My journey led me here.....

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I have a true passion and enthusiasm for innovation.  I am equally energized about people and organizations....be it leading, teaching, mentoring, helping or serving others who are journeying to become better as individuals or to make their organizations better, more successful, and more relevant.  The 20 years I spent as an executive in healthcare afforded me significant insights that few realize about this industry.  While there are some early indications that the healthcare industry may be beginning to change, the reality is that the present healthcare system does not place customers at the center of the enterprise.  Rather, healthplans, payers, health systems, physicians, and the federal government occupy the majority of the industry's attention in large part due to the system's current design.  

I formerly was CEO of an organization whose agenda, in part,  was incrementally changing this reality and thereby was moving customers to the nucleus of the "system".   I held this work role for 20 years and was proud of the accomplishments the company I led made to elevate the quality of clinical care, improve health status indicators, experiment with new business models, and implement other initiatives such as patient centeredness. These programs and efforts are making a difference in the quality of lives for customers served; however, the pace of these incremental strides do not seem synchronized with the pace of the pain customers experience when confronting system failures, adverse clinical outcomes, threatened loss of coverage, uninsurability, pre-existing conditions, medical errors, spiraling drug costs and/or, perhaps most importantly, the un-affordability of health insurance.

I realized some time ago that meaningful reform was unlikely to originate within the health industry sector--not because these healthplan, hospital, and physician leaders were not smart enough to figure things out, nor because they had undesirable motives of ill will in preserving the current system. This healthcare market situation is a classic case that is best articulated by Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen in his book The Innovator's Delimma in which he demonstrates how successful, outstanding companies can do everything "right" and yet still lose their market leadership – or even fail – as new, unexpected competitors rise and take over the market.  Kodak and Blockbuster are 2 familiar examples of companies that failed to see emerging entrants and new markets being defined that would lead to their extinction.  Clinging to their outdated paradigms and historic mindset resulted in their failure.  Christensen reminds us that market leaders do not typically view disruptors as a threat early in their life cycle as they often begin in only a niche market.  Such was the case with Amazon which started as an on-line bookstore fulfilling orders thru this new thing called the internet.  Today, Amazon sells virtually everything on its marketplace platform and is one of the largest and most admired companies in the entire world.  

I chose to exit the healthcare industry two years ago from a very desirable CEO role at a nationally recognized company.  I was uncertain if the healthcare provider community, of which I was a central player, was positioned to assume leadership roles in these transformation efforts that represented tremendous business and social opportunities.  I had a very attractive opportunity to partner with another business leader and spearhead a startup venture, RelaPhi.  RelaPhi assists leaders whose business results rely on execution by people in achieving their vision and introduces a mutual benefit paradigm that enables clients to experience improved business performance. That's right....bottom line improvement. As we were growing our customer base, we worked with large employers which often were healthcare organizations.  While I enjoyed very much working with our non-healthcare clients, I found myself wanting to assist more broadly with healthcare entities.

Meanwhile, the healthcare industry challenges had become so severe that employers, in absence of meaningful government or provider efforts, began leading the charge in finding innovative solutions to address these problems....solutions that are sustainable and notably disruptive. In doing this they realize that incremental change is not the right prescription given the acuity of the prevailing industry conditions; rather, they exclaim that radical and disruptive innovation is the only solution sufficient to affect the fundamentals at work in this industry so steeped in government regulations and special interests. Leading national retail health players are now engaged in becoming a part of the solution by offering lower cost clinic alternatives and are experimenting with other dimensions of healthcare also. In addition to retail health companies, the technology community is also responding with rapid expansion and exploration of all types of apps, virtual visit programs, computerized wellness , electronic access systems, and wearable biometric capture systems just to name a few.  This is the industry backdrop while we are just now beginning to imagine the impact and opportunity of harnessing big data and applying artificial intelligence in this sector which will undoubtedly also revolutionize the U.S. healthcare system.

Without exception, the largest and most successful businesses today are investing heavily in the future of this industry sector and are driving historic mergers and acquisitions that will forever change this industry landscape. Amazon, Google, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, J P Morgan, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, Aetna, UnitedHealth/Optum, and Humana are some notable examples of giants that are eager to gain market growth from this sector and are channeling significant innovation energy to efforts that provide solutions . This surge in global interest, financial commitment, and prioritization by business giants is attention-getting and quite inspiring to me. The potential promise of a reformed industry built by formidable customer-centric organizations who understand and master the science of consumerism created strong magnetic forces of attraction for me professionally.  I now seek to offer, in the best way I can, to be a contributor to this future and inevitable reformation. 

I now can see clearly examples of where, with whom, and how I can be part of that solution by offering my health leadership insights, deep industry network connections, extensive operational skills, business development and building experiences, global health dollar risk management proficiency, and strategic vision. I feel privileged to find myself so uniquely qualified at this critical time in history in the healthcare industry and am seeking the best environment in which to make my contribution.  All of my previous work experiences have been perfectly preparing me for a time such as this. I am humbled by the opportunity and sobered to serve.