Building a Purpose Driven IT Organization

[00:00:00] Chris Paravate: Every single person in IT connects to the purpose. And it’s because we’re not only providers of care, we’re receivers of care. My primary care physician is at Northeast Georgia. I want them to have the very best technology.

[00:00:16] Narrator: From Healthcare IT Leaders, you’re listening to Leader to Leader with Ben Hilmes. Our guest today is Chris Paravati, Chief Information Officer at Northeast Georgia Health System. In our conversation with Chris, he explains the nuances of fostering a healthcare ecosystem, highlighting the interplay between building trusted relationships and leveraging technology to enhance operations.

[00:00:41] Chris Paravate:
[00:00:41] Ben Hilmes: Chris, welcome to the Leader to Leader podcast. It’s so great to have you on and we get to talk about your organization, talk about, your leadership journey. Inside of these podcasts. We love to talk about things that are happening inside of the world of healthcare it, but we also like to talk about kinda your journey as a leader and in the hopes that our listeners kinda get some nuggets about both and how they can apply them. to their lives. So let’s start with Northeast Georgia health system. It’s a awesome story, from a small town hospital to one of the largest providers in the state. And a lot of that growth has come inside your tenure. So being part of a growth organization, I’ve been fortunate to be part of a significant growth organization in my career, and it’s a lot of fun.
So I’d love to hear you talk about Northeast Georgia, your footprint, and use some of the, your perspectives on the growth over the past decade.

[00:01:38] Chris Paravate: Yeah, thank you for having me. I have been fortunate. I’ve been here 14 years it’s flown by quickly and every year it’s been a different year. The organization has gone from one hospital to five hospitals. We just did a groundbreaking on a sixth hospital. We’ve got 2. 3 billion dollars in construction and flight. We are growing and what I think keeps us rooted and grounded is our sense of community our partnership and our commitment around, how we serve our patients our communities cause care is local.
[00:02:16] Ben Hilmes: That’s great. 2. 3 billion dollars in flight development. That’s impressive. Really impressive. Look, I appreciate the partnership that you have with healthcare IT leaders. It’s been an honor to work with you guys over the years, supporting your, broad strategies and objectives.
and, you know, as I talked to other CIOs, there’s lots of different tech stack philosophies that, CIOs will put into play best of breed enterprise. Tell us about your philosophy as a CIO and how that, lays out in your tech stack and your thinking, especially as you guys continue to grow, that’s gotta be front and center in your mind.
[00:02:52] Chris Paravate: I took this role 14 years ago, this was a McKesson shop, I had already committed to another role, and a good friend of mine, who was the CIO here, asked me if I’d just come up, just come have lunch with me, help me think through this strategy, and she hooked me into it.
I fell in love with Northeast Georgia, Because of its core values, and the humble and unassuming way that the leadership team engaged in problems and challenges and opportunities. As I took the CIO role 10 years ago, I was the number two person for a long time. The first conversation I had with the CEO at the time, As I was interim is tell me about the strategy that you want to employ.
Where do you see technology in that strategy? Help me understand that. And ultimately the question was you want to get by strategy? Do you want me to try to make McKesson work as long as I can? Or do you really want to thrive strategy? And a thrive strategy means that people will love their technology.
And they’ll regard technology as one of the strongest, aspects of their daily operations. And I know that was pretty aspirational at the time. And she said, I want a Thrive strategy. I said, okay, at the time, 200 million in 18 months, and I need you to be the executive champion.
And we’re going to take the entire organization through a transformation. And at that point, she paused for a long time. And she said, Okay, let’s go.
[00:04:22] Ben Hilmes: Wow.
[00:04:22] Chris Paravate: And at that time, that was more than the cost to build a new Brazelton hospital.
Which was one of our biggest bets at that time. we did an install. I’ve implemented Epic on and off throughout my career. We really focused on the change management and the adoption. And drove an extraordinary implementation. Both clinically and revenue cycle, achieved all those goals of ED physicians who love their EMR and are happy, and maybe they, the bar was so low that when I brought them up it was good, but they felt a strong partnership and along the way, we worked on I. T. core values, and it really started out as my core values and as I tried to shape an I. T. organization that I wanted to work in
one of the core values is go see the problem through the eyes of your customer, right? Go see it, understand it, ask questions, learn it. And that started out from me being a project manager and out in a bunny suit and spending time in the O. I had to do a, pharmacy core upgrade and that’s how I learned it.
