Dive Brief:

• Healthcare managers worried about the care and feeding of their CIOs can rest easy, a new survey by SSi-SEARCH suggests. The survey found that the tech leaders are generally happy in their jobs, though they would appreciate more resources and recognition for their accomplishments.
• When ranking the factors that keep them on the job, the survey found that CIOs are most satisfied with the trajectory of their career paths, followed by compensation and strategic involvement. They were, however, dissatisfied with the resources available to them, with 48% of them suggesting they'd like to see some changes in those areas in 2015.
• The survey, revealed in a series of articles for Healthcare IT News, found that 45% of CIOs wanted to be recognized for improving patient safety; 44% wanted to be recognized for innovation, and 37% said they wanted to be recognized for "bringing departments together."

Dive Insight:

Such is the life of the technology chief in the healthcare matrix: They toil in obscurity on massive enterprise-wide projects that increase efficiency and create new economies of scale, and then are vilified when the EMR crashes.

But as digital data becomes central to healthcare management, CIOs are gradually playing a broader and more direct role in improving care. In fact, most hospitals are embracing the notion that good tech can equate to better outcomes.

For example, as we previously reported, Allina Health has embarked on a $100-million joint venture with data mining firm Health Catalyst to find ways of improving outcomes through the study and management of data. That's the kind of integration and resources the CIOs in the survey want to see in 2015 across the board.