Guardians of Healthcare: A Journey from Caregiver to Cybersecurity Leader

[00:00:00] Joy Rios: Hey there, and welcome to the HIT Like a Girl podcast. My name is Joy Rios, this show's host, and today we are joined by somebody very special. I'm going to let her introduce herself in a moment, but let you know in our audience, this is a show where we talk about the 30,000 piece puzzle of healthcare and how complicated it can be.

And so every one of our guests brings a piece of their puzzle to help us understand the big picture. So can you please share with us your piece of the health IT puzzle?

[00:00:36] Andrea Daugherty: Thank you so much for having me, Joy. It's a pleasure to be here. So I'm Andrea Daugherty. I serve as the Head of Digital Health, SHI.

I've been with the organization just about nine months. What's it,which is just crazy to think about. I joined SHI to really be a part of something special in healthcare I think you, you really hit the nail on the head. Healthcare is so fragmented. Having spent the majority of my career on the provider side, I've obviously seen a lot of things.

I've grown up in healthcare. And so being able to bring that perspective over to the IT solution provider side, I think allows us to really build something that's purpose built and purpose driven. At the end of the day, hopefully we'll really help our healthcare organizations and improve how they deliver care to the patient populations they serve.

[00:01:24] Joy Rios: Can I learn a little bit more about your journey? And I also want to know how crazy the last nine months have been.

[00:01:29] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah, absolutely. How far do you go back? No it's interesting. I grew up in healthcare. Honestly, my mom was a nurse. And she went back to school for her master's and when I was in elementary school, and so I've always had health care somewhere, some way, some shape, form throughout my life, I think influencing me, it was really during my teenage years, my sister, who's 11 years older than me, she was type one diabetic, but she suffered a lot of medical issues.

End stage renal failure was one of the big ones and so I started taking her to her dialysis appointments. And so it was like little sister actually turns into caregiver in a lot of ways. But doing that I was really in the thick of like acute care, but also just helping her navigate some of the challenges of appointments and rescheduling and medication management.

I think that's what really initially sparked an interest and so I always knew I wanted to be in health care, just didn't know what capacity. Started out in pharmacy school and quickly learn. I did not want to be a pharmacist. Nope. I take it back. I'm, science and math, I'm really good at that. Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? Absolutely not.

So fast forward once I graduated, I'm born and raised in Kansas City. Obviously, that's where Cerner was headquartered. And so I had an opportunity to go work for them. And my first role there was a learning consultant where I was responsible. This is during the CPOE era, right?

Everybody's going from paper to their electronic health record. And so I was responsible for actually designing and delivering the education for a physician. Yeah, big deal. But a lot of exposure to different specialties and subspecialties and the fragmented healthcare system that we have.

Did that for a couple years really wanted to learn more about the tech and so I transitioned into an integration architect role where I was responsible for leading the actual technical parts of the implementation did that for a couple years started a family and decided I did not want to travel.

Anymore after that, and that's when I went to the provider side, it was very fortunate actually here in LA to land in an organization that was very supportive of all of my aspirations. I started as a consultant for their lab information system, led that implementation in 11 months, they went live, they created a position for me, a manager of the lab information systems, it was a brand new position, never existed before.

So I built out a team there, did that for a couple years, and I really wanted to get into cyber security. And so I went to my boss's peer at the time, he's VP of infrastructure, and I said, “Hey, Kevin, if I go obtain my CISSP and I create the strategic roadmap you create a director position for me”.

We laughed and I'm, we're a 3. 4 billion organization. We don't have a dedicated cybersecurity team. It's not a matter of if it's a matter of when, so you should let me do this. And he laughed and I was, I'm going to. He's “Okay, if you go get your certification, Andrea, I'll do it”.

And I did. And he did. And a move from a manager of clinical applications to a director of information security.

[00:04:37] Joy Rios: I love that such a bold move. If you're, “I have a vision and no, I'm not joking. This is needed and you need somebody and guess what? I'm the person”.