So seeing the problems through your customers, is a big aspect, and as it relates to my role, my office is actually an administration. We align by customers, not by technology. And everything we do is with an eye for our patients our users. And that means that we do a lot of things that maybe are harder for IT, but easier for our customers.
that means that we’re going to do a maintenance window at 2 a. m. on Sunday. It’s not because we like it, it’s that’s the least disruptive time for us to make changes to the system. And we don’t do changes outside of that window unless it’s necessary. And so as I worked on that culture and that environment, and my office is here, I spend an incredible amount of time with my peers. I spend 75 percent of my entire work life in administration, in departments, in work areas, understanding customer needs, and transforming that into digital solutions. that means that, as we let our workday install a year or so ago, the CFO, the CHRO, and the VP of supply chain, were locked at the hip, we could finish each other’s sentences and led that implementation, and it’s that type of partnership, of building relationships, connecting with people, understanding their business, helping to drive solutions, and, That’s the core of what we do.
But we do it with an eye on the customer, not on a technology. So technology is just table stakes.
I love the get by versus thrive, right? That’s a really interesting way to put it and then let that drive okay. If you want to do get by this is what that means. You want to thrive. This is what this means. And then you went on a journey and you guys have been doing it.
[00:07:24] Ben Hilmes: I love the fact that you put the customer at the center of your focus. And you say, look, we’re a service organization. We’re going to walk a mile in their shoes, help them solve real world problems. And the technology is an enabler of that, but the adoption, the transformation is really the most important part of that.
And so that’s, really an interesting perspective. I love it.
[00:07:45] Chris Paravate: The culture is driven so deeply inside IT as we stepped into COVID cause we always have to talk about COVID.
[00:07:52] Ben Hilmes: Right.
[00:07:53] Chris Paravate: people went to work in remotely.
[00:07:55] Ben Hilmes: Right.
[00:07:56] Chris Paravate: My team actually came on site, they set up tents, they helped triage, they helped provide supplies, they answered phone calls, they helped communicate with patients and families because of that connection with operations was so important.
So real, so tangible.
[00:08:12] Ben Hilmes: Let’s talk about cloud. So I know you’ve got a lot of big initiatives going on inside of your team. And, what are your major goals around your cloud migration and where are you in that journey?
[00:08:25] Chris Paravate: We didn’t want to be first to market in the cloud. We really wanted to see that mature a little bit and rationalize maybe the hype cycle come down a little bit. But now we’re ready. And so the other aspect of that data center is really maximizing the useful life of that data center. And it’s not just the servers and switches and those things, but it’s also The air handlers, the power, the and to make sure that we maximize that value. It’s a huge capital investment. And so over the next 24 months, we’ll migrate a large portion of our data center to the cloud. We’ve always been cloud ready, cloud prepared. Almost everything we have in a data center is virtualized.
We’ve consolidated our storage our network strategies, our cores, everything our architecture really cloud ready.
as we look at that, that service offering, we’ll be looking at different aspects, obviously all the technical components, but also back that customer experience. What’s that delivery mechanism look like? Not only transition, but in, future state, how do we manage that? We also, we can get very rural here in North
[00:09:41] Ben Hilmes: Right, right.
[00:09:43] Chris Paravate: mean,
You can drive, 10 miles in one direction and barely have cellular coverage as you start to get into the mountains. Nevermind, reliable circuits and those things. We’re going to be very thoughtful in the way that, that we craft that, that transition obviously we’ve had the data center, we’ve had the compute cloud has been less of a priority for us those aspects, but it’s a huge priority from a business continuity and certainly from a cyber security posture.
[00:10:13] Ben Hilmes: Yeah security comes to a lot of people’s minds, even just most recently with a lot of the change healthcare care. Attack and things. So I assume you’re probably also getting lots of questions from your leadership and your board around your security posture. You want to take a second to talk about that?
\ We have continued to, build out a security posture that’s multi layer like most organizations with some of the best technologies in place, but we’re a healthcare organization and recognize that there’s limitations in what we can do.
