Helping companies realize their next stages of growth
Recommended Book:
The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams
Best Way to Contact Carina:
Mentioned Link:
: Hey Outcomes Rocket friends, thanks for tuning in to the podcast once again. As a leader in health care, you have big ideas, great products, a story to tell, and are looking for ways to improve your reach and scale your business. However there’s one tiny problem. Health care is tough to navigate and the typical sales cycle is slow. That’s why you should consider starting your own podcast as part of your sales and marketing strategy. At the Outcomes Rocket, I’ve been able to reach thousands of people every single month that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to reach if I had not started my podcast. Having this organic reach enables me to get the feedback necessary to create a podcast that delivers value that you are looking for. And the same thing goes if you start a podcast for what you could learn from your customers. The best thing about podcasting in healthcare is that we are currently at the ground level, meaning that the number of people in healthcare listening to podcasts is small but growing rapidly. I put together a free checklist for you to check out the steps on what it takes to create your own podcast. You could find that at outcomesrocket.health/podcast. Check it out today and find a new way to leverage the sales, marketing and outcomes of your business. That’s outcomesrocket.health/podcast.
: Welcome back once again to the Outcomes Rocket podcast where we chat with today’s most successful and inspiring health leaders. Today I have the outstanding Carina Edwards. She’s a Senior Vice President of Customer Experience at Imprivatato. Carina is responsible for all customer facing operations that fuel customer success including Worldwide Professional Services, Worldwide Customer Service Support and Advocacy, Business Development and Corporate I.T. She brings 22 years of experience in health care technology which many of you have a keen interest in. This health care technology space is a growing one. And with that it’s important that we hone in deeper and share best practices with our peers and Carina has a wealth of knowledge and experience here. She got to focus on speed to transformation brings a strong track record of helping companies realize their next stages of growth and creating customers for life. It’s a pleasure to have Carina on the podcast. Then Carina I want to just open up the mic to you to fill in the gaps of that intro. Welcome to the podcast.
: Thank you so much for that. And I guess the other thing I would add is I’m not really an avid golfer and a foodie and I really enjoy all aspects of life and I health care industries industry especially healthcare technology once you did it you never leave and that passion really seen the outcomes for us. I think all the last-minute long term partnerships. I’m excited to be here and excited to share some of the stories with you.
: Now that’s really awesome, Carina. Thanks for sharing that personal note. Sounds like you enjoy the outdoors as well. And that’s a, it’s important to get out there and get our minds away from this hectic health care to keep our Saussure.
: Absolutely.
: So what got you into the medical sector to begin with?
: So I like to say I was very lucky my first job out of school I was actually asked to deploy the avalanche or get assistance to needy hospitals around the globe. And believe me one great way to see the world actually be doctors and nurses and from care for horses and empath and technology have doctors make it easier for them to do their job, easier for them to care for their patients. Great to see real time and that really suffer from there all that role they never taken and kept me and really looking at how technology can enable RY technology will better evidence at this point to care better care providers and better care quality for patients. So it’s really been a lifetime mission and I love the health care sector.
: What a great kickoff to that career and giving back to our military. So it sounds like that left an imprint on you. And it’s interesting to see how how leaders form, shape, develop. So I’m very curious Carina you’ve been in this field for quite some time now. Today, what would you say that one thing that needs to be at the forefront of every health care leaders agenda?
: So I think the mission hasn’t changed. I think the nation has continued to evolve where it’s all about the right information at the right time innovations. And it’s really about improving the quality of care for patients. Yet that has done so in an ecosystem today that is so challenging. You know we have massive cybersecurity threats we have all of these compliance and regulatory needs that we have to meet. And so right now at every leader’s agenda is how do I make sure that my clinicians have access to the right information quickly? We get this the right access at the right level because we’re trying to make sure that they can access the information they need but not over communicate information. Not once, everyone wants to see you have information.I think the key for us and accessing your security organization. I think I’m more acutely aware but I think top 3 agenda for all CIO’s is have they yet evaluated the EMR vendors in place. Theay have their ring fenced, their world and really have that cyber security perimeter to protect that information. And yet how in the world do they get access to it at that point. And that’s why this is.
: So can you give us some examples of how your organization has created results in this space?
: Sure. In the court saying that everybody is known for or known for having a product on one side and what it does is it really is that from to health care I.T. systems it allows providers to use their building badge and their pen to tap into a workstation pulls out realizes with the help of regulations doctors and nurses are tapping in 45 to 5 times a day. And so when you have to continue to access the information but yet you have to shut it down every time they walk away. Health care is a whole and so our solutions say explanations 45 minutes per use everyday.
: That’s huge.