[00:04:49] Andrea Daugherty: I have to say it's, it was very bold. And I, there were a lot of times as I was building out the information security program. I thought to myself what did I get myself into? Why am I doing this? But there were a lot of lessons learned along the way. And I had amazing support from the organization, Kevin Torres, Julie Eastman.

She's actually the CIO at UC Irvine Health now. Still keep in touch with her. She's fantastic. She's been a big part of my journey, actually, into leadership and big reason why I've had the success that I have always cheering me on, which I love that. As I was doing that and getting more in the circuit and doing speaking engagements, I met Aaron Meary and he was, “Hey, I heard you've done some really cool things”.

I was leading an innovation lab here with Memorial Care and Series Computer Solutions at the time. He's, “I'd love for you to come down to UT, University of Texas and build out an information security program for the medical school and the healthcare enterprise”.

And I'm, “I'm not really, I don't think I'm ready to move. I'm not really looking for another role”. He's “No, you it's academic medicine. You absolutely should just come down and meet the team”. And so I did I remember being in Vegas, I was actually on my way to Vegas to go speak at a conference. That following week, I went down to Austin, Texas and met with him and the team.

And I remember walking through, it was a full day and I remember walking through the airport calling my husband and I was, “Hey, I think I just got a job. Do you want to move to Austin, Texas?” And he's “What? You're the only person I know that goes somewhere and ends up with a job offer”. And I'm, “We've been talking about leaving California”.

And so it was a few weeks late. It was actually that Friday, I got that call and there was an offer. And we talked about it over the weekend and decided to take a leap. We're doing it. So I did that. And Erin Murie was very gracious and let me build the team the way that I wanted to.

And I started out actually as a director of security role there, but that quickly evolved into, I had analytics, I had DevOps we did some really impressive things as a team, had never led a DevOps team before, but stood one up and built a contact tracing app off of the open source code that the World Health Organization used during the Ebola outbreak so we could do contact tracing for COVID.

I've always done really bold things. I can identify an opportunity and just lean into it. I just think that's what makes it exciting, but that's also what's needed in this industry if we're ever going to drive any sort of, or lead any sort of change. I think you also have evidence of trusting yourself to do big, bold things.

I thank my mom for that. I think seeing her go back to school when I was in elementary I'm one of seven, or I'm one of seven kids. Busy household, but there was just never anything that my mom didn't do. And just, I think having that inspiration was a big part of that. I've certainly carried that forward in my life.

[00:07:50] Joy Rios: Okay, so let's talk about the last nine months.

[00:07:54] Andrea Daugherty: I went to, I was in the CIO, Erin Mary left. I was in the CIO role at UT. Until spring of last year and then decided to make the leap. And I tell you what when I first joined the organization, obviously being a part of a sales organization, coming from the provider side, it was just a lot of listening and learning.

I had a lot of ideas of what I wanted to do, but I didn't want to come in guns blazing. I really wanted to learn the organization and learn the folks and be very intentional. I think what we have, the opportunity that we have at SHI is really something special. And so I wanted to be very purposeful and intentional about what we were building.

It's been so crazy. One, for the first time in my career, I have a complete upline of all female leaders, which is so exciting. SHI is the largest privately held minority owned business in the United States, which is just like all of these things. It's I couldn't have asked for to land at a better organization.

The culture is fantastic. Everyone there is just so eager to help and learn. And one of our, the mantra is we're ridiculously helpful and people really are I think there's a lot of curiosity. Around health care. And so it's been a lot of conversations about how can we help you and your business unit be successful, obviously leaning into a lot of my CIO peers and industry just saying, Hey I know what I what challenges I had as a CIO.

What are your challenges and what are you looking for in an IT solutions partner, right? So I want to make sure that I'm actually meeting the need. I don't want to be just like another value added reseller. I want to do something that's actually going to make a difference. And I think coming in with that perspective that I have as a healthcare CIO is a really pivotal part of that.