[00:10:48] Chris Paravate: And so we’ve brought in third parties to help us really make that security posture as robust as it possibly can. The other thing that I do is I bring in a third party auditor. And they audit our security plan and I volunteered IT to be one of those third party audit focus areas first, and people thought I was a little nuts.
People get really freaked out about audits but if you get past the word, it’s really a good assessment of what your capabilities and where your vulnerabilities are. And it, brings some third party objectivity into those problems and it really helps, one, it helps you either validate that you’re on track, it helps you identify some gaps and bring attention to those.
It’s been uh, consistently a really good strategy for me is to incorporate third party assessments. Even in our, even our, in our implementation world. It’s not uncommon for me to say to a vendor that we’re working on an implementation. Hey, we just finished integrated testing, getting ready to start training.
[00:12:03] Chris Paravate: like you to take an implementation team that’s not working on our implementation, and I’d like you to take two days and have that team completely take apart our build.
[00:12:12] Ben Hilmes:
[00:12:12] Chris Paravate: ask us questions about what were you thinking when you built this and have you considered this. I’d much rather know about it then, than find out about it post live.
And just a fresh set of eyes on a problem or an area that maybe you didn’t see can uncover some things. can be your friend if you use it in really an offensive posture instead of, just, reacting to an audit.
[00:12:40] Ben Hilmes: Yeah, I love that. I’m using your audit powers for good. If you would, that’s a great thing. I did a huge lesson learned here. I love the parallel view and objectivity. The. I think it coming from you as the leader is meaningful, right? Because It’s, it’s a safe zone.
we’re going to talk about leadership here in a little bit, so we can come back to some of those principles, but takes a really strong leader to adopt those kinds of principles and knowing that there’s going to be some challenges with that.
[00:13:10] Chris Paravate: it’s being humble and willing to take the risk that you don’t have everything perfect make it okay. What I really focus on in IT, both implementations and support, let’s get really fast at identifying the issues and getting at resolving those. And let’s move away from whose fault it was or whose responsibility.
That’s a management problem, right? We’ll contend with that. And every implementationist has worked out well for me is the speed and velocity of reporting issues and getting them resolved and the flywheel that occurs. Most implementations, you’re working along the way and then you get to integrated testing or maybe you’re at unit testing and things start to come unglued. I really want all those issues to be reported along the way and some accountability to get those things closed Timely so they don’t you don’t get that pile up and ultimately that timeline adjustment.
[00:14:07] Ben Hilmes: Alright, let’s talk AI. It’s probably the most frequent conversation I’ve had this year. yours is one of the more practical and iterative approaches I’ve seen, which is, I appreciate, by the way, I think a lot of people are going to get a lot of good out of this.
I’ve heard you talk about very discreet kind of specific AI projects. All focused on solving a problem reducing workload, making access to data easier. Talk to us about your philosophy around AI, what are you focused on right now?
[00:14:41] Chris Paravate: I think about AI could be your very best wing man person, second set of eyes. We are so inundated with information every day, every minute, right? I think my phone’s gone off like six times since you and I’ve been
[00:14:57] Ben Hilmes: Right.
[00:14:57] Chris Paravate: and there’s bunches of stuff coming in, so how can we leverage AI to simplify all that and synthesize it in such a way I could be in the moment,
we’re listening to a family, we’re providing the best clinical judgment. And so very practical examples of that is if I’m referred from a primary care physician to a subspecialist, can I summarize the information that’s most relevant about that patient to that subspecialty so that they don’t have to spend 30 minutes doing chart prep before a clinic visit?
that’s not a moonshot, that’s not, Terminator three, my CFO likes to mention. But it’s incredibly useful.
[00:15:45] Ben Hilmes: Yeah.
[00:15:45] Chris Paravate: useful and what, it’s incredibly valuable to subspecialists and it’s respecting their time it’s also enabling them to actually have a conversation with the patient because all of the things that are in their chart, all of that history medical.
Family, all those things into the most relevant information that they need for that encounter. So that’s one example. On the other side, we are looking very closely and will be implementing AI tools that are more FDA regulated things that will find incidental findings.
