Life as a service: Dr Katherine Wiles speaks to Kara Marx
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What inspired Kara Marx to move from nursing to a CIO career in healthcare technology?
We weren't able in the past to be able to couple video with data. So being able to do rapid interventions if they're at home, because now we're starting to hear about the virtual hospital at home, remote telehealth, ICU help, remote nursing. These types of things are really transformational to the industry and making a big difference.
Welcome to Orbit, the H G podcast series, where we speak to leaders and innovators from across software and the whole tech ecosystem to discuss the key trends that change how we all do business. So my name's Catherine Wiles. I'm a member of the healthcare tech team here at H G. And I'm delighted to be joined today by Cara Marks. An independent CIO consultant who until recently served as CIO at Northern Arizona Healthcare. She began her career as a registered nurse, then worked on the vendor side before becoming a CIO. Cara has been very well placed to observe every aspect of the interplay between healthcare and technology since I first met Kara through her work with Clas, as well as her sort of thought leadership in this space.
I've had many opportunities to learn from Kara and from her experience and perspectives. So it's a great joy to have her here with me on orbit. And thank you for joining us, Cara. Thank you. So I wanted to start off actually way back in the beginning. So you started off as a nurse. I started off as a physician. What was the moment, if any, where you knew that you wanted to work on the CIO side?
Oh gosh, that was uh quite a while ago. It was about in the mid nineties, and I was doing some volunteer work for the Alzheimer's Association and interestingly enough I met a physician who was doing some telepathology. So mid nineties, already doing telepathology. And by telepathology, I mean the use of technology to transmit pathologic images such as specimens that are contained during surgeries that can be read very quickly and rapidly to help surgeons make diagnoses remotely from different locations. And seeing it in action literally gave me goosebumps. And when I learned that I could get paid and have a career in not only healthcare but in technology, this is when AOL was coming out and things were popping.
It was very exciting. And I abandoned my plans for healthcare administrator and went straight to health tech in ninety seven. That's amazing. And
has anything changed since then? I'm sure it was many things, but maybe what's the one that surprised you most?
Really, what surprises me most is what hasn't changed, unfortunately. Like telepathology was around in the mid-90s and telehealth has been around for a really long time. Yet we really just recently had a great appreciation for it in COVID. So it's kind of sad all that time that had been lost that we didn't capitalize on that value. And then I think that what has changed the most is the point that we're at now with AI and taking all this data. uh that we've been collecting for years and years and years and really making it
Powerful. It's funny you say that 'cause when I was a physician in the NHS, most of my work was still on pen and paper outside of our fake hospitals. I didn't know anything was still on pen and paper. And and I think in 2023 we still see that. I still have a friend who's a neurosurgeon who cycles across London with his floppy discs in the like bicycle bag of his. of his bicycle because he can't transfer images between hospitals. So I think that's that's really apt that some things changed and some things really haven't moved as fast as we as we thought. Bringing it to today, what are the changes, you know, you mentioned AI, but whybe what today are the challenges that are facing hospitals? So just to bring us to twenty twenty three.
So
I think, you know, of course you have to look at the business first. And the business is healthcare. And when you talk about healthcare, uh, we can't ignore what we just went through with COVID because the impact to workforce was significant. And it's not only that many people dropped out of the industry, but we stopped having people join the industry.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What inspired Kara Marx to move from nursing to a CIO career in healthcare technology?
0:01–5:59
2
How did early tele‑pathology experiences shape Kara’s view on technology adoption?
5:59–13:28
3
Why does Kara say the biggest surprise is how little has changed in telehealth despite decades of existence?
13:28–18:52
4
What are the current workforce, cost and quality challenges hospitals face after COVID?
18:52–28:27
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