[00:09:41] Joy Rios: It just makes me really excited to know that there is an IT service out there that is WNB women heavy that is so counter culture of what we have been taught so I don't know culturally wise you're speaking to it, but can you speak to it more of the differences of just an IT organization that might be male led versus…

[00:10:02] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah, I've been fortunate in my career, even when I have worked for men, I've had very supportive men, but I will say I've certainly experienced my own challenges throughout it. And you're right. When I stepped into the cybersecurity space, I can't tell you how many conferences I walked into and I was probably one of a handful of men of women, and certainly even and minority women forget about it.

 There's certainly some negative connotations, right? People are just like, what are you doing here? You don't belong here, right? There's that aspect of it. And then there's just people until you actually open your mouth and have a conversation and then people are, “Oh, wait, she actually does know what she's talking about.”

I think the biggest thing for me, the biggest observation that I've made. And now having been on both sides of the fence, if you will, and working for male leaders and female leaders is the female leaders really do lean into and support you. We've all had some challenges throughout our careers as we've come up.

And so I think being able to share those experiences, I think provides a more empathetic environment to operate and move in. And we as women too, we tend to be so much harder on ourselves anyway. I think just having, it's almost like you have cheerleaders like Jennifer Emery.

I've known her for years. We met through time and Laura Rogers, right? We met through time too, but it's like having our own little cheerleading squad. We're always hyping each other up. And even on the tough days when we're just, “Oh, this is just not going the way that I want.”

We're leaning into it and supporting each other and it just feels like a sisterhood, honestly.

[00:11:42] Joy Rios: I love that. And I also look I'm sure traveling with a squad is a little bit helpful.

[00:11:46] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah. We have our girl squad. I love it. We show up in numbers and it's just I've never had that in my career.

I'm usually traveling with the guys and it's I have five brothers, so I'm used to it, but also it's just, it's so different. So nice.

[00:12:04] Joy Rios: I feel like you might have a really solid piece of advice for people who walk into seas of men and are maybe the only. Either woman or minority woman and any, like, how do you own that confidence and how to without being too arrogant or whatever I know my stuff, right? But having to prove yourself, but in a subtle way.

[00:12:25] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah it's, I think helping, it certainly helped me having brothers. I have a thick skin as a result of that. A lot of tussling coming up, but I think it's really just, you have to know, like you belong there, right? You be confident in who you are and what you, what value you add.

I haven't always exuded the amount of confidence that I have now. It's calm, but I think as I've taken some pretty big steps, bold steps throughout my career and been successful and continued to do that and be successful and have an impact. And when you do those types of things, like that confidence continues to grow and other people see it too and recognize it.

And so I think being authentic is another part of that too, right? Show up as your true self. I am not the typical see a healthcare CIO or healthcare executive.  

[00:13:25] Joy Rios: She’s got sparkle. She's got a sparkly shiny dress on you guys. She's shimmering and bejeweled.

[00:13:30] Andrea Daugherty: And my nose is pierced and I wear sneakers with everything.

And I just, I am who I am and that's all I can be. And I think that's a part of it too, right? When you're comfortable, you come as you are and you're comfortable. As yourself, I think that allows you to, that helps build that confidence. And I think that radiates naturally.  

[00:13:51] Joy Rios: A hundred percent. I like the idea of the evidence that we attain when we do bold things.

It's not necessarily being scared of whatever's going to happen. It's like getting a trust in yourself. I might not trust the environment, but I trust myself to be able to figure it out or navigate whatever is on its way.

[00:14:09] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah, absolutely. You just, I know what I can achieve, right? And I know what I'm capable of.

And so I just really keep that mindset going forward. Obviously I think your network is a big part of that as well. Surround yourself with people who are doing the things that you want to do or are doing and can be a sounding board for you. I have so many peers and friends and industry as I was navigating these things and taking these bold steps that I called and said, “Okay. Hey, this is how I'm thinking about this. Does this make sense? What am I missing?”

That's a big piece of it, too. I think just having that network of folks that you can trust and that also believe in you and will encourage you and push you to continue to move forward. Okay, back to IT stuff.

