This transcription is provided by artificial intelligence. We believe in technology but understand that even the smartest robots can sometimes get speech recognition wrong.

 Welcome to this Week in Health, IT influence where we discuss the influence of technology on health with the people who are making it happen. We are the fastest growing podcast in the health IT space. My name is Bill Russell, covering healthcare, CIO, and creator of this week in Health. it a set of podcasts and videos dedicated to developing the next generation of health IT leaders.

Budget. Let's talk. Visit health consultation. If you're enjoying the show and wanna support our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders, there are five easy ways you do that. Share it with a peer, share it on social media, follow our social accounts, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube. Uh, continue to send me feedback questions, guest recommendations at Bill at this weekend, health it.com.

And, uh, subscribe to our newsletter. Uh, one last item. Uh, you know, here's a question I get. You know, do you have anyone who's investing in your, in your career? Uh, for many, the answer to that question is no, and that's really not okay. We just launched this week, health Daily, to Invest in Your Career. Daily videos that highlight conversations with industry leaders where I will make.

Um, take the conversation and make it pragmatic. Something that you can implement in your day-to-Day, uh, answering the question of, so what, what does this mean to you? And, uh, so check it out. We just launched it this week. Check it out at this week, health.com/daily to sign up. Uh, you know, one of the things I'm, I'm really excited about in doing this show is.

As we grow and as we increase exposure is I, I'm getting to meet some new and amazing people. Uh, today we're joined by, uh, Janet De, who is, who was referred Edwards. And, uh, I, I'm really excited to have this conversation. Good morning, Janet, and welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. And actually, you, you, you played golf with Karina.

I just, so, um, not to put you on the spot, but h how did you guys play? Well, I'm committed, um, in golf to mediocrity, because I just don't have enough time. I am an, I'm an ex college jock, so I, as Karina was, she played soccer, I played basketball. So, you know, we both agreed that we don't have enough time in our lives to be much better than

Fairly mediocre and able to get the ball. So we had a great time. As I said, I'll, I'll get us off to t and down the fairway. Corina's gonna bring us on him on the green, and we are, we're a great scramble team. So that's what we've , that's what we've set for ourselves. So if, if anybody's looking for scramble partners in, in the next outing that you two, uh, give us those car fives off the women's tees, we are gonna bring you birdies.

And, and that's, that's a promise. So your, your career, career journey is, uh, pretty fantastic. Um, you know, I'll walk through just a couple of things here. The, uh, uh, CEO at, uh, burn Ulli Enterprises, which was formerly, uh, cardiopulmonary Corp. And has since been acquired by, uh, capsule. Are, are you still the CEO or have you No, no.

Shared medical started my career at SMS, Jim m Wow. Yeah. Um, yeah. And, and, uh, graduate of Brown University. Mm-Hmm. . Wow. All right. So is there, is there any other accomplishments I should, I should highlight that I'm missing out on? I am the proud mother of two daughters, . Well, that's good. Are, are, are they also are, are they at college?

They're out of college. They are, you know, launching their own paths in their careers. So that's, that's exciting. Um, you know, I, I usually start with a pretty open ended question, and this, I mean, for you having just completed this. Moving on to the next thing, uh, is, is probably pretty relevant, but, you know, what are you working on today and, and what are you excited about?

Um, I, you know, I, I have been spending probably about the last two months now since, um, you know, completing the work with rnli, really looking at what's new. I find that, you know, with four separate companies, I find for some reason I just enjoy change. Number one, I get through the change curve very quickly.

I just, okay, let's move and, um, I like to do . Things that are very different. So I've had the good fortune to be in the EMR world. I've been in speech and natural language processing. The early days of ai. I was with real time data and analytics with rnli. So I've really gotten to see different things and I realized that's something that I like.

So as I look at what next, what's next, I am looking to, you know, look at some different areas of the ecosystem, most likely in the post-acute. Kind of distributed care areas. Uh, number one, I love to solve problems, fix things. Um, as I like to say, leave it better than you found it. And I think there's some really fascinating opportunities to do in that, you know, in that ecosystem where the acute care entity is now passing that patient back out.