So for example I had a cardiac CT scoring, calcium scoring test a few weeks when you do that, it’s very quick, it’s a CT without contrast, so basically your torso,
[00:16:31] Ben Hilmes: Right.
[00:16:32] Chris Paravate: they also see your lungs, they see, lymph nodes in your torso, they see other things are going on.
When the cardiologist, or the radiologist looks at that study, they’re looking at that study from the context what’s the calcium score. An AI tool could look at it. In the context of that entire torso and say, do I see anything in the lungs? Do I see any lymph nodes that are abnormal? Do I see any lesions in liver?
And can I run that algorithm and can I present that to the radiologist to validate? then can I route that to the appropriate clinician for follow up? that’s a very benign example. let’s say I was mountain biking. This would never happen. Of course, this is totally, but I was mountain biking in North Carolina and maybe I had a crash and woke up in the emergency room and they said, Oh, we did a CT of your head and everything looks clear and how could that CT of my, my brain identify maybe, other things that are going on.
And how could that then, play a part in how primary care and subspecialty deliver. we’re not a development shop,
[00:17:44] Ben Hilmes: right?
[00:17:44] Chris Paravate: right? So while we may be on the fringes of, experimenting with some of those AI tools we’re commonly looking for partners to mature those, ideas.
We do that through our health ventures group. But we’re also looking for commercially available proven technology. That we can very quickly and get realized value. The other thing about AI is security.

[00:18:12] Chris Paravate: And you hear lots of it and every organization has to deal with that.
Somewhat differently. We’ve been very deliberate in putting controls, not to inhibit work, but to keep people from doing dangerous things, like maybe exposing data inappropriately to a large language model that’s publicly available, right? That’s super important, and that’s really the role of IT, is really to help give some guardrails.
that somebody doesn’t inadvertently expose data inappropriately.
[00:18:43] Ben Hilmes: Those are all great insights, Chris. And I, I think about your journey to help become a thriving organization, which you are. Your focus on customer you’re at a different level here. That takes an incredibly smart, talented, capable team. I know you’re quick to say it’s not about you and it’s about your team.
You also in doing so have to compete for talent in a really tough market. So I assume you’re. head to head against all the best and brightest in Atlanta and around. So without giving away too many trade secrets, how does Northeast Georgia think about, talent acquisition? Once you have them there, how do you keep them there?
I think that’s one of the biggest things I think the leaders fail to do is not just get the talent in, but also how do I keep the talent here? And grow them, give them opportunities, et cetera. I’d love to have, see how you’re doing that inside of Northeast Georgia, and especially as you grow giving people opportunities to also grow with you.
[00:19:43] Chris Paravate: Yeah and that kind of fits back in that core values stack. And there’s some distinct strategies, but I think they’re, they’ve become very real and very authentic because easy to identify with. And so as we think about talent, we want to obviously hire the best and brightest talent.
We’re hiring for cultural fit. What are their values? What other things are important? learning agility emotional maturity and some of our core values is, humility is your friend, Not being the smartest person in the room okay, because we’re learning together, and we’d likely learn a whole lot more We don’t pretend that we think we know all the answers, right?
humility is, a big part of our culture. Assume everybody’s trying to do the right thing. And while that sounds very common, right? Assume good intent. We’re all trained to judge. We’re trained to analyze and identify problems and issues. If you could focus on the work and not on the individual, Then you really can focus all your energy, all of that brain power on problem solving and on solution design and less on gosh, I don’t know what the heck Ben was thinking.
So assuming good intent, assuming people are trying to do the right thing. Work is more important in your role is another one of our core values. And the role helps to divide the work, but it shouldn’t limit the work. And that goes along with another one, which is 200 percent accountable. If I know, Ben, you’re going to be in tomorrow morning at 7 a. m. because you’ve got to go live, I could send you a text message and say, Hey, can I pick up some coffee for the project team? I know you guys are going to be a little tired,
[00:21:35] Ben Hilmes: Right.
[00:21:35] Chris Paravate: but what can I do to help you? gosh, I see you’re running late can I help you with that testing? Because it’s not only my success, it’s your success, and ultimately as a team we’re more successful. Relationships are more important than the work is another and all of these things fit together into a, teamwork that drives purpose.
