Galen M. Metz

Galen M. Metz, FLMI, AIAA, AIM, ACS, is a retired CIO in healthcare information technology. After 30 years of healthcare IT management, he currently lives in the Austin area and serves on the board of the Austin chapter of the Society for Information Management (SIM). He recently served as CIO of Group Health Cooperative in Madison, Wisconsin, with responsibilities for the electronic medical record system, health insurance system, self-service Web and mobile solutions, business intelligence and technology infrastructure. Under Galen's leadership, Group Health Cooperative was named to the InformationWeek 500 in 2010 and 2011, recognizing innovation in technology. This included winning the data analytics category across all industries in 2010. In 2012, Galen was named to Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders.

Articles by Galen M. Metz

• 9 ways to improve your help desk

  Monday, December 05, 2016

  "The corporate network is slow," the caller reported to our help desk. "I'm shopping on the Home Depot website, and response time is really sluggish." As CIO, my initial thought was maybe inappropriate use of the corporate network was making response time sluggish. The friendly help desk response was, "We'll look into that."

• 9 ways CIOs can make their communication executive-friendly

  Thursday, November 03, 2016

  This is the time of year for CIOs to present to business executives their IT results for the year, IT budgets for next year and IT plans in alignment with business strategic plans. This is an opportunity to exercise "executive-friendly" communication skills.

• 4 key CIO partnerships and how to improve them

  Wednesday, October 05, 2016

  I was delivering bad news to a business executive — the system was down. I had delivered such a message to other business executives over the years, so I was expecting the typical response of being lectured on the cost of an outage to the business.

• How CIOs can find and use competitive intelligence

  Wednesday, August 31, 2016

  ​In my previous article on ​how the Food Network's "Chopped" program is like being a CIO, I mentioned the mystery ingredients CIOs must navigate: time pressure, resources, adaptability, use of evaluation criteria, and threat of being chopped. But what if a chef prepares an excellent dish, and his competitor prepares a better one? CIOs face that threat as well.

• Southwest outage illustrates critical importance of IT systems

  Friday, August 05, 2016

  A Southwest Airlines computer glitch on July 20 caused 2,300 canceled flights across the United States. The outage lasted 12 hours and disrupted their website and operations, including check in, boarding passes and ticket booking. It meant chaos and long lines for Southwest customers, and the cost was estimated at up to $10 million in lost revenue.

• 6 ways the Food Network’s ‘Chopped’ is just like being a CIO

  Tuesday, July 05, 2016

  I admit it: I am addicted to watching "Chopped," a reality cooking show on the Food Network in which four chefs compete for a cash prize. While I do like to cook, I realized something else was drawing me to the show. "Chopped" is just like being a CIO.

• 5 ingredients for IT staffing effectiveness

  Friday, May 20, 2016

  ​Years ago, a colleague shared the following story with me. Struggling with a complex project, her team spent long hours and finally met the first milestone. She brought in a cake to celebrate the accomplishment — and was reprimanded for bringing in cake without prior approval.

• 6 focus areas for improving your technology contracts

  Monday, May 02, 2016

  In my previous article, I discussed five easy ways to manage IT costs. It starts with attacking costs rather than reacting to budgets cuts. Additional tips involve maintaining lean staffing levels, looking for low-cost education opportunities and assessing technology components to stay ahead of the curve.

• 5 easy ways to manage IT costs

  Monday, March 28, 2016

  My older son was a high school wrestler. In one of his matches, he ended up in a pretzel-like hold that appeared inescapable. After the match, I asked, "What do you do in a situation like that?" He responded, "Do what the coach tells us — don't get into it." When it comes to your IT costs, don't wait until you are in a pretzel hold.

• Project management: 4 steps for attacking the IT project list

  Monday, March 07, 2016

  ​Today, there are simply too many projects. Historically, CIOs have faced project backlogs, but now the to-do list contains both business and technology changes, plus those in healthcare are seeing significant regulatory changes as well. Technology analysts suggest there is just too much.

• 7 ways to generate innovative ideas

  Monday, February 15, 2016

  In the early days of NASA, according to an urban myth, astronauts discovered that ballpoint pens would not work properly in zero gravity. NASA scientists spent $12 billion to solve the problem, coming up with a pen that writes in zero gravity and at any angle. The Russians used a pencil.

• Following the right path as a CIO

  Tuesday, January 12, 2016

  Being a chief information officer (CIO) is a challenging job. Whether your goal as a CIO is to thrive, or merely to survive, you must juggle many aspects of the job.