Into the ecosystem. I think there's really some great technologies, great platforms, great workflow emerging to try to make that integration work. And, and that's where I'm focusing, quite frankly. Well, that's exciting. I mean, is there any specific problems in that area that, that are jumping out to you at this point?

Um, I, I, like, I'm always going to be oriented around a product, so whether it's tech or tech enabled services, um, I am, you know, again, I've been through a couple things. I'm trying to avoid shiny objects. I. So, um, I'm looking at, there's some differentiated tech out there that I think looks good. Um, but, you know, I'd like, I not, nothing exactly specific at this point.

There are some tough patient populations around behavioral and other aspects to me that are interesting. If you could really use healthcare technology to help, to fix, uh, again, to leave it better. I think those are, I, I'm really passionate about having a mission when I go into something. So I'm gravitating towards those things.

Again, targeting, I would say what I would call at needy at risk. Unmet need patient populations, so, uh, you know, it's in. Um, you know, you've been with private companies, large public companies, uh, you know, is one better than the other? Are you looking for one? Ver not, are you looking for, but is one better than the other?

Are you able to do more things in one versus another? It's, I get that question a lot, I guess. 'cause it's unusual. I mean, I was with, you know, when I was with SMS, we sold to Siemens, you know, a couple billion dollar sale we had, we had reached a billion. Nuance. We went from 370 to 930 million. Siemens was 1.2 billion inside of an $80 billion company.

And then I went to Oli, which was small, privately held. Um, so I think that better or not really depends on your personality and your passions. Um, I have frequent, consistently told people, I dunno, that I could have done small. In private, if I hadn't learned what I did in the larger scale companies, uh, you learn scale effect, you learn process.

Um, you learn how to build things and put business frameworks in place so that you can grow and you can build resiliency. Having said that, there are some things that are easier at big. Uh, I, number one, I would say talent acquisition. Um, I, there wasn't a phone call I couldn't get answered when I was with Siemens, quite frankly.

And I could, you know, pe and it, it almost, you know, self-regulated talent acquisition, right? You, you had a name, you had a brand. When you're small, uh, number one, it's a, it's a lot harder. You're, you're most likely a little bit salary constrained. I. Now you can use equity to try to do some things, but you only have so much equity, uh, to spread around.

So I would say talent acquisition, um, is the biggest thing. And then the other thing, you have to be careful when you, A lot of people love to say, I'm an entrepreneur and I, I got that and I'm small and I wanna do it right. But when you're small and you sit at that in that chair, there's no one to the left and there's no one to the right

You have to still be able to do it. Right. Um, you know, and I think that that's a real, I had to learn that as I was hiring when I was in, when I went to a smaller company. But I, so I would say talent acquisition in all attributes thereof are different. Having said that with bigger, you get scale, um, with smaller, you get speed.

From decision to action. Yeah. So I think if, if you like that adrenaline rush, um, then you're, you're going to want to do that. Um, but the also, the thing, you get in big, you usually have a larger portfolio. You have more natural leverage and risk mitigation. Every lever doesn't have to click. Yeah. There's, there's, there's a bunch of things in those small companies that you just.

In the large companies, you sort of take for granted, you know, HR is gonna have a policy manual and you come in and you go, oh, we have to redo the policy manual. Just give that to hr. Well, right. You know, and there's no hr, there is no HR there, there, there may not be, you know, legal counsel isn't down the hall.

Legal counsel is, you know, third party outside there. There's so much thing, there's so many things that come with scale and, and things that if that's the only place you've been, you assume that are going to be there. That all of a sudden someone's looking at you saying, oh no, no. You have to do that or figure out how to get that done.

So, um, you know, one of the things that always interests me in terms of, you know, the large companies, Siemens, you can make a phone call and, and get that meeting. But a, a lot of these smaller startups and, uh, they, they don't get to scale and they don't get to scale because the sales cycles so hard. How.

