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BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic required an unprecedented response by hospital information technology (IT) functions to provide information technology solutions to quickly drive the digital transformation of hospitals and health care systems to support high quality health care while adhering to and supporting contagion management protocols. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to understand whether health care information technology leaders (who we refer to broadly as Chief Information Officers (CIOs)) were ready for the COVID-19 pandemic, how they lead their IT departments through the pandemic, and how the CIO leadership practices lead to resilient hospital IT functions. METHODS We conducted a qualitative, interview-based study to purposefully sample CIOs in hospitals. We interviewed 16 CIOs from hospitals and health systems in the United States and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. We used in-depth interviews to capture their perspectives of the preparedness of hospitals’ information technology departments for the pandemic and how they lead their IT department out of the pandemic. We employed a thematic analysis of interview transcripts with NVivo to facilitate analysis through the inductive coding of the transcripts. RESULTS Results showed that healthcare CIOs were ambidextrous IT leaders who supported their organizations by simultaneously and rapidly improving existing digital business practices and creating innovative IT solutions. Further, CIOs exhibited various leadership styles which helped their healthcare organizations to respond in various ways to the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS Most healthcare CIOs exhibited an ambidextrous leadership style which enabled them to pivot quickly to respond to the pandemic. Ambidextrous IT leadership involved exploiting existing IT resources as well as exploring and innovating for continuous growth. Strategically building an agile and resilient IT function over time capable of responding to crisis such as a pandemic involved multi-faceted leadership practices. Measures of IT function resiliency focused on six IT perspectives: leadership, financial performance, learning, growth and innovation, stakeholders’ satisfaction, regulatory compliance, and operational excellence. CLINICALTRIAL NA |
