Digital Health Leadership in EMEA (ft. Dr. Gürhan Zincircioğlu)

Thanks for tuning to Digital Voices Podcast, where we chat digital transformation challenges and opportunities across healthcare and life sciences. And now, your host, Ed Marx.

It's Ed. Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. Thank you everyone for listening. And I think the main reason that everyone tunes in each week is our great guests. Like Gurhan, also known as Dr. Z around the world. Gurhan, welcome to Digital Voices.

Oh, thank you, Ed. I'm so glad to join your podcast. Thank you for inviting me.

Yeah, I'm so excited because, you know, we try to be global, international, and you're obviously well known around the world and our audience already knows you, but they're going to get to know you a little bit better. We first met in person at HIMSS a year ago or maybe 2 years ago. We were doing a book signing. Of course, you're very close with my friend Chris Ross, and we had a chance to interact. But the most important question, most important thing everyone wants to know are what songs are on your playlist? What kind of music do you like to listen to?

My favorite band is Coldplay. It's really famous in the recent time because of some of the attractions during the concert. But they're my favorite band as well, and U2. U2 and Coldplay, they're my top list bands.

Yeah, I like both of them as well. They're great. And they've stood the test of time, right? They've been together, U2, maybe I want to say 40 years. And Coldplay, at least I'm guessing now, I'm going to say 10 to 20 years, somewhere in that timeframe. So they have Timeless music. What about life message or mantra? Are there sort of— is there a quote or words that you live by?

Oh yes, I'm a physician. My background is a physician, and I worked for the public sector all my life. I never worked for the private sector, and I always try to help the people to improve their healthcare and I think that's how I'm supposed to, uh, live and look forward.

Yeah, no, I love that. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about you. You obviously have an accent. What's your story? Tell us about your life growing up. Where did you grow up?

Well, I born and raised up in Turkey. I lived in the States for a while and I graduated the high school in United States. Afterwards, I came back to Turkey for the medical school. When I graduated from the medicine school, I decided to specialize on orthopedic surgery, and I'm orthopedic surgeon more than 25 years.

In Turkey, where are you from specifically?

Well, I'm born and raised up in Istanbul, but I live in Izmir more than 20 years now. It's on the western side of Turkey, which is just across the Greek islands on the western side. It is the 3rd biggest city in Turkey. It has like 5 million population. It's a liberal city, which is on the seaside, and I'm so happy to live in here.

Yeah, no, it's, it sounds beautiful. I've been to Istanbul. We loved it. We want to go back. And that coastal area sounds even more beautiful. How did you choose healthcare?

Well, my, my parents, my, my father is a physician. He is a gynecologist and my brother is also a neurosurgeon. So we grew up in the hospitals or in the healthcare system. I mean, in these circumstances, in this environment. So we didn't have any other chance to think about that we are going to go to be an engineer or something else. My sister is a dentist as well, so we all In the healthcare system. So all our life we grew up with these circumstances.

So how did you choose orthopedic surgery? So you could have been any kind of specialist, but you chose orthopedics. Tell us how that came about.

Well, another story about that. My, I asked my dad what I can go on to be specialized. He said, I don't care what you are doing, what you are going to do, or what you are going to be, but Stay away to be obstetrics or gynecology, which is his specialization. I asked why? Because it's too tough. You know, you deliver baby. It's very fun. It's very good. But the pregnant women are, you know, not sick. So they are healthy. So you are you get some anxious. So go for something else. And I was thinking maybe neurosurgery or orthopedic surgery. And he said, okay, you are looking for some surgery. Orthopedic surgery is very fun. You may go for it. And during my residency, I liked it. My teacher, he was really good at it, and I just followed him.

And you said you specialized in orthopedic surgery for 20, 25 years, but also in the last 10 years, you made the move to becoming a world-class digital leader. How did that come about?

Well, that's another story. Thank you for this question. So that was a transformation. in Turkey for about the digital healthcare system started in 2013, and we met with the HIMSS organization to improve our digital maturity level in our hospitals. At that moment, I was really interested in the computer science and also some computer stuff, digitals, and I'm also a healthcare giver.

