The WHAT TO DO Dilemma
When I’m talking to talented people in the industry about the journey to strike out on my own, start Downshift, and position it as the first-to-market Epic Value-Based Care and Population Health firm, people often say things like:
I couldn’t do that.
That’s beyond my realm of expertise.
Where would I even begin?
To which I usually answer: yes you could, no it’s not, and by filling out this W-9! (Or that LLC paperwork, if you really want to go all-in.)
Somehow, these responses don’t lead to a more detailed discourse about how these folks can really take the leap. Rather, almost 100% of the time, they continue something along the lines of:
You have a really niche offering.
You’re different from the other options out there.
You’re smart to keep things small.
Their cultures are changing and staff are unhappy.
All of which, I can’t necessarily argue with (not in whole anyways), so I basically shrug and agree. Because I’m polite, I usually avoid asking why they’re still doing what they’re doing or partnering with who they are. I find myself encouraging them to set out and chart their own HIT course.
So, where should an aspiring entrepreneur on the verge begin? For starters: they should get moving, find their passion, stop caring about the critics, and recognize that (while being grateful is critical) giving freely of their time and knowledge is most important.
Downshift, Hug The Curves of Your Career
Attack the Knowledge
If you haven’t caught on, my belief is that value-based care is the future of our industry; if you plan to stick around beyond the next few years, point your career in the direction of population health! To do so, you’ll need the foundational knowledge base to meet the needs of everyone from executive to ground-level HIT staff:
What’s an ACO?
Can you explain bundled care?
What’s risk-based contracting?
Familiar with care management segmentation strategies?
Actionable data – can you live, breath, and speak it?
Downshift right around that learning curve! Learn the basics and dig in at the granular level needed in these and other topics like them. Don’t forget, where you have opportunities to foster environments of education and understanding in your current role regarding the changes upon us, take advantage of them. HIT in the 21st century is a team sport!
Master the Basics
In modern HIT, the most valuable resources to their organizations are those who seamlessly combine an ability to skillfully lead, carefully communicate, and refine their technological skill set along the way.
LEAD THE CHARGE
Notes and action items: so simple, but so often the failure. When’s the last time you took notes and sent out action items from a meeting? How about a meeting you weren’t point on? Let’s assume your answer to the first question was “today”. If you’re not sure on the latter question, you’ve got your next first step.
Being the note-taker and gatekeeper of the action items assures your teams aren’t meeting just to meet. Don’t get me wrong, having conversations and discussions are great for strategic partnerships. But unless there’s a record for taking action, at least 60% of the time nothing will get done and you’ll be stuck having the same meeting again soon. Provide value immediately, and if it helps, remind those at the table that just because you’re capturing details doesn’t mean you’re responsible for doing all the work – bring some humor into the mix as you step into your new fastidious role!
It won’t take long until people are looking at you to help clarify the answer to challenging questions and to establish the right next step. And do you know what that’s called? Directing.
IMPRESS WITH NUANCE
Disclaimer: There will be naysayers, many of them, regarding the below.
There is a time and place for strict rigidity in tracking to deadlines in modern HIT. Anyone who’s been on a project in which the project manager feels that is 99% of the time for the duration of all projects, knows burnout and poor team dynamics aren’t too far away. Culture leads the day, and in order to support a healthy team culture all participants need to come to the table with empathetic listening skill sets to assess (from a place of honesty) what the formula should be, given the circumstances at hand.
Relationships and the institutional environment are KEY to navigating the nuance of accountability. Take the time to build and learn them.
Intermediate deadlines, more often than not, are arbitrary with the primary caveat that everyone must be committed – truly committed – to meeting the end-goal delivery date as a team.
As a general rule, pestering from a PM is a dead-giveaway for someone in over their head. Don’t be that PM. But also, don’t be afraid to be tough and persistent when the situation calls for it. In those cases, and beyond, please and thank you go a long way.
REFINE THE TECH SKILL SET
An ability to talk the EMR talk goes a long way, but to truly exceed expectations a key resource will become the educator to their audience and stakeholders, even at the depths of detail typically reserved for grass-roots analysts. When leading complex value-based initiatives, discussion guidance to set goals with stakeholders and an ability to translate those goals to application team members requires that the technical knowledge remain strong. Often downplayed, when combined with the skills above, I find this central to setting yourself and your teams apart from the crowd.
So how do you continue to hone those skill sets? Well, it really depends where you’re at in your career, but here are a few pathways to explore:
Turn honesty regarding your skill set shortcomings into opportunities for growth: seek projects to sharpen your tech skills, create a ‘working’ dynamic on your team in order to share knowledge across all resources when working on challenging, or even just fun, projects.
Volunteer to teach your colleagues about a technical topic of which you have little or no prior experience. Step out of your comfort zone.
Volunteer for participation in working meetings where you can learn new skills— be vulnerable, build partnerships.
And if you happen to find yourself in a position in which you think you were or may be promoted before you have the grasp on the technical side necessary to maintain it going forward (you wouldn’t be the first), for both your own benefit and also the benefit of the teams you’ll be leading, challenge yourself to set personal goals related to healthcare technologies.
Be The Change
By focusing in just a few areas, anyone is capable of training themselves to become a detail-oriented, nuanced communicator with an exceptional tech and industry-forward skill set. Along the way, be grateful, be generous, be collaborative, be humble, and Be the HIT change.
Thanks for reading. If you’d like to be kept up to speed on our latest, you can follow me on the interwebs here and here.
