A deep freeze on IT spend in a previous regime meant a major effort was needed to get back to par CIO Humberto Quintanar’s predecessor basked in the press limelight for adopting cutting-edge technology, before being unceremoniously dismissed a few years ago. Many of those glam-to-sham projects, such as computer mice with fingerprint recognition that often cleared the wrong people, resulted in millions of wasted dollars. A tightfisted CEO used the waste to slam the brakes on spending, even with Quintanar coming in as the new CIO. The result: a two-year freeze on technology projects at Antelope Valley Hospital, situated in southern California’s high desert.But the IT budget floodgates reopened two yeas ago, thanks largely to a new CEO who replaced the tightfisted one. That let Quintanar begin getting the hospital’s IT back on track, albeit in catch-up mode. Still, he’s been able to overhaul his entire IT infrastructure to support the latest technology; by the end of this year, not a single piece of legacy equipment will be around from the prefreeze years.[ Discover what insights you can take advantage of from the other 2008 InfoWorld CTO 25 winners. ]Quintanar architected an entire road map that leads to his grand destination: an electronic medical records (EMR) system, including a computerized physician-order entry system, expected to come online in three years. The journey began with a revamping of the datacenter using new servers, dual storage area networks, virtualization, and a new generator, as well as a refresh of the wireless network. The infrastructure, of course, had to be completed before other scheduled projects could start. “We’ve been going crazy meeting deadlines,” Quintanar says. Those other projects include EMR, which started its rollout in January, and an electronic risk management system for patient review reports, which went live last month.On the communications front, Quintanar installed video phones throughout the hospital. Now he’s looking at radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology to track medical devices and patients. He’s also bringing in a system that taps Microsoft Outlook, cell phones, and pagers to locate doctors. “None of this was possible under the old infrastructure,” Quintanar says. “We didn’t have the bandwidth, and the signals were very unreliable.”Today, Quintanar is much more than an IT leader. Not only does he run a 42-person IT team that deals with multiple projects and technologies, Quintanar is also responsible for the hospital’s physical security, engineering, facilities, biomedical, emergency preparedness, and other departments. He credits his ability to stay on top of all these projects and responsibilities — and to maintain his sanity — to a prior 12-year career as an IT consultant for KPMG and IBM Global Services. “You’ve got 10 customers and 10 teams working on different things, and you have to keep up with all of them,” Quintanar says. “That experience has allowed me to juggle many balls in the air.” Careers