2008 CMIO and Physician IT Survey Report
Facts, Salaries and Advice from Chief Medical Information Officers and
Physician Informaticists
- Factors Demanding Clinical IT Leadership
- Survey Methodology
- Participant Demographics
- Titles Represented
- Degrees Represented
- Time Allocation
- Staff Management
- Medical Specialties Represented
- Why Did Physicians Choose IT?
- 2008 Compensation
- Physicians' Role in IT
- Reporting Relationships
- Barriers to Success in IT
- Recommendations for Success
- Value of Clinical Training
- Conclusions from Survey
Factors Demanding Clinical IT Leadership
- Implementation of EHR and CPOE systems
- Patient safety and clinical quality
- Public reporting, transparency, consumer-driven healthcare
- Clinical transformation projects
- Increased spending on clinical information systems
Survey Methodology
- Survey designed to gather information from physician IT leaders
- Conducted December 2008 and distributed to more than 90 CMIOs and Physician Informaticists
- Response rate was 34% with 31 CMIOs participating and representation from 18 states
Participant Demographics
- 87% of respondents are from hospitals, large health systems and academic medical centers
- 13% represent vendors including healthcare products and disease management
- 30% of respondents have CMIO title and 30% have Medical Director of Clinical Informatics
Titles Represented
- Chief Information Officer/VP
- Chief Medical Information Officer
- Executive VP, Health Intelligence
- Senior VP, Chief Science Officer
- Vice President, Clinical Innovation
- Vice President, System Design
- Corporate Director, Medical Informatics
- Medical Director of Clinical Informatics
- Medical Director of Information Systems
- Informatics Officer
Degrees Represented
Time Allocation
- Average time allocation is split 90% executive IT and 10% clinical
- 39% of respondents spend almost all their time on executive/IT responsibilities
- Other executive/IT time allocations were:
- 23% spend 90%
- 19% spend 80%
- 10% spend 70-75%
- 6% spend 60-66%
- One physician's time was split 50/50
Staff Management
- 75% of respondents have staff reporting to them ranging from 2 to 200 employees
- 39% have more than 75 employees
- 39% have 6-50 employees
- 22% have 5 or fewer employees
Medical Specialties Represented
Other specialties include:
- Emergency Medicine
- Gastroenterology
- Head and Neck Surgery
- Internal Medicine/Cardiology
- Internal Medicine/Pediatrics
- Pediatric Critical Care
- Pediatric Infectious Diseases
- Pulmonary Critical Care
- Trauma Surgery Critical Care
Why Did Physicians Choose IT?
2008 Compensation
- Among all survey respondents, the average base salary was $253,521 and average total compensation was $315,730
- The largest base was $400,000 and largest total compensation was $600,000
- 83% received a bonus varying from 2% to 100%
- Other compensation included auto allowance, housing allowance, tuition, SERP
Physicians' Role in IT
Reporting Relationships
Barriers to Success in IT
- Leadership (e.g., C-Suite, engineers, other clinical leaders) taking contributions seriously
- Resistance of colleagues
- Attraction to high-tech gadgets is a recipe for failure
- Budgetary resources to make it “go”
- A focus on details rather than strategy
- Lack of IT knowledge and of management and people skills
Recommendations for Success
- Continue learning: pursue an advanced business or informatics degree
- Stay in practice at least part-time
- Strengthen change-agent and project manager skills
- Volunteer for clinical IT committees and projects
- IT and EHR are tools not the end-point
Value of Clinical Training
Informaticists with clinical training can:
- Translate data into useful information to guide business and clinical decision-making
- Clearly communicate clinical problems and anticipate system problems in advance
- Facilitate physician adoption
- Evaluate data critically and with credibility
Conclusions from Survey
- More than 70% of respondents have advanced degrees
- Internal medicine (26%) and family medicine (19%) lead as medical specialties
- 77% are members of Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS)
- 39% spend a majority of time on executive/IT duties
- 75% of the physicians have staff reporting to them
- 57% in current position for 1-4 years
Conclusions from Survey
- 58% of respondents are in their first IT position
- More than 77% of physicians chose IT due to the strategic impact of IT on the field of medicine
- Average base salary was $253,521 and average total compensation was $315,730. Vendor organizations reported larger base and total compensation levels
- 90% view their main role in IT as Informatics Leader
- 45% report to Chief Information Officer, 16% to CMO/VPMA and 14% to CEO
For additional information regarding the survey, please contact Lois Dister.