How, when you're sort of an unknown, you're, you're sort of an unknown entity, but you have a great solution. How do you get started? How do you, how do you get people's attention that I think that you are on the crux of the hardest problem to solve as a small company. Um, and I think that there's a, it's part of the reason why a lot of the private money, PE money, VC money goes towards services and towards RevCycle because the why.

The thing a small company has to answer just like a large one, but harder when you're small is why should you take my call? Why should you take my meeting? Um, and if you're in the services or the rev cycle area, usually you have an ROI, you're helping them meet a regulation. So your why answer is a lot easier.

Um, so I think in a small company, again, the most important thing you need to do is have a very, very compelling answer to that question. Why should someone take your call? Um, and if you don't, you're not going to get the call. The sec. The next thing you're gonna need, quite frankly, you need to find an you, you, you are an evangelist and you need to find a partner.

You need to have a big health system, somebody, and this is where you're using your Rolodex. You're using trusted people that you've worked with over the years. Somebody will give you that handout to get you started. You may have to do that as ACEO. That's why you have boards and board advisors. You know, you need people to open those doors for you.

Um, but I'd say the heart, the biggest, most important thing is why, why should. Answer that question crisply, why should someone take your call? Yeah. And it took me a while to figure that out. . I, I, I guess the other question I have is sales. Sales or marketing. You know, you, you, you walk through those booths at HIMSS and you wonder, you know, was this marketing dollars well spent?

Because there's, there's so many and you could easily just blend into the background. Um, you know, should, should startups be focused more on or more on sales? It's networking, it's getting the conversations, it's getting in front of people, not necessarily trying to build the brand, per se. Well, I think when you're very small, you know, you're sub 10 million, you, you've gotta get, you've gotta get reference customers.

Yeah. You've got to sell. Um, and quite frankly, you don't have enough money. I mean, you know, I, I lived all this, right? I, I can't afford Chime, I can't afford conferences. I can't, you're really down in the grassroots. You need sales. Yeah. Um, so I, you know, if you're on a really restricted budget, I focus on sales.

I'm focusing on more net new blue signs, right? More net new units. I'm focusing on the amount of size of a per unit order to keep that escalating. Fundamentals, fundamentals. The smaller you are, the more ridiculously focused you have to be on those fundamentals in sales trumps marketing. So, uh, CEO, uh, Ulli, what are you looking for in your team?

What, what makes, uh, let's say a good number two, that's gonna be right there by your side, that's gonna. To get things done. And, and what is, what is the core team really, what are you looking for in that core team? Well, I think that, you know, again, um, larger versus smaller, in a larger environment it's, you know, kind of almost easier because structurally you probably are going to have ACOO if you've got multiple lines of business and you're in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The structure will kind of get dictated. Um, but I think when you're assembling your team, whether you're large or small, as a leader, I think the first thing you have to do is really be brutal with yourself and know your gaps. So, I mean, I've got strengths, I, but I've certainly got weaknesses. So you have to have people around the table that fill out those gaps.

Um, so I think that that's the first thing. And I think the second thing, uh, you know, you're. Everyone is not going to be equal in that team. I mean, as ACEO, you are morally compelled to have a succession plan because if you get hit by a bus. That ship has to keep going because people's salaries are dependent on it.

People are trying to feed families you, so whether or not you, you know, in a large company, I mean, you've got a nine box and it's written down and it's logged and it's vaulted somewhere, there is a succession path. When you're in a small company, you still have to have one or two people around the table that are so close to you.

Yeah, that if you were gone, they could keep the ship moving. And I think the other thing is that those people that are close to you, whether it be one or two, they have to be close enough to all of the issues. Because when you're managing things, you don't always wanna publicly talk about everything. Cash is a tough topic, and when you're small and trying to make payroll.

You know, and figuring out whether you're gonna have a 4 0 1 match and all these other things, you need a couple people around you that are close and that can manage those operating levers out there with full transparency with them understanding what the business condition is. So, so whether it's one person or two people, you've, you've gotta have some people inside of the senior management circle that are very close to you for success.