[00:14:58] Joy Rios: Can we talk cyber security? What do we, what it feels like it's getting scarier as far as the amount of data that is out there and ways in which it can be shared and used. Also used against us.

[00:15:12] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah. Absolutely. It was interesting. There was a picture deep fake, right? Imaging AI generated in what 15 seconds of the Pentagon getting blowed up? And so it was started to circulate it. The AP picked it up. The stock market started trending down and this was all just off of an AI generated picture.

So the technology that we have access to right now literally has the ability to impact our markets to start panic on social media. And so it's really scary right now. You're absolutely correct. What every other day there's a headline about a cyber event somewhere, obviously coming off the hills of this change, healthcare, cyber event that a lot of folks are still dealing with here today.

I think we have to do our due diligence and it's. It's sad, but also just the world that we live in, and we know that it's not going to get any better. And there's a couple of things that we can do. One, it's workforce, right? How do we continue to build a workforce that's going to be there, that hospitals can hire and afford?

I can remember when I started my cyber security career, just trying to attract talent in that was, it was so hard. And that was, and it's, the shortage has only gotten worse because the attacks continue to happen, but even in healthcare, right? Just looking for people that want to be in healthcare stay and trying to compete with other industries are like big tech, right?

It's hard to do in healthcare. It's hard to keep people to attract and retain. The workforce that's needed. And so I think we're going to have to rely on technology. We're going to have to rely on technology to combat technology quite a bit, but it's something that's not going away. And it should be on, I say this, and I've always said that it should be on the forefront of everybody's mind because cybersecurity isn't just a CISO's job.

It's not just a CIO's job. It's everyone in the organization, right? Your workforce is your first line of defense. So everybody really needs to be educated on it and doing their part.  

[00:17:20] Joy Rios: I have two examples and they, one is healthcare related and one is not, but my sister basically just got frauded. And it was the people trying to fraud her from her bank sounded exactly like the fraud department.

And it was basically verbatim, the systems, the phone number came from her bank. They said all the things. And so when she was, she basically got wiped out of a whole bank account, but thankfully it got fixed. It was fine. But when she was going through the legitimate fraud control, it sounded verbatim, word for word, what the folks that scammed her were.

And that is a little, and she's, “I'm officially old now. I got suckered into it.” And it's so heartbreaking. 

[00:18:00] Andrea Daugherty: And think about the opportunities. That's great that she was able to recover those funds, but there's so many people that do fall victim to scams like that and aren't able to recover that, or maybe they've lost.

Other things I know that it's really heartbreaking to think about, especially when we think about different generations, obviously, older generations are going to be a lot more susceptible to falling victim to some of that stuff.

[00:18:29] Joy Rios: But we always thought that was so far away, like grandma's age. And she's “Nope, it's me now.”

[00:18:31] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah, it's here. And it's, oh my gosh I'd love to hear the other.

[00:18:35] Joy Rios: Okay, so the other one has to do with after the Super Bowl. There was an, the IT department attended, did their fake test. If the workforce would pass the phishing email and they put out a link that had something to do around Taylor Swift, right around the Super Bowl. And of course, somebody was, click immediately.

[00:19:01] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah, it's amazing. You we've gotten some pretty, I had, that was one thing I did have a lot of fun with the phishing campaign.

[00:19:11] Joy Rios: Okay. Tell me about that. Cause you get to design them and you're, “How am I going to trick the workforce?”

[00:19:12] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to share. One of the favorite ones that I did were like e cards. You're somebody so thoughtful. E cards. Did that. And the click rate on that was out of this world, right? So there was a lot of education there around that. Did some that were dating sites. It was very interesting to see how much of the workforce was actually interesting in dating sites on your hospital computer or your hospital device, issue device.

We've mimicked bank accounts as well. It's amazing to see people click on like that chase link and Subtle differences, or just like fake emails from our CEO, COO, or direct supervisor asking for something like, here, click this file, or I need you to check out this spreadsheet, right?

