Leadership Talk Series: Q&A with Mazen Joukhadar
TransForm SSO’s outgoing Vice President and Chief Information, Privacy & Security Officer, Mazen ‘Maz’ Joukhadar reflects on how his leadership has impacted the industry, TransForm SSO and his own perceptions. During his time at TransForm SSO, he has been instrumental in achieving several goals for the organization while bringing real change and transformation to the healthcare sector. From Health Information System implementation to cybersecurity and leading TransForm as the Regional Security Operations Centre, Maz has played a key role in changing the landscape of health care efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Q: As VP and Chief Information, Privacy & Security Officer at TransForm SSO, can you tell us briefly about the experience you brought to your position and led to your success?
A: I think my experience being outside of health care allowed me to bring a different perspective, in terms of applying IT principles, concepts, strategies and business development. TransForm SSO was created to be a shared service (IT) organization, which is different than being a hospital IT department, and therefore, my experience was not biased by how the organization grew. Another thing I brought is the business IT mindset. As a CIO, I have looked at strategy and all the bits and bytes while bringing together the many concepts of how IT helps TransForm SSO the business.
We’re doing IT, not for the sake of IT, but IT for the sake of a business problem, outcome or opportunity while understanding how our investment and strategy go to benefit the business. I would say part of that was because I came from a consulting background and got to not only work in different industries, but also gained a sense of how do I sell a concept, whether it’s a technology concept, a business problem, software or relationship. So, if I’m trying to sell an idea to a hospital or to my own team, how do I package it in a way that is consumable, and that the audience can appreciate and understand the story that I’m bringing. Another thing that is key to the role was establishing a strategic spin on things and building a vision for the coming years.
I believe that the TransForm SSO CIO is really the hospital’s CIO and that’s the mindset we have. We are the strategic wing when it comes to IT for the hospitals and our other partners, and we have to bringing that to everything we do, not only from the infrastructure side, but also from the application side, including clinical applications. The hospitals have the experts at delivering medical care and they can share what they need from technology. Our role should be to help them find and bring the technology and solutions to address their needs.
Q: In the seven-plus years you have been at TransForm SSO, are there any experiences you can share that helped you to become a better leader?
A: Over time, recognizing the fact that we are built primarily as an operational team, as a group of IT specialists focused on “keeping the lights on” was very important and is the core of what we do. However, we also have to be looking at investing and improving our IT services as well as the capabilities of the organizations we serve. As a leader, trying to straddle the needs to continuously enhance, do better and find ways to efficiently invest and improve the ecosystem, while with the same staff, keeping the lights on has been a very different mindset. Essentially, there is a need to change the leadership style in terms of how you lead staff who are measuring their performance based on “how do I keep the lights on but also put in a new system as well as trying to screw in a bulb while at the same time making sure the bulb stays on?” You need to then appreciate how you measure staff performance, help them with their success management and facilitate their career growth? Also, an important question has always been how do you motivate staff and get them to understand the value that comes to the organization from enhancing, but also from keeping the lights on? That’s definitely the challenge and from a leadership perspective, you need to keep your finger on the pulse and stay nimble. Sometimes, I look at the structure as managing up instead of managing down. From an operational perspective, I look from a managing down lens while I adopt a managing up view to tackle strategy and growth.
Q: TransForm SSO has continued to lead change in the region and across the province. How would you describe the impact TransForm SSO has on the digital health system and its future?
A: I would say, and not to beat our chests, that we have had a huge impact and we’re setting the foundation for significantly more impact for a couple of reasons. It’s not just what we’ve done with the Health Information System (HIS) for four of our member hospitals, but definitely the fact that we have done it and how we have done it is what has set the foundation for several other things. For example, some of our impact can be seen in our expansion into the community while setting up the Health Information Exchange with all the other Cerner hospitals and other HIS platforms across the province (i.e., EPIC, Meditech), integrating into long-term care, into Ocean for e-Referral and the opportunity to demonstrate that there is even more than can be done.