And people, whether it’s someone who’s an engineer who’s, spends very little time in a hospital, or in a clinical setting. Or somebody like a trainer who rounds and spends frontline time with users. Every single person in IT connects to the purpose. And it’s because we’re not only providers of care, we’re receivers of care.
My primary care physician is at Northeast Georgia. I want them to have the very best technology. I want them to be focused in the moment. them to pay attention. want them to make me feel special, but I don’t want them to have to do anything special. that experience because we’re consistent when we deliver.
Those core values people. I think that talk about development and, I talk about a toolbox, okay I have an incredible toolbox in my garage. I’m quite a mechanic. my tools are very organized.
I’ve got beautiful tools, top of the top brands, I know how to use them and they’re very well organized. That’s the same way I expect, you and I would work on your professional development.
[00:23:08] Ben Hilmes: Right.
[00:23:08] Chris Paravate: It’s your toolbox. You own it. you leave, you take that toolbox with you. make sure you put the very best tools in that toolbox.
Let’s make sure you are at the very best of what you want to do. And that you’re prepared for the very next level. And guess what? That next role may not be at Northeast Georgia
And that’s okay, but I’m going to have you take five other people with you on that journey of filling your toolbox so that you’re building the person who can take on that work when you move on to another role.
Those things create an environment that one is safe to say, you know what, I don’t have to know all the answers and guess what? I can make some mistakes. But people know me and they know my intent. And they’re going to support me and help me get where I need to go. And that’s not an excuse for sloppy work. If we make a mistake, and we have, and we do, we own it. And we call that user, we say, we made a mistake, is how it was done, this is what we’re going to do differently. And apologize for that inconvenience. That creates a personal connection with our customers that, you know what, they’re not this IT group they’re part of us.
[00:24:24] Ben Hilmes: let’s pivot and talk a little bit about Your leadership journey, you’re in your second decade there in northeast Georgia. , that feels like a long time. And you’re doing some incredible work. You’ve seen a ton of growth, a ton of change.
I’d love to know how you’ve changed through that, as a leader and how it’s molded you to become
the leader you are today.
[00:24:42] Chris Paravate: It’s been an interesting journey and every year is different. in my twenties, I might have been a little bit arrogant, a little cocky maybe got that reputation, but I also got the reputation of being able to get it done. and I had to work on that, and really probably just get a little bit more comfortable in my own shoes, quite honestly.
And I’ve always had a passion for fixing problems and getting things done. so as I grown in this role and now a second decade, as the organization has changed, constantly, frankly I’m, myself some days, we all have good days and bad days, there’s some days where we, we leave work a little defeated. take those times to recognize that what I’ve been doing, it’s not gonna do it. And the old adage, what, what worked yesterday won’t get you to tomorrow. those are times in which I’ve really had to reflect on my style, when there’s problems and there’s issues. You can bring that back to a leadership problem. It may have been an inner, individual who made the mistake, but there was a leadership or a management problem that, could have helped with that. I’ve constantly reinvented myself along the way. I’ve had some great mentors.
Carol Burrell, who’s our CEO is an incredible leader and I’ve learned so much from her. The culture of Northeast Georgia it’s funny we’re far enough out of the city that you get a little bit more it’s a little bit more of the southern comfort, humble conservative and unassuming but also very bold.
As you think about that technology strategy she was not afraid to say, you know what Let’s be bold. let’s do our best. and that it’s pretty awesome to be a part of.
[00:26:30] Ben Hilmes: The way you described when you were first coming on board and the pause around, do we want to, basically get by, or do we want to thrive sounds like she’s an incredible leader, very thoughtful, but also not afraid to kind of listen and say, why not us, right?
That’s fun to be part of a team that has a leader that is willing to put it on the line and go do something special. And I assume that that’s a lot of what’s rubbed off on you. And you’re looking at your team, you’re going, why not us? We should be able to do these things in a, incredible instrumental way and do it in a way that, brings joy to our customers.
And I just love that culture. It’s really neat. Hey, you’re now the president of Georgia HIMSS.
How cool is that?
