Inside Athena: Athena’s New Chief Information Officer
FARMINGTON, C.T. — Dreux Namnoun joined the Athena team in November as the company’s new Chief Information Officer.
“We are rounding our 40-year anniversary,” he said, adding in that he looks forward to celebrating the company milestone.
Namnoun has 25 years experience in Information Technologies, starting in desktop support and working his way up to strategic leadership roles. He has worked in insurance and banking but found his last 11 years in the healthcare domain to be the most meaningful. Before joining Athena, he worked at Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford leading the team as the network changed its electronic medical record system and subsequently expanded into Trinity Health at a national level. When presented with the opportunity to join Athena, he was excited to bring his focus back to a local, regional level.
“I really enjoy healthcare,” he said. “When we bring a system down, every single second counts. The act of coordinating and getting all the right people to the table and accomplishing a task and knowing that bringing systems down or implementing something new, there’s a patient in a bed that’s impacted. And that patient could be a family member, a neighbor, or just a complete stranger. Or knowing someday that could be you.”
His goals are to help the company and its employees streamline methods. Whether it’s finding new tools to manage metrics and data or changing how different resources are available to colleagues, he wants to find ways to help everyone succeed.
Part of that is building relationships and understanding what their objectives are, and how I.T. can support those.
“I don’t see any group being able to lead the way. It’s a partnership,” he said. “The thing that I love doing is getting the most out of everybody. I recognize how everybody, regardless if it’s within I.T. or other departments, everybody ticks a little bit different from the way they communicate to the way they learn and I can only be successful if those people are successful. Getting the best out of everyone around me is key and I really enjoy that.”
There are many aspects of I.T. from telephones to data lines to printers to power supplies and beyond. Namnoun notes he can’t be an expert in it all. That’s where the support of his team comes in. He wants to be a “good steward” to the company and his I.T. team. For his team to be successful, he wants to remove any hurdles that may exist.
Healthcare is a special field for Namnoun to be in because he loves to help those in his community.
“If the gratification and the mission that we’re following is there, we’re indirectly, especially in I.T., helping patients and residents. It makes it even better,” he said. “If I can bring some relief in some way to the tools [staff] use and how they’re going about their lives, it a daisy chain.”
Namnoun is a graduate of Data Institute Business School, now Goodwin University, and was in the first graduating class after the renaming of the school. He was also on the panel that helped rename the college.
He’s a big fan of quirky cars and rock and roll music. He lives in East Granby with his wife and two teenage sons and serves as a youth group leader, landscaper, and guitarist on the worship team at his church.
Follow Athena Health Care Systems on X and Facebook. Interested in a career with Athena? Click here!