ABSTRACT
This chapter provides guidance on how the Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) and the other informatics leaders can work together, whether they are in a single informatics department or a "virtual team" reporting into separate parts of an organization. The Chief Nursing Informatics Officer (CNIO) started a program of nursing documentation improvement and developed staff with informatics skills who designed creative tools for nurses and other clinicians. The CMIO used several approaches to maintain the "virtual team" relationship with the other informatics leaders. Centralized informatics groups reporting to the CMIO may be more efficient and effective because less energy needs to be devoted to aligning goals and expectations. Decentralized informatics reporting, where the various informatics leaders are part of their operating departments, can have the opposite efficiencies. Informatics is increasingly multidisciplinary. A multidisciplinary systems approach also is important in determining what projects are prioritized.
