Scott C Richert Email Address

Chief Information Officer

About Mercy: Mercy Springfield Communities is comprised of Mercy Hospital Springfield, named in the 100 Top Hospitals; an orthopedic hospital; a rehab hospital; a children's hospital; five regional hospitals in Lebanon, Aurora, Cassville, Mountain View, Missouri and Berryville, Arkansas; and Mercy Clinic, a physician clinic with nearly 700 doctors and locations throughout the region. It is part of Mercy, the seventh largest Catholic health care system in the U.S., which serves millions annually. Mercy includes 45 acute care and specialty (heart, children's, orthopedic and rehab) hospitals, more than 700 physician practices and outpatient facilities, 40,000 co-workers and more than 2,000 Mercy Clinic physicians in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Mercy also has outreach ministries in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Mercy's Medical Destination Program manages the traveling patient program for all of its facilities. Currently, 50 organizations have achieved Global Healthcare Accreditation through the GHA program to enhance its health tourism or medical travel programs. This number is projected to increase specifically in developed markets as the industry-recognized accreditation signifies a healthcare organization's superior commitment to patient care, ethical practices, and keen business strategies. GHA Standards include 17 core competencies focused on the medical travel cycle for a healthcare organization.

Although technology can be a powerful engine to enable growth and transformation in an organization, thoughtful technology leaders won't make a move without grounding themselves in a firm understanding of the mission, culture, and a sense of "what's next" to help their organization become what it can/should be. Smart technology leaders that "get it" can wield technology teams and solutions to blaze new trails for the transformation mission they align themselves to. In my world that transformation is occurring in health care. Individuals have missions and organizations have missions, but it's something special when your life-mission aligns with your organization's mission. I'm very lucky. I've spent much of my 25-year career in that alignment of mission, and it's allowed me to develop as the chief information officer for a forward-thinking health care organization leading hundreds of talented IT co-workers. I've developed strategies and operational frameworks to deliver the "gotta-haves" of IT services - reliability, adaptability and responsiveness, while managing explosive growth and complexity in the business. Today's challenges in healthcare require more than just reliable IT service, however. I'm partnering with the business to change the healthcare business model by introducing digital and virtual capabilities that are necessary to meet the objectives of a healthcare ministry. This only happens by building teams of passionate, smart co-laborers that share the calling to change healthcare and accept the challenge of defining it as we enter the 2020's.