Opportunity, Change, Ever Forward

PTO is a glorious thing, to have time to breathe, to step back, to actually think and reflect. It was in that “PTO Opportunity Moment” that I made a decision to make a major career change. The lion’s share of my 25-year career has been with two large national payers, in various care management roles spanning operations, account management, and product development. I first asked myself one fairly simple question, “What excites me most about my current work?” Heaven forbid if nothing came to mind. Good fortune, three points surfaced:

1. I thrive on continuously building knowledge of healthcare industry trends through daily news immersion, coursework, research and other readings, and try to predict the path forward.
2. My keenest interest in healthcare is the effect technology has on improving outcomes and reducing costs.
3. I love to write.

Logical conclusion–time to consider a career change as an industry research analyst focused on IT.

I have always had a passion for technology and started my undergrad in engineering, though graduated in nursing due to interest in the biological sciences. Being so enamored with technology, my first job as an RN was in Surgical ICU working with advanced medical devices and bedside computers. I moved to the payer industry and spent the next 12 years working in the care management division. Once again, I gravitated toward technology in a role developing and operationalizing technology-enabled care management services. To compliment my clinical education, I obtained my Masters Concentration in Information Systems. The last 10 years I functioned in various care management and population health roles with another large national payer. Most recently, this included working with providers on HEDIS and Stars quality improvements, including the application of technology to enable supplemental data collection and exchange with providers.

I remain restless to see technology advance this industry. I’ve worked in the trenches and fought hard to increase consumer engagement by mere percentage points and to reduce costs dollar by dollar. The gains to improve clinical outcomes are frustratingly incremental. Knowing that the industry most quickly advances when we analyze and learn from best practices, I realized my greatest impact will be to research and uncover those best practices and bring them forward.

It soon became my mission to come to Chilmark Research. While I considered various analyst firms, I recognized that I have always relied on Chilmark Research Reports myself during my years “in the trenches” as unbiased, relevant, pragmatic. I am inspired by Chilmark Research’s mission to focus on healthcare technology research that will transform the industry and by the leadership of its founder, John Moore. In short, I came to Chilmark Research due to the quality of their work. I’m so extremely humbled that the fit was determined to be mutual.

My research will focus on the converging payer-provider arena. I will concentrate on issues pertaining to population health management and care management with specific emphasis on the technologies and processes that organizations will need to adopt to be successful under new value-based reimbursement models.  I look forward to meeting you in the future, in person and through my published reports. I commit to being honest, straightforward, prepared – to work together with you to advance our common goals.