: Yeah we also talked about that clinical workflow and what I’ll get in here is the other piece that we’re seeing great surgeons on this are facing the opioid epidemic is eprescribing a controlled substance as one tool in the arsenal to start combating opioid, a prescription abuse. It’s this ability for the provider to eprescribe with certainty that they are the provider. This is the right prescription and they do that biometrically or they do that with multifactor authentication and we have a great customer guide singer who literally seeing those statistics where in the first month they say it a million and a half hours solution but even better they reduce their prescribing rates. They actually have improved the patient experiences is no more likely to come in and get that prescription because these are people that really need those medications.
: Right.
: Its reduced to fraud. And so we’re seeing how areas really help with this massive appetite.
: And so at the interface of this eprescription, what exactly is it that makes it effective?
: So what makes it really effective is the workflow side. Traditionally I think every listener can understand this. Imagine that you’re going to your bank alive and see your bag and then all of a sudden you have to go find yourself cellphone because you saved the code and you have to go to find the code, yes then type them into your compute?
: Yes.
: Okay. So now imagine doing that before we prescribe cellphoe.
: Yeah it’s insane.
So instead the way we’ve architected the solution by meeting our requirements is when they’re in their EMR system and they prescribe that narcotic. We have a soft token on their own and they use that multifactor to ensure that he is using a password plus token and the unique thing or are they using fingerprints. And it hasn’t. You know. And so when you do that then when the right clinical workflow. We now have a hands free option. So after you say that your fingerprints, the computer wakes up your phone, it calls that code automatically. You don’t have to actually go and grab it. I’d love to catch up with that token right into that prescribing Latvala prescription. And that’s why is aware what the doctor has so that they know they have to follow them and get handsfree pin and now ask them for another form factor. So it’s very adaptive.
: That’s very interesting. And it sounds like it’s making a difference especially in this opioid epidemic. And as we speak about technologies like this I think it’s always interesting to talk about what the road for approval for things like these are you know we’re in a space that is highly regulated by the FDA but at the same time there’s devices and things like that that don’t have to go through that rigor. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that typical regulatory pathway for you guys is?
: For us. You know we really back to we sit on that framework. So…
: Okay.
: Security at all of the points of digital identity and how to have that like entity trusted by the end source. So whether it be the authentication to the endpoint, the actual machine that they’re logging into or the mobile device they’re logging into whether it be single sign on to all the different applications to eliminate passwords and health care? There will be transacting like this controlled substance workflow. So we look at the regulations as a framework to build our technology around it and that critical workflow. So it’s really less about our solutions being regulated and really more looking at the guidelines. The DEA in particular has a wonderful framework for prescribing and controlled substances and they marry that to the next standards guidelines for security. And so by leveraging those two frameworks you can build solutions that fit right into the ecosystem around the workflow. Thinking about that end user.
: Fascinating and folks password fatigue is real and the solutions that Carina is talking to us about. At Imprivata they’re really taking it a step further and going to where the puck is going with the way that they do these identity verifications. And I love the approach that you guys have taken here. If the listeners wanted to learn more about your company or the solutions that you provide, what would be the site or place that they should visit?
: Oh sure yeah they can visit us imprivata.com a lot of great video clips, library testimonials, a lot of great customer stories so great place to go for information. We have a great YouTube channel. So lots of different ways.
: Nice. Awesome. There you have folks imprivata.com. Check them out. Also put a link there in the podcast show notes so that you could go to this episode and check that out. So Carina, can you share with us a time when you had a setback something that you learned so much from that you always do today?
: Sure yeah. Just wanted to think about. For me it really comes down to connecting with employees and really aligned, aligning myself to their growth and aligning them to the mission. So one of the things I learned from was I was surprised that three years ago one of my direct reports abruptly quit and it really came as a shock and I kind of…
: Yeah.
: I listened to the reason and I couldn’t believe I miss it and that it was positive reason why he was leaving, he was planning on taking another step and do a start-up again and having some fun. When I missed for those signals? And so what its made me do is really then reconnect with employees at a different level. The first thing I always try to do is understand, what are their career goals? What excites about their job? How are they contributing to the mission and always tying their jobs to the broader vision? And the exciting part of that story was you know a year and a half is this person’s journey. They actually wound up coming back to the company…
: Oh really.
: I found out that they were in love with their travel and the startup wasn’t exactly what they wanted to be in. So back to now understanding where they want to go I was able to kind of reconnect with them and say hey there is no bridge burned but you said you’re so wonderful and you break through this we’d love to have you back. And so it was really wonderful to see him rejoin your organization now be a great leader and continue to grow. And so it’s how you learn from these mistakes and I think if we’re not learning we’re dying and…
: Absolutely.
: Taking the time for feedback and coaching and listening which in today’s hectic schedule it’s really difficult to do.
: It really is Carina and that’s a great call out because it’s hard to stay focused on the mission, your customer focuse, you’re trying to get things done. It’s easy to forget your people. And I think this is such a great call out any tips that you’d recommend for people to do to stay in tune.