So—

Interesting. In our hospital, our management team decided to appoint a physician as chief medical information officer to run our process in our hospital to leverage our digital maturity level. And I am appointed as a chief medical information officer in my hospital. And that was the milestone. And we were following the EMRAM standards of HIMSS, and my hospital achieved Stage 6 at that moment, which is the first stage 6 hospital in Turkey. Afterwards, in 2016, the first stage 7 hospital in the EMEA region. That was really impressive, amazing. And we continued to revalidations for stage 7 in the following years in my hospital. And still, I'm still working in the same hospital. So that was just kind of a coincidence. I mean, we started to go for the— to leverage our digital maturity level in our hospital, and I was there. So people just asked who would like to join us as a medical information officer. So I just raised up my hand and that was it.

Yeah, that's great. Definitely one of the pioneers for sure, and especially in that region of the world. And after that, obviously you became familiar with HIMS, but then you went further in your relationship with HIMS. Tell us about all the different things that you've done with HIMS on a global level.

Well, in 2016, when my hospital achieved the Stage 7 recognition, at that moment, Steve Lieber, He was the chief executive officer and the president of the HIMSS, and he asked me if I would like to join their board in Europe, the governing council. It was governing council in Europe at that moment, and that was really grateful, and I was so happy to join this amazing and talented board, and I joined to the HIMSS board in 2017. Afterwards, I jumped into the HIMSS community, HIMSS ecosystem, and I have been in many of the positions. Like, I validate, help the HIMSS staff for the assessments of the state 6 and 7 hospitals voluntarily. And afterwards, I have been in the Physicians Committee for 2 or 3 years, and Global Conference Education Committee. And now currently I'm the member of the HIMSS Professional Development Committee, and we have a meeting every month. I'm so glad that it's really amazing to be on a HIMSS professional committee, executive committee. That's really interesting.

Yeah, no, I think it's fabulous whenever you have a practitioner that understands the value of digital and technology capabilities and has that clinical background. to bring it to bear to help everyone around the globe. You're also pretty involved with KLAS, K-L-A-S. Tell us about your involvement with KLAS.

Well, that's another story. So I was following the KLAS research movement for a long time, and I met with Evertonson. He's the vice president, vice president of the class in the States. And we met them during the HIMSS event. I think it was 3 or 4 years ago. And we were keeping in touch at that time. And 2 years ago, Everton asked me if I can join their board in the Middle East, EMEA. And that's another grateful moment for my background. And I accepted this invitation and more than, I think, 3 years I'm in the, on the class board. So we have 2 meetings every year, one in Middle East, in Dubai, and also there's another global summit in some of the cities in Europe. It was in Athens, Greece last year. It's not decided yet where it's going to be next year. But that's really amazing meeting such talented high executive level leaders are coming and we have really amazing discussions.

Yeah. And for our listeners that might be clinicians like yourself, what sort of encouragement would you give them in terms of diving deep and participating with HIMSS or CLASS and other organizations? Why should they do it?

Well, We are moving forward to dive into the digital health technology. When I joined to the analytics, and as I mentioned, a chief medical information officer in 2014, that was really interesting at that moment to achieve a stage 5 in the HIMSS requirements. If you have a PACS system, you are able to achieve the stage 6. at that time, stage 5, 6. But now the technology moved forward. If you have just PACS, you cannot even get stage 1. Can you imagine? So it's like a piece of cake now to have a PACS system. So we have— we need some more, some other stuff to move forward. We cannot stand in our current position, no matter—

Yeah.

Some of your colleagues depends on your movement and block your effort, your hustle. And I still have some of my colleagues still using— do not using any smartphones still.

Yeah.

