he could, and drove the water nearly 5 hours so our hospital would have a fresh supply of bottled water.  Thank you Ted and McKesson!

Here are some links to stories about the Alamosa Salmonella outbreak:

General San Luis Valley News

News Segment from Pentagon TV

Press release from State of Colorado confirming findings

General Press Release from State of Colorado

Denver NBC Affiliate Coverage of Outbreak

Again, thank you for listening to this short and pointless episode.