Asbel Montes serves as Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Innovation for Acadian Ambulance Service.
On October 16th, Asbel will serve on the keynote panel "Beyond the brainstorm: Turning ideas into solutions using IT" 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 13-16, 2020 at Navy Pier, Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Asbel's session, click here.
Question: How has the coronavirus pandemic forced a paradigm shift in your line of work, from your perspective?
Asbel Montes: Since I am in the pre-hospital healthcare space, our focus has been on advocating for more use of telehealth in the field and chronic disease management in the home. This Public Health Emergency has fast-tracked many of those initiatives with the many CMS waivers around telehealth, transporting patients to alternative destination sites for low acuity conditions, as well as treating low-acuity patients in the field through telemedicine protocols.Q: What is the most underrated trait of the best leaders?
Q: What is the most underrated trait of the best leaders?
AM: Vulnerability. Vulnerability builds trust.
Q: What is one bold goal that you, your team or your organization is staring down for 2021?
AM: Healthcare as we know it has changed. Technology has shown that we can still have productive board meetings, management meetings and other meetings without having to be F2F, in person. The main goal is to implement this change while achieving optimal quality patient care at the right time and right place while minimizing costs.
Q: What fundamentals would you encourage your peers to revisit and refine when it comes to health IT and revenue cycle management?
AM: Rethink your manual processes. Automate, automate, automate. This PHE has given us a window into the functionality of work-from-home and if implemented well it can become a highly productive environment for revenue cycle management, as well as offer a company flexibility in workforce recruitment and retention.