TransForm SSO has been at the hub of all those separate spokes and making them actually happen. Not to say no one else could have done it, but our role, our capability and our desire to charge into those things and be a leader in those spaces and really push them, has proved that having an organization like TransForm SSO is valuable to the health care system. Even though we primarily serve our member hospitals, I believe that because we are independent and our strategic goal is to serve the health care system like we’ve done as the digital health lead at the three Ontario Health Teams (OHTs), the lead for the Cerner provincial reference model and much more. The reason why I think we have even more opportunity for the future is because, again, we’re independent, we’ve built the skills in our team and we have the ability to do things without having certain bureaucracy, whether it’s perceived or actual. For example, if the hospital is doing something that may involve the community, everyone is going to perceive that the hospital is going to control it, but we’re not the hospital so there’s not that perception. Even though the general perception is that we are tied to the hospitals, I think we’ve been able to demonstrate that no, we’re beyond that. We are doing to do what we think is right for the health care system as a whole. We are successfully demonstrating that through the work we are doing now.
Q: In your experience, what do you think are the key qualities a leader should have when working with teams?
A: Listening skills. Meaning you should have an opinion and be able to share and argue it, but also be able to accept that it might not be the opinion that’s going to stick and we might be going in a totally different direction. So I think being open to learn and recognize that you might believe you know something today but accept that it might change tomorrow. I’ve grown up learning and experiencing things but that doesn’t mean that’s the only way to do it or the best way; there’s always opportunities to learn. Being a leader means you have to be open to understanding that you’re not the expert all the time and that expertise could morph over time. I would say the last thing, and perhaps the hardest thing, is delegation – everyone struggles with it. But being a leader means knowing that I could do it myself, but I really should delegate. It doesn’t mean I have to give up full control and not have a role in it. You delegate not only to empower and educate someone else and let them grow, but also because you’re not really leading if you’re doing all the work.
Q: As an award-winning CIO in a continuously evolving organization, what do you feel has been the most challenging aspect of your job?
A: Focusing on improving TransForm SSO. I think we’ve done a great job doing work around us and building our staff skills to support those around us. I think we’ve done that but sacrificed TransForm SSO becoming a better and more efficient organization. We’ve been so focused on supporting our members, our customers and OHTs that we’ve not done enough to focus on ourselves. We have not always been able to provide our people the development opportunities or the systems and processes to aid them. Everything we want to do to become a better organization, we’ve always put on the back burner so I think that’s something we have a lot of opportunity to do and if we do, we’ll still be able to do a good job for our customers but we’ll be able to do a better job for them as we identify where and how we can do more for others as well, efficiently and cost-effectively.
Q: What have been the most rewarding aspects of your job?
A: I think seeing some of the clinical transformation through. Not just Cerner but also the other clinical systems that we’ve put in that made the organizations we serve more efficient, improved patient care and gave better access to our providers to do the best job possible. I also think that the work we’ve done in cyber and the fact that we can make a difference to the provider or a patient’s life is the greatest satisfaction.
Q: In your job, what is the most impactful lesson you have learned that you will take with you?
A: For me personally, to have more patience. I don’t know if I’ve succeeded, but I’m getting better at it. I’m an A-type personality – go-go-go, win-win-win – and I think I need to be more patient and not necessarily slow down, but recognize I need to take a step back every now and then and while I need to push people, it doesn’t mean I need to be as aggressive in how I push them with the time frames.
Q: What is the best career advice you have received and what advice would you pass on as a mentor?
A: The best career advice I’ve received is don’t be afraid to ask for help or to say you’re not sure about something or you don’t know how to do something. Advice I would pass on is don’t be afraid to experiment or try something new. I think a lot of people get stuck in something and they think, ‘okay that’s it, I’m getting really good at it and that’s where I should stay’ and that’s fine, if they really want to. But you might actually be happier challenging yourself and do something different.
Q: In terms of your legacy at TransForm SSO, what is the achievement you are most proud of?
A: I would have to say getting the hospital shared HIS in place. When I was hired, one of the top priorities I had was to deliver a regional, shared HIS, and it is not only in place, but it also has the ability to grow and be a foundation for more clinical transformation in health care.