Can you imagine? They still trying to keep their position with the paperwork and stuff. But now we have to go forward. And I, when I realized that, I decided to go forward and I decided to go for a master program to understand how I can analyze the numbers. So I applied to computer science and business engineering program. And now I have a master degree as well on the business engineering in my background. What I would like to recommend for my physicians, for my colleagues, you cannot stand against the technology. And you have to move forward to keep this, to keep yourself tuned. Please follow the HIMSS requirements and also class research because they're doing those stuff for you to understand what's going on, the technology, healthcare in the future, maybe like 2 years later, 3 years later, where we are going to. We discussed that the AI and the patient engagement, maybe we are, this is the most important thing, the patient engagement for the future, especially for the chronic diseases. However, when you are, if you are a physician, you have to follow up the technology and HIMSS is doing that for us.

Yeah, no, that's a great guide, right? Both HIMSS, CLAS, some other organizations provide a great roadmap so you don't have to It can be overwhelming if you try to figure it out on your own, but there's other pioneers like yourself, and then these organizations that provide a nice roadmap or a nice plan to, to follow along. I've done the same thing. Tell us about one or two things that you're doing today that are pretty cool that get you excited each day.

Well, I'm still practicing, by the way. So I'm in the operation theater for 2 days in a week, 2 days in the ambulatory, the outpatient room. And one day I'm doing my chief medical information officer job in the hospital. On the weekends, I have some hobbies like sailing. So on the weekends, İzmir is on the seaside, so we're going for sailing in the summertime. That's really fun.

Yeah.

I don't know if you have a chance, any of you guys, if you are on the seaside or the lakeshore, you better go for sailing. Not a motorbike, boat, because the motor voice, you know, it bothers me. Just to hear the wind of, uh, uh, sound of wind. So that's how I refresh my mind and my body.

No, I love that. Yeah, it sounds like I need to come make, make a visit and go sailing with you. How does, how would you recommend to other clinicians like yourself who are listening how to best prepare their hospitals for transformation? Because you talked about how you're pretty advanced, your hospital's advanced. There's other hospitals that aren't, whether it's in Turkey or other parts of the world, United States included. And it's hard to sort of move some organizations along. What would be one or two pieces of advice you might give a colleague?

Well, so you, if you are the, on the management team, You have to, first of all, you have to convince your colleagues, your employees, your staff that we have to do that. Sometimes you have to block the other exits for them to use other ways that you don't want to do. Sometimes it's a friendly job, but what I'm doing is I pick up some SMEs in some of the departments, subject matter experts, and make a pilot group, a sample group, and improve the, my ideas. And it's kind of a showcase.

Yeah.

For the other people. Okay. Check them. So ask them. It's a good example that you can ask and you can get some information if they are satisfied or not. So when you find some SMEs and champions, we can say, in your group— I'm also the chief of the orthopedic department in my hospital, so that's how I am doing with my physicians and my nurses as well. So Just demonstrate what we can do. On the other hand, I'd like to listen to my friends, my colleagues as well, because listening is another way to improve yourself. I'm always open for the new ideas as well.

Yeah, no, that's really, really important. I'm glad you mentioned that. Switching over to leadership more broadly. If you were to share one or two words of advice for aspiring leaders, perhaps they're university graduates, what's something you would tell them?

First of all, do not give up and just follow your dreams and ideas. And when I was a teenager, I was just reading some of the biographies and some of the notes of ideal people. I think that's one of the Best ways to improve yourself from my side, to read some of the biographies and adjust those stories to your lifestyle or for your future plans. And do not be upset when you go down. Every down will be will help you to improve yourself. That's what I'm thinking, and I never go upset. in my life, I always get some lessons in all my experiences.

Yeah. No, that, that's really good. You know, we've talked about a lot of different things from growing up in Turkey and also a little bit of time in the United States, how you got into healthcare. We talked a lot about the importance and why you've chosen to be so involved with HIMSS and organizations like CLAS. We've talked about digital transformation, how How do you best prepare your organization for digital transformation? Gave us a lot of good ideas and a lot of good ideas on leadership. What did we miss, or is there anything you want to double down on? I give you the last word.

Well, first of all, thank you, Ed, for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts to the audience. I think we have to work more and more to improve the healthcare in the whole world. We get some lessons during the pandemic that personal healthcare is not enough for the global health. So we have to work on it.

Yeah, love that. Great words of advice and encouragement. And thank you for being on Digital Voices.

Thank you.

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