15 books HIT leaders are reading this summer

15 books HIT leaders are reading this summer

Summer is the perfect time to schedule reading for professional development, self-improvement or to develop insight into those with whom we work or interact. Here are top recommendations from some members of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, the American Health Information Management Association and the Advisory Board on the books that have influenced them in the past or that are on their reading list for this year.

Accelerate

Author: John Kotter

Recommended by Ray Geisinger (CHIME)

John Kotter, one of the leading voices on achieving change within organizations, writes in this book about ways to make change happen faster. The author advocates a new system—a more agile, network-like structure that operates in concert with the hierarchy to create what he calls a “dual operating system” that enables organizations to capitalize on rapid-fire strategic challenges. The book reveals how the best organizations focus and align their people’s energy and urgency around what Kotter calls the big opportunity.

Be the Business

Author: Martha Heller

Recommended by Patricia Lavely (CHIME)

Through interviews with dozens of CIOs, Martha Heller has created a snapshot of what CIOs are doing to lead IT in a climate where technology belongs to everyone. She addresses how CIOs are changing their operating models, their approaches to talent development and their assessment of the new IT provider marketplace.

Being Mortal

Author: Atul Gawande

Recommended by Ray Geisinger and Albert Oriol (CHIME)

As healthcare faces the inevitability of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should do. Through research and stories of his own patients and family, Gawande reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced. Gawande, a practicing surgeon, examines its ultimate limitations and failures—in his own practices as well as others'—as life draws to a close.

Dreamland

Author: Sam Quinones

Recommended by Rob Lazerow and Gillian Michaelson (Advisory Board)

In this well-written book, author Sam Quinones follows the opioid crisis from a small town in Mexico to the boardrooms of Big Pharma to main streets nationwide, offering an explosive and shocking account of addiction in the heartland of America.

Dual Transformation

Authors: Scott Anthony and Mark Johnson

Recommended by Wylecia Wiggs Harris (CEO, AHIMA)

This book outlines a framework for leveraging market disruptions and increasing sustainability at a time of rapid change-a challenge we're all familiar with in the health information and technology community. To survive and thrive during this change, leaders are encouraged to reposition their current business model while also exploring new markets. Through case studies and company models, Anthony, Gilbert and Johnson offer guidance on how leaders can navigate dual transformation successfully.

Leaders Eat Last

Author: Simon Sinek

Recommended by Dave Miller (CHIME)

Great leaders sacrifice their own comfort--even their own survival--for the good of those in their care. Too many workplaces are driven by cynicism, paranoia and self-interest. But the best ones foster trust and cooperation because their leaders build what Sinek calls a "Circle of Safety" that separates the security inside the team from the challenges outside.

Nudge

Authors: Richard Thayer and Cass Sunstein

Recommended by CT Lin (CHIME)

The book is about how people make these choices and how they can make better ones. Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein show that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and by knowing how people think, we can use sensible “choice architecture” to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.

Patients Come Second

Authors: Paul Spiegleman and Britt Berrett

Recommended by Patricia Lavely (CHIME)

The book shakes up the traditional view, arguing that in order to care for and retain patients, leaders must first create exceptional teams and find ways to engage nurses, administrative staff, physicians, supervisors, and even housekeeping staff and switchboard operators. By connecting employees' work with a higher purpose and equipping them with the tools to become leaders themselves, patient care can be dramatically transformed.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Author: Yuval Noah Harari

Recommended by Albert Oriol (CHIME) and the Advisory Board

The book explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition.

Switch

Authors: Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Recommended by Donna Roach (CHIME)

Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems—the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. In this book, the Heaths show how everyday people—employees and managers, parents and nurses—have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results.

Thinking in Bets

Author: Annie Duke

Recommended by Albert Oriol (CHIME)

Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics and poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. For most people, it's difficult to say "I'm not sure" in a world that values and, even, rewards the appearance of certainty. But professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don't always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don't always lead to bad outcomes.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Author: Daniel Kahneman

Recommended by CT Lin (CHIME) and the Advisory Board

Daniel Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives, and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble.

Verbal Judo

Authors: George Thompson and Jerry Jenkins

Recommended by Dave Miller (CHIME)

Verbal Judo is the martial art of the mind and mouth that can show you how to be better prepared in every verbal encounter. Listen and speak more effectively, engage people through empathy (the most powerful word in the English language), avoid the most common conversational disasters and use proven strategies that allow you to successfully communicate your point of view and take the upper hand in most disputes.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Author: Edward Tufte

Recommended by CT Lin (CHIME)

The classic book on statistical graphics, charts and tables, presenting the theory and practice in the design of data graphics, 250 illustrations of the best (and a few of the worst) statistical graphics, with detailed analysis of how to display data for precise, effective, quick analysis.

The Will to Govern Well

Authors: Glenn Tecker, Paul Meyer, Bud Crouch and Leigh Wintz

Recommended by Donna Roach (CHIME)

This book is about developing strategies for change in governance. It rejects the idea of wholesale revolution in favor of rapid evolution, which has the added benefit of decreasing resistance among members and stakeholders, who similarly reject such terms.