These industry groups like CHIME and HIMSS and ACAT and all those talk about what you get out of them, everybody gets something different out of them, but what have you gotten out of them and then what do you hope to obviously now stepping up and being the president of Georgia HIMSS you’re kind of all in. So you’re trying to influence where that’s going. So I’d love to hear that too.
[00:27:38] Chris Paravate: There’s a couple things I get out of it. One is I, and probably the most valuable, is I build relationships.
There’s individuals that I’ve connected with across Georgia and even through the southeast that you get to know and you get to learn from and call upon and reflect upon, and that’s incredibly valuable. I have one individual I can think of I’ve known at Georgia HIMSS, I knew him, I’ve known him for 20 years.
I’ve never done business with him recently.
he’s been on the, vendor side for a long time. We’ve been good friends, been great counsel, we’ve helped each other. And that’s kind of a little bit like healthcare. Healthcare is, much a connected sport so whether it’s my, other CIOs in the state, and there’s some, really great leaders in the state it’s connecting with our, vendors, understanding all that fits together, along the way, I get to mentor some young people along the way.
Which is
[00:28:38] Ben Hilmes: That’s always fun. Yep. Yep.
[00:28:40] Chris Paravate: I always seem to learn something. I’ve got a couple of young individuals right now that I’m, helping to get their career started. But that’s the power of it. The power of, learning from each other. I mentioned, we have good days and have bad days.
We have things that we really struggle with. Sometimes, frankly, it’s easier to fix somebody else’s problem than it is to fix your own.
[00:29:01] Ben Hilmes: all the time.
[00:29:03] Chris Paravate: so to be able to call one of my peers and say, God, I’m just beating my head against the wall. What’s wrong with me? I’m just, I’m not getting it done.
And they kind of laugh at you, you
[00:29:14] Ben Hilmes: Yeah,
[00:29:14] Chris Paravate: Hey, you know, don’t feel hard on yourself. This is tough work. Let me tell you what I’m doing. It’s a little bit different. And to be able to tap into that, that’s priceless. and to be able to return that so I, encourage, all listeners figure out what that value proposition is it’s not immediate gratification,
If you’re a vendor, you’re not going to go there and sell something on Tuesday.
[00:29:38] Ben Hilmes: Yeah,
[00:29:38] Chris Paravate: know your you’re not always going to get value, but it creates an ecosystem. That over the course of time, for those individuals like me who have been in healthcare IT for 30 years, you have some trusted friends out
[00:29:54] Ben Hilmes: that’s
[00:29:54] Chris Paravate: and the market’s As big as it is, it’s still very small.
And, you know, I’ve got individuals that, literally I’ve known decades. they’re incredible people and honored to call them my friends.
[00:30:07] Ben Hilmes: I love that whole dialogue there. And look we’re lucky to have you doing what you’re doing inside this industry, more specifically inside the, the region that you’re in and then even more narrowly just at Northeast Georgia. Unbelievable conversation.
We’re going to land there. I tell you, this has just been stocked full of really good Insights, information, appreciate your approach to it. It’s very humbling. Just the genuine way that you go about leading driving change. I wish there were more people like you across this and
there are lots of good people.
I know that lots, I work with lots of them every day, but we need more people like you, Chris. And we’re thankful to call you a partner and I really appreciate you spending time with us. With me today.
[00:30:54] Chris Paravate: thanks, Ben. You guys have been great partners too, and I really appreciate the dialogue.
[00:30:59] Ben Hilmes: Chris is a leader with high integrity. I love how he leans into his core values to create a culture of teamwork and purpose. Here takeaways from our discussion.
One, Chris spends the majority of his day with his customers. He wants to understand their pain points so he can better meet their needs. Two, cultural fit plays an important role in hiring decisions. Northeast Georgia looks for individuals to demonstrate humility, emotional maturity, and a desire to learn.
And three, industry groups like HIMSS and CHIME still have a lot to offer IT professionals. They help young leaders build relationships and learn from their peers. So what did you think? What were your big takeaways from this episode? I’d love to hear from you on our social media channels or drop me an email from our website at healthcareitleaders. com.
Thanks for joining us for Leader to Leader. To learn more about how to fuel your own personal leadership journey through the healthcare industry, visit healthcareitleaders. com. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss any insights and we’ll see you on the next episode.