And people are just I think a couple of things that we learned from that. One is the world moves so fast. We move so fast in our day to day that sometimes we just need to stop and pause and actually pay attention, especially when it comes to cybersecurity phishing. Things of that sort.

The other thing we learned is people do a lot of things on their work devices that they should not be doing. Yes, they do. But yeah, I really enjoyed that. It was really an opportunity to educate the workforce and we made it fun, right? It wasn't punitive by any means. It was really, we saw it as an opportunity to really educate folks and bring them up to see, and they appreciated that too.

[00:20:41] Joy Rios: Sure. Especially if there's no punishment, right? It's literally a learning opportunity of Oh, I need to be more cognizant. I need to be more thoughtful.

[00:20:50] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah. Unless we have repeat offenders, then like, all right, come on now.

[00:20:53] Joy Rios: But how interesting to have that job to be like, let me design the tricks and things that you're supposed to, you're not supposed to click on.

That sounds fun actually.

[00:21:02] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah. It was really fun. And again like coming, having that experience and bringing that over to the IT solution provider side and being able to have these conversations with vendors about how they're packaging and marketing their solutions and how they're having conversations with healthcare customers.

What they should and shouldn't be saying too, right? And I think it's, it gives you a really unique opportunity to have an impact on industry in a way that I probably, you know, a year ago, two years ago, you would have asked me if I would have ever done a position or considered a position like that.

And I would have been like, no, I'm never leaving the provider side. And here I am.

[00:21:37] Joy Rios: Here you are. Okay. So when people think about SHI, what is the image or what should they have in their back pocket?

[00:21:44] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah. That's changing. A year ago, I would have conversations with folks or I say nine months ago, having just joining SHI people will be, “Oh, what is SHI? What is SHI? What is that?” 

And now we've done such a great job of really getting our name out there and focusing on our branding. And so now it's it's, “Oh my gosh, it's SHI Healthcare and Andrea's there and Jennifer's there. And like you guys have this A team and Laura's done such a great job of finding great partners such as yourself to partner with.

So we really just want to become known as a trusted IT solutions provider. We have industry experts that have sat in the seats of our healthcare customers. And so we understand the challenges. Operating and do operating in that ecosystem and having to do more with less. And so when I think about SHI, we really just want to be that trusted partner.

[00:22:41] Joy Rios: I also want to point out that you guys sponsor the puppy park.

[00:22:45] Andrea Daugherty: Yes, that's my favorite.

[00:22:45] Joy Rios: So anytime you're at the VIVE or health events, it's SHI puppies.

[00:22:51] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah. Credit to Jennifer Emery for that one. That was her idea. And it was such a hit last year that we just that's our thing now. It's great. It brings so much joy. And it's just, it's nice. Yes, it does.  It's nice, right?

We're so busy running around the floor on these things and having meetings and so focused on metrics and all sorts of things. And so it's just nice to get a daily dose of dopamine, serotonin, break it up. At the end of the day, we are health care. It's all health care related. So bring some wellness into it.  

[00:23:31] Joy Rios: Thank you so much for being here and sharing your journey. If people want to follow you, connect or connect with SHI, where do you lead them?

[00:23:35] Andrea Daugherty: Yeah, connect with SHI. You can follow us. On LinkedIn, SHI International.

I'm on there as well. LinkedIn, Andrea L. Daugherty. But yeah, I thank you so much for having me. This has been a pleasure. I appreciate it.

[00:23:47] Joy Rios: It has been great. It's great to get to know you and I'm glad that our audience gets to know you as well. Thank you so much.

Thanks for listening. You can learn more about us or this guest by going to our website or visiting us on any of the socials with the handle HIT Like a Girl pod. Thanks again. See you soon.

Again, thank you so much for listening to the HIT Like a Girl podcast. I am truly grateful for you, and I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave us a rating or review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend?

All those things help us podcasters out so much. I'm the show's host, Joy Rios, and I'll see you next time.