On October 11th, Jeanne will serve on the panel “AI and Patient Engagement – New Thoughts on 2020” at Becker’s Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place October 9-12, 2019 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Jeanne’s session, click here.
Question: As a leader, how do you stay connected to the actual work that is being done – and not just by watching others execute, but by executing yourself? If so, how do you balance between leading and executing personally?
Jeanne Teshler: As the founder and head of a digital health startup, I stay connected by attending development planning and review sessions on a regular cadence, in addition to having regular team-lead meetings. This helps me and the other functional leads determine where roadblocks are or may be. It’s my job to help unblock the teams who are developing our platform, so I have a clear set of tasks that I am automatically in charge of completing.
It can be difficult to balance between leading and executing personally when you are in a young company, particularly if you’re like me and enjoy rolling up your sleeves and getting into the weeds with the team. The best way to balance that inclination is to trust your teams to do their work and give them the opportunity to execute. And remind them that your job is to unblock them, not get in their way. Trust me, they will let you know if you’re getting in their way.
Q: What does healthcare need more of? Less of?
JT: Health care needs more people who understand that there’s no choice but to move to a digitally-focused, consumer-centric mindset. The competition that will most hurt healthcare are the outsiders, the retail giants who have made their money figuring out how to simplify life for their customers. Once healthcare understands that their patients actually have choices, they will need to be able to adopt the same retail strategies. AND, those strategies have to be applied to the clinicians, as well. Because it is quite possible that not only will outside retail giants take patients away from traditional healthcare settings but also rob healthcare of its providers who could be lured by the possibilities of a less stressful, more financially feasible future.
Q: What is one topic or issue you’ve been investing time in to better understand as of late?
JT: I’ve been investing a lot of time in to understanding the alignment (or lack thereof) of incentives among payers, providers and consumers, with the proliferation of high deductible plans. As we continue to shift in to value-based care models, it is interesting to watch how each player is attempting to stake its position. How digital health startups like mine interact with those bearing the risk is critical to our success, as everything from our customer acquisition strategy to our pricing strategy depend on it.
