CIO Profiles: Marc Probst, VP And CIO Of Intermountain Healthcare

One of Intermountain's top projects: an enterprise picture archive communication system.

	MARC PROBST VP and CIO, Intermountain Healthcare

How long at current company:

6 years

Most important career influencer:

My father. He was an early leader in the development of computers (ENIAC at MIT) and helped build Sperry, a major computer business. But his greatest influence on me was his leadership style of treating everyone with respect and leading through example.

Career accomplishment I'm most proud of: Shifting Intermountain Healthcare's information systems to a user-driven strategy (primarily a governance model change).

Decision I wish I could do over: Leaving Ernst & Young to help a startup business during the dot-com revolution. If you learn from your failures, then this gave me my Ph.D.

Advice for future CIOs: If you think you have a great idea and the team to get it done, stay the course. Flip-flopping and constant changes in strategy ultimately will kill you.

The next big thing for my industry will be ... agreeing to standards and implementing systems that support these standards, which will allow for significantly better communication, decision support, and better, less costly care.

The federal government's top tech priority should be ... standards. It should stay out of the rest.

Kids and tech careers: I wouldn't steer my kids toward a tech career. They should pursue their own passions.

IT budget: $135 million operating, $40 million capital

Size of IT team: 850 full-time employees

Top initiatives:

>> Enterprise clinical information system development: We're building an electronic medical record system. This is a 5- to 8-year project that we're co-developing with GE Healthcare. It's a huge project, with lots of risk and the potential to really help the healthcare industry.

>> Enterprise picture archive communication system: This will be one of the world's largest PACS implementations--used for the management of diagnostic images--and requires cultural and workflow changes.

>> Implementing financial measurement and controls in IS: With more than 2,500 applications being used across a wide variety of functions and regions, it's been a challenge to put in standard tools and controls.

How I measure IT effectiveness: Completing projects in the time frames and budgets set (about 65% successful); meeting our service-level agreements; and completing our agreed-to goals for a year and coming in within the budget we agreed to meet.

Colleges/degrees: University of Utah, BS; George Washington University, MBA

Favorite sport : Football

Favorite president: Ronald Reagan, who understood what leadership was all about

Business leader I'd like to have lunch with: Virgin's Richard Branson --he seems interesting and fun

If I weren't a CIO, I'd be ... a very poor writer for an international travel magazine