: Yeah you know one of the things that I believe in multi layers of communication in different ways to connect with your teams. Your mighty heroes growing from 45 now over 150 and across the globe. You have to do a few things. First, you have to empower your leaders information right. Transparency is key. Second thing is you have to have a case that connects the employees and it’s not just about you know the one on ones. You can’t scale yourself holistically all the time.
: Right.
: Thinking about how do you connect? How do you share their successes? How do you communicate? And so here, we do a series across the year in person face to faces, whereabouts meetings, customer highlights,such stories we let people brag about other people’s accomplishments. And that really gets people engaged in the mission because it really is reconnecting all the time. Why are you here? How does your role connect with our mission? How has your role helped you succeed long term your career objectives? So it’s having that dual view of the employee that’s critical.
: Love that. Love that. So important. And as we look to implement positive change in health care and continue the good things that are being done there’s a lot of great things happening. It’s important that we engage our people I know even on the provider side. I mean you guys providers listening to this. It’s tough, it’s busy, it’s hard to connect so a great message shared by Carina there. I would definitely hit the rewind button right down some of these ideas because it is definitely some good stuff. What would you say one of your proudest leadership experiences to date is Carina?
: It’s actually today it’s here in Imprivata, one of the things…
: Really.
: We started this journey and we the, I join in 2012 and the company year was from a horizontal company to a health care company. And really doubling down on our understanding of the clinical workflow and the knowledge. I’m not sure all of our customers came with us on that journey. And so we created a mantra,”Create customers for life.”And it’s something that we lead not just in my organization it’s lives by the entire company. It’s part of the four cultural tendons that we had. So as an Imprivata employee, customers’s like is the hot thing we are focused on. And with that we asked all employees to bring their passion their deep integrity and their courage of convictions to bear when they’re actually delivering for our customers and deliverance solutions. And that resulted in 99% customer retention that…
: Wow
: Best in class. We’re very proud of our partnerships. I spend a lot of my time on the road with customers listening, understanding how we can be better, consistently innovating their experience to make sure that we don’t fall behind that we’re always leading to that mission. And it’s a two way street. We’re giving and we’re providing in that partnership is really exciting. And so I’m actually speaking with Jackrabbit to I think our time I see session coming up about creating…
: Very cool.
: Partnerships and thinking through how those frameworks are kept partnered with everybody but you can help customers be successful.
: That is very inspiring Carina and customers for life. What a great focus to have and principle to run your company with. It’s so easy to just go quarter per quarter or even contract to contract right. Like K.M. we’re in this for another three years celebrate. And it’s I think many companies are guilty of this. Customers For Life is a very inspiring message. And with 99 % retention you guys are definitely living what you preach.
: It’s exciting and it’s an exciting journey and one that continues. I think what we’re going is we’re sending customers up for long term success. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about right. We’re all in this industry not because the technology is as sexy as not because it’s the most fast moving but at the end of the day there’s a patient connected to all this information is there where we want to make sure that we get all of the care and the outcomes better and lower the cost of care and we’re doing it well. So we’re all in the ecosystem and how do we continue to get back.
: Yeah and Carina you know the other thing that’s really interesting is this decision that you all made as a business to say we’re going to focus strictly on health care. That right there was a move that maybe I’d like to learn a little bit more here. What went on behind that decision and that commitment because that’s a big decision?
: Yeah it is I think when you when when companies face these milestones we see a trend emerge if you love your business and you kind of say what’s delivering the most value? Where can we continue to deliver value? Because if you’re not delivering value and your delivering technology, it’s short lived.
: It is.
: It’s nice it could be sexy but it’s not sustainable.
: Right.
: Esaw as a company was this problem occurred across all industries. Pastor refugees real everywhere security…
: Yes.
: However the uniqueness is the health care and the healthcare workflow really made it vertical that we could go much deeper and change the practice aligning to the current model. So imagine your merged department. You see in their hectic,they’re chaotic, they have computers kind of sprinkled throughout the area, and you have this hummingbird station of people have to get in and out of records and information real time to get that information about the patients. And so we saw that was very neat was how do we facilitate that task users sweat. How do we think about changing the user from the doctor to the nurse in the record so they can charge accordingly? So with all those uniqueness is we thought that we had something differentiated and our ecosystem partners the EMR vendors, the virtualization vendors, the end point vendors. It really led us to figure out and deliver value here to get that 45 minutes back retain those providers. And that’s where we saw the momentum and that value creation was the strongest was a turning point.
: That is so interesting and it’s a big commitment and one that really kind of the message to the listeners is listen to Carina’s talk here if you’re not delivering value and just technology you better take another look at it because it’s short lived. So Carina tell us about an exciting project or focus that you’re working on at Imprivata today.
