Statement of Work

The considerable role of technology in strategic business decisions for Healthcare companies has created the need for executives who recognize profitable applications of technology to products, services, and processes. A fractional CTO’s general responsibilities are identical to any general CTO’s but is termed “fractional” because it’s part-time, outsourced, and often deemed an interim position.

Fractional Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is accountable for:

• observing technologies and considering their ability to become new products or services,
• providing reliable technical assessments of potential mergers and acquisitions,
• selecting or starting appropriate research and development projects that have the potential to add value to the company,
• translate technical details into real customer advantages that are superior to those of competing products,
• explaining company solution offerings and future plans to the trade media,
• contributing to industry, government, and academic groups where there are opportunities to promote the company’s agenda and to capture valuable data

Integrating these technology-based activities into the corporate strategy requires that the CTO nurture effective relationships with key people throughout the company. These include the CEO, members of the Executive Committee, architects, R&D directors, and marketing leaders. It’s crucial that the CTO is familiar with various technologies at an operational, not just strategic, level. The CTO must actually have recently implemented, either by herself or as a team leader, solutions and therefore be aware of architecture, design, implementation, deployment, maintenance, and field services issues based on recent experience. CLIENT requires a ‘hands-on’ CTO and not one who is only dealing with ‘high-level’ issues and leaves the actual technology selection to product teams without guiding them heavily.

As a key adviser to the CEO, the CLIENT CTO is responsible for designing and recommending the appropriate technology solutions to support the business goals set by the CEO. The CTO is not a manager of chief architects, R&D directors, or engineering staff; instead he is a technical businessperson deeply involved in shaping and implementing overall corporate strategy. The CTO should place special emphasis on a strong technology background and knowledge of significant trends and features which differentiate CLIENT product and service offerings. Most importantly, the CTO must be able to communicate his knowledge in an easy to understand, business-friendly language to executives and customers. Just as importantly, the CTO must be able to communicate decisions to the engineering and product development communities in a language that they can understand.

Fractional Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is responsible for:

Strategy Formulation

• Senior advisor to executive management on Healthcare technology investments and initiatives;
• Participating with Product Managers and Architecture team in planning the short and long-range technology strategies;
• Providing leadership in ensuring appropriate technology usage based on strict business applicability and not technology conjecture;
• Developing product technology standards and protocols in line with CLIENT requirements and Healthcare industry “best practice;”
• Assessing new and emerging technologies in academia, industry, and government labs to determine application to CLIENT programs and services;
• Identify and oversee business process driven technology improvements;
• Manage and chair the product technology configuration control board;
• Determine which technologies should be pursued by R&D and which should be obtained through acquisitions.

Opportunity Evaluation

• Identifies and evaluates new technology developments and gauges applicability to business processes by providing the Solution Architecture that satisfies business goals and objectives;
• Maintains a current working knowledge of technology best practices and innovative solutions within both Healthcare and general commercial industry as well as government and non-profit sectors;
• Develops, recommends, influences, and evaluates technology support, infrastructure operation, COTS, custom applications, and governing policies;
• Cultivates and maintains knowledge regarding product development best practices and innovative solutions;
• Oversees and coordinates with all CLIENT Initiatives/Projects
  • Division specific
  • Cross-cutting, multi-Division
  • Ecosystem and partner-wide Initiatives/Projects

Tactical Planning and Prioritization

• Recommends, develops, integrates, administers, and evaluates policies, procedures, and standards needed to provide flexible and cost-effective product development (specifically related to service oriented architectures (SOA), Software Development Life Cycle, Technology Refreshment, Solution Architecture, and Technology Research and Collaboration);
• Provides Subject Matter Expertise to the CEO and other senior executives;
• Solves CLIENT business issues while managing technology costs and risks;
• Defines essential education and training required for the implementation, operations, and maintenance of product development technology.
• Gets ‘hands-on’ with hardware engineers, software engineers, and networking specialists to help them solve difficult problems and make appropriate selections of new technologies. The CTO will be making technology selections for a Healthcare industry product suite which requires interoperability and integration so both the breadth of the CTO’s knowledge (for strategy) and the depth of the knowledge (for implementation) are equally important.

The distinguishing feature of all of these roles and responsibilities is their focus on strategy. System architecture, blueprint development, and business process alignment with CLIENT policies and strategies are the responsibility of the Chief Architect, VP of Engineering, or other technology leadership that the CLIENT already has in place or will hire. The CTO assists in the association and realization of these areas through technology and its application to the operational environment.