What role do you see private equity playing in the future of healthcare?
Private equity investment has allowed GoHealth Urgent Care to grow quickly without compromising on our original vision of providing effortless access to healthcare. As compared to digital healthcare models, urgent care is a capital-intensive endeavor, if you want to do it right. You want thoughtfully designed centers in communities where people live their lives. You want the ability to bring on an empowered and customer service oriented front-line clinical workforce. I believe private equity will likely continue to accelerate consumer-centric healthcare models, much like it has ours.
How did your family history inform your career?
I come from a long line of physicians, so the passion for patient care was one that I took in with my baby food. I spent much of my life believing that I would also enter the medical profession, so even when I transitioned into business, I was still drawn to provider organizations. Perhaps because of my family, I spend as much time thinking about how to improve the lives of our clinical team as I spend thinking about the patients. It turns out that having happy staff often equals happy patients, so it’s a virtuous cycle.
Given the layers between a top executive and a customer, how do you keep in touch with their needs?
This one is simple—I spend time in the urgent-care centers! You would be shocked how much you learn about your patients and your employees when you sit in a center for half a day. You see at what points in the process your patients are struggling, you see when they are particularly delighted by their care, and you understand their anxieties. Just as important, your front-line clinical team provides valuable insight. This group can be spooked by an executive title, but if you stick around a center long enough, the team will often gain the courage to tell you what’s on their minds and how to better serve the patients they see every day.
Who is/are your role models?
My mother is certainly my greatest role model. She is a primary-care physician with a large patient panel comprised of Medicaid and Medicare patients. She arguably works in one of the most challenging parts of healthcare; however, she does it with such commitment, compassion and forgiveness toward a system that is inherently challenging to work within.
Nominations for this year’s Top 25 Emerging Leaders recognition program close on Aug. 2.
