<description>&lt;p&gt;Nnaemeka Okafor, MD, VP, Chief Analytics and Informatics Officer, Memorial Hermann Health System, says health systems are shifting from purchasing tools to building the conditions that let them deliver results. In an extensive interview, he outlined a program that emphasizes multidisciplinary governance, deliberate training, durable data infrastructure and careful budgeting that accounts for the true […]&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href="https://healthsystemcio.com/2025/11/13/memorial-hermanns-okafor-says-extracting-the-value-of-it-investments-requires-a-greater-investment-in-training/"&gt;Memorial Hermann’s Okafor Says Extracting the Value of IT Requires a Greater Investment in Training &lt;/a&gt; on &lt;a href="https://healthsystemcio.com"&gt;healthsystemcio.com - healthsystemCIO.com is the sole online-only publication dedicated to exclusively and comprehensively serving the information needs of healthcare CIOs.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Nnaemeka Okafor, MD, VP, Chief Analytics and Informatics Officer, Memorial Hermann Health System, says health systems are shifting from purchasing tools to building the conditions that let them deliver results. In an extensive interview,

Nnaemeka Okafor, MD, VP, Chief Analytics and Informatics Officer, Memorial Hermann Health System, says health systems are shifting from purchasing tools to building the conditions that let them deliver results. In an extensive interview, he outlined a program that emphasizes multidisciplinary governance, deliberate training, durable data infrastructure and careful budgeting that accounts for the true cost of adoption. 
As an emergency physician of 18 years who also leads both informatics and analytics, Okafor argues that organizations must design for use. The goal is to assemble clinical, operational and technology teams that stay engaged across the product life cycle—selection, go-live, measurement and iteration—so workflows evolve with system upgrades and changing practice standards. The approach reflects the scale of Memorial Hermann Health System, which spans more than a dozen hospitals, hundreds of care sites and tens of thousands of staff in the Houston region. 
The central idea is that adoption improves when leadership invests as much in measurement, dissemination and training as in the tool itself. Okafor said: “we need to build those ecosystems, or I would say environments, where the technology can thrive.” He connected that to risk management, noting that consumer-grade intuitions do not translate to clinical settings, where small navigation errors can carry consequences. 
Budget Beyond the Sticker Price 
Many boards have learned that initial licensing underestimates what it takes to achieve durable value. He pointed to widely cited analyses that show the costs of implementation and value realization can exceed the price of the technology itself. Okafor was explicit about the scale: “the cost of implementation or actually deriving value out of the tool, maybe three times the initial cost of the technology itself.” That ratio guided Memorial Hermann Health System during its recent EHR transition, where leaders deliberately budgeted for ongoing education, optimization and at-the-elbow support. 
 
The funding posture also improves executive alignment. Okafor emphasized that a transparent “all-in” ask—covering licensing, change management, measurement and continuous education—reduces the need to return for incremental allocations, a scenario that tends to frustrate finance leaders. He framed successful requests in return-on-investment terms: quantify the operational, clinical and financial gaps; propose the training or optimization required to close them; and estimate the timing and magnitude of the benefit. That discipline, he said, builds trust for future proposals. 
Training That Is Deliberate and Ongoing 
Sustainable adoption requires more than one-time classes or passive videos. He described a tiered model built on deliberate practice, where content is targeted to the workflow users must perform and delivered in formats that match how they learn—short in-workflow clips, interactive simulations for high-risk tasks, role-based labs and scheduled at-the-elbow sessions. Leaders, he added, should protect time for training and communicate that proficiency is a core expectation. 
Okafor also emphasized the importance of retraining. System upgrades and workflow changes can turn yesterday’s five-click sequence into a single action; without refreshers, staff will keep doing it the old way. Effective teams keep feedback channels open, route pain points to vendors and bring enhancements back to frontline users through concise reinforcement. Governance’s role is to maintain that loop, ensuring that clinical best practices and system capabilities mature together. 
Data Foundations and AI’s Role 
Measuring whether technology works at the elbow requires a strong data backbone. He described building internal pipelines and dashboards that combine signals from multiple systems to track adoption, efficiency and outcomes, rather than relying solely on out-of-the-box reports.

healthsystemCIO.com

Memorial Hermann’s Okafor Says Extracting the Value of IT Requires a Greater Investment in Training

Memorial Hermann’s Okafor Says Extracting the Value of IT Requires a Greater Investment in Training

Description