Kaiser Permanente’s Brady reimagines health care via information technology

Area chief information officer details how to break into health care field from outside

James Brady, the area chief information officer at Kaiser Permanente Orange County, knows how intimidating the jump can be — the jump into health-care information technology from outside the field.

Brady did it himself 13 years ago, parlaying his tech experience and educational background into a health-care career that now finds him overseeing information technology initiatives that affect nearly a half-million Kaiser members.

Named “CIO of the Year 2015” by The Los Angeles Business Journal, Brady reveals on this month’s Pulse podcast how to overcome the barrier of job descriptions that “call for more than five years [of] electronic medical record experience, which most applicants from outside health care cannot fulfill.”


Kaiser “has a very robust internship program,” Brady says, sharing the company’s philosophy of “building long-term relationships with people who are truly interested in being a part of the Kaiser Permanente family.”

The rise in consumerism, the entrance of new players and partners in health-care delivery (think of Walgreens health clinics), and the transformative effect of mobile technology continues to challenge health-care providers to reimagine the delivery of care.

At the most successful health-care systems, Brady says, “information officers are now part of the senior leadership teams, and have a place at the table so they are part of the strategic-planning sessions.”

Learn more about Brady’s big jump — the career rise he credits to his extensive post-secondary education, and his work with professional associations — and federal health-care policy innovations as well, in this month’s podcast, From IT to Health IT: James Brady Talks About Making the Leap.

To listen to previous episodes of the Pulse, visit our archives page on UCTV’s Career Channel.



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