Profile: J.D. Whitlock
Meet J.D. Whitlock. Chief Information Officer, Dayton Children’s.
Name: J.D. Whitlock
Job: CIO, Dayton Children’s
City: Dayton
Hometown: Rochester, NY
Q: What does your organization do?
At Dayton Children’s, our vision statement is “Reinventing the path to children's health for families throughout our region and beyond.” In addition to providing great quality of care, we also provide a great experience of care. Our Net Promoter Score is 84. If you know what a Net Promoter Score is, you know that is world class.
Q: What’s a problem you're working to solve?
In healthcare we have a goal called Quadruple Aim: 1) better quality of care, 2) better experience of care for patients, 3) better experience for caregivers, and 4) reduced total cost of care. It is easy to do one or two of those, it is very hard to improve all 4 at the same time.
Our IT department at Dayton Children’s strives to do this by getting the right data to the right person at the right time to best care for our patients and their families. Whether that is implementing predictive modeling in our electronic health record so that we can save lives by detecting the early onset of sepsis (blood infection) in our sickest patients, or providing state-of-the-art telehealth support to our patient families so they can consult with our pediatric specialists from the safety of their home during the pandemic, or keeping our network safe during intense targeted cyber-attacks, the Quadruple Aim guides our planning.
Q: What’s a lesson you’ve learned that's shaped your work?
“Imitate to Innovate” doesn’t sound very … innovative. But I have learned that very often the smartest thing you can do for your organization is identify innovation that has worked somewhere else, then figure out how to efficiently adopt and implement it at your organization. This generally takes some creativity, it is most often not cut and paste. In addition to change management and the other usual hurdles, you might need to navigate the “not invented here” issue.
Q: What’s a trend in technology or innovation that doesn’t get enough attention?
This is not a trend, it is old news, but I think it answers the question in an important way. Quality improvement science does not get enough attention, and it is (or often should be) a critical piece of implementing new technology and innovation.
This is big in healthcare because of our “first do no harm” maxim. Think you are going to make something better that can kill patients if we get it wrong? You had better prove it first, and quality improvement science is the way to do that. Plan, Do, Check, Act – and responsible use of statistics to analyze the data.
If you just want to build a better widget or app for consumers, it is OK to go fast and break things, and the market will let you know if you win or lose. But if you want to innovate on top of an insanely complex process with high stakes for failure, then break out the improvement science books or hire an expert.
Q: What’s one moonshot idea that could help make Ohio a world leader in technology and innovation?
I don’t have a moonshot idea, but here is a good enough idea. Ohio is a business-friendly state with smart investments in tech innovation like Third Frontier.
So stay that course, and many of the digital nomads who can now work anywhere (pandemic silver-lining) will continue to smarten up to the idea that our cities in Ohio are a better place to live than the overpriced coasts. Look at downtown Dayton – residential housing can’t be built fast enough to keep up with demand.
Q: What’s a recent book, podcast or news story that you found interesting?
This has nothing to do with technology, but I just finished First Principles by Thomas Ricks, which is a fascinating history of our founding fathers, warts and all. Combined with recent events, it illustrates how fragile our republic is, and how we should not take it for granted. My new favorite founding father is James Madison, who came up with most of the checks and balances in our Constitution that just saved our bacon.
Q: What's your favorite place in Ohio?
I’m a baseball fan, so watching either the Reds or the Dayton Dragons in their respective ballpark.
Q: What makes Ohio special to you?
Uncle Sam first got me to Ohio when I was assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base 20 years ago. When I retired from the Air Force in 2009, my wife and I decided we wanted to move from DC back to Dayton because we made a lot of great friends here and wanted to raise our daughters here.
After living all over the country, I really like this corner of the Midwest – down-to-earth friendly people, low cost of living, four seasons without bad winters (at least “down south” in Dayton and Cincinnati), and medium sized cities with history, character, and rust belt chic.
Connect with J.D. on LinkedIn.