: Oh goodness. So there’s so many things going on. I think the most longer term view is patient identity and this notion of digital identity across the spectrum of clinical side as well as the patient side. If you think about your own life today, we have many different forms of identification. Like we might have a driver’s license and I have a passport, we have some security number. At the same time your digital ID is something very different. Some people like to lie with their Facebook account,to their LinkedIn accounts or other forms that say this is who I am. And when we think about that evolution for patients wouldn’t it be amazing if I was at home I could truly validate my identity with that I could actually tell you all my entitlements. And now when you’re doing it tell it help or you’re checking into your care scheduling your appointment. The organization had certainty of who I was, and if you’re going to share my information like any of those attributes whether it may be biometric, digital footprints, second bank tokens, that followed me along the path same for clinicians, Like when clinicians come into an organization they go through that full credentialing stage, their prevision, our user identity in the system and then from there they are given access to all these different systems. What about a provider in Massachusetts actually in Boston I could be delivering care medical center at US partners. And so now I have to redo that this identity is read from the same three different providers and truly I just want. Our vision is all about how do we create digital trust in that identity and bridge that identity across the ecosystem of followers whether it be your fingerprint your visual ID you’re using password all those digital attributes and that level of security so that it’s a project that we’re really excited about something that’s coming together today as we evolve a lot more to come a lot of players getting in these days.
: Yeah it’s very interesting and the promise that it holds for outcomes improvement is also huge.
: Absolutely, and that’s a streamlined streamlines back to it gives time…
: It does.
: Why should they wait three to five days to the provision of the systems when I can actually do provisioning right. Day one trust identity what your role is in our system.
: Yeah I mean that’s fascinating. Folks, again we have 30 minutes on these podcasts. And when you have amazing folks like Carina you just want to stay on here for a full hour. So we’re getting close to the end here. Carina let’s pretend you and I are building a medical leadership course on what it takes to be successful in the business of I.T. in medicine. This is the one on one of Carina. So we’re going to write out a syllabus with a lightning round. It’s four questions followed by a book that you recommend to the listener. You ready?
: Okay, sure I’m ready.
: Alright. What’s the best way to improve healthcare outcomes?
: Every decision be patient centered and give education to the patient in the flow of their journey.
: What is the biggest mistake or pitfall to avoid?
: Growing technology at a problem. It’s about the clinical experience clinical RY and the clinical workflow and so if you don’t integrate into that, your technology solution will fail.
: How do you stay relevant despite constant change?
: Listen. Listening is critical. Hearing feedback, understanding the environment, seeing the ecosystem changes and adapting so you can scale and grow.
: What is the one area focus that drives everything in your company?
: Customers For Life.
: I love that.
: It’s about building those partnerships and delivering solutions that meet the needs of the providers and users and their patients.
: Customers for life. And what book would you recommend to the listeners Carina.
: So the favorite book I can recommend that I read recently is called the Captain Class by Sam Walker really talks about the attributes of leaders and leadership by studying all of the high performing teams that are out there in professional sports.
: Fascinating and it’s called the Captain Class?
: Yeah the Captain Class.
: Wow, fascinating. Folks, you could find this lightning round syllabus along with the book. Just go to outcomesrocket.health/imprivata and you’re going to find all of that there are links to the company as well as an entire transcript of my conversation here with Carina. Before we conclude Carina I’d love if you could just share a closing thought and then the best place for the listeners to get in touch with you.
: Great, my closing thought for everyone listening is clearly you’re all on this leadership journey. First and foremost employees matter. Connecting with them and driving them through the vision matters. And yet most importantly delivering value to customers matter. And so if you crack those two, you’ll be ultimately successful, am really excited to have been part of this and listeners always connect and come with me or on LinkedIn or Twitter.
: Outstanding. This has been inspirational and we really appreciate you making time for us. Thanks Carina.
: This is great. Thank you so much.
: Hey Outcomes Rocket friends, thanks for tuning in to the podcast once again. As a leader in health care, you have big ideas, great products, a story to tell, and are looking for ways to improve your reach and scale your business. However there’s one tiny problem. Health care is tough to navigate and the typical sales cycle is slow. That’s why you should consider starting your own podcast as part of your sales and marketing strategy. At the Outcomes Rocket, I’ve been able to reach thousands of people every single month that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to reach if I had not started my podcast. Having this organic reach enables me to get the feedback necessary to create a podcast that delivers value that you are looking for. And the same thing goes if you start a podcast for what you could learn from your customers. The best thing about podcasting in healthcare is that we are currently at the ground level, meaning that the number of people in healthcare listening to podcasts is small but growing rapidly. I put together a free checklist for you to check out the steps on what it takes to create your own podcast. You could find that at outcomesrocket.health/podcast. Check it out today and find a new way to leverage the sales, marketing and outcomes of your business. That’s outcomesrocket.health/podcast.