So end up being more tactical and focused in on those. Uh, you know, in Maslow's hierarchy and, and, and those really low level needs of getting that first client and whatnot, or, or do you, uh, are there ways that you can elevate up to the strategic so that you can really look out in terms of where you're gonna go and.

What percentage of time do you sort of give to the pragmatic versus the strategic in the, uh, in the development of a company? I, uh, I love your reference. I use Maslow's Hierarchy of needs all the time. , in terms of when you're trying to get a product. I mean, you know, if, uh, you know, I can't get a customer to self-actualization if they're trying to provide food and clothing.

Right. So, and housing. So I think you have to understand where your product is in that curve, but, um, you have to have a vision. You have to see a hill. And I, and I think one of the easiest ways to do this is to have that from into context, right? Here's where we are today, here's where we see the market moving, here's how our product is going to go there.

So you have to have that framework, whether you're talking to your board, to investors or employees. So you need to have a pathway of where you're headed. But then, yeah, you, you are ridiculously tactically focused. You need a pipeline, you need sales. And again, those sales are generating cash. Um, so tactical, consistent, uh, performance, you know at is, is going to drive and take much more of your frontal cortex than having the world's flashiest, uh, str strategy slides.

But you do spend time tactical is still having a very good website. Having a good communication plan, having a good message. I mean, that's like foundational, critical, tactical things. Absolutely. That, but those are the, that's, those are the ways you're answering the questions of why should someone take your call.

Yeah. It's, I hear people from time to time say, well, I'm not gonna waste my time on the website. I'm like. Well, that's, that's , that's, that's like saying I'm not gonna, when I got to my, when I got to my last company, there was essentially no website and there was no marketing. Um, because they very much believed, and they did have a very, very, you know, they had a strong technology.

Yeah. And if the technology is strong, they will come. Yeah. And I said, the guys, they will not come if they do not know who you are, . So we have to get the message out there. We have to build a brand, we have to get some market acknowledgement, um, to be able to generate the sales that are needed to generate the cash.

I mean, it becomes a, uh, self-fulfilment prophecy. So, well, you like change, so you're probably in the right industry. So let's, let's, let's flip over and, and talk about the industry a little bit. Um, you know, there's, there's a whole lot of change. I, I wanna start with regulatory. So. You have, uh, C-M-S-O-N-C rules.

You have, uh, 21st Century Cures, tef. Uh, you have ex it seems like executive orders on a monthly basis that, uh, change the trajectory of things. Are there, are there any regulatory changes, uh, that you anticipate having a, a significant impact on healthcare and potentially an opportunity? For, uh, for the next round of startups.

Well, let's put a little lens on it, right? So let's, uh, you know, I mean, let's avoid that, which is political. So, clearly, clearly the reg that would have the greatest impact is if someone said, let's have a single payer system, right? And that would be profound systemic impact. So let's park that to the side.

I mean, I think in terms of regulatory, you look at it. Through, you know, the lens of where are you in the ecosystem? Are you a provider or a payer, a vendor, you know, health it, pharma or whatever. And then I think there's time, there's a time horizon. So I think in terms of time in the near term, all things reimbursement win.

So if you are, if you're in the very near term and you're needing to prioritize investment money or you know, uh, strategies. CMS reimbursement regulations are going to win. Um, and I think you're seeing now that Washington is really understanding its market power. So, you know, years ago all regs were only reimbursement, right?

And High Tech Act showed, you know, their work, you know, clinical systems were moving at a snail space until the High Tech Act, legislated clinical, it made a market. So I think in the near term, and in terms of impact, the reimbursement regulations when over the midterm, the, as you look at in the midterm, what I see is, you know, healthcare is, you know, given a give or take, it's, it's.

The provider space is almost going to be a hundred percent wired with and quote unquote automated, digitized, whatever word you wanna need to use. And yet all of us in the market know that the market itself still remains. Disaggregated colonized, competitive by by data, competitive by data type. So when I look at the regulations, I think Teca could potentially have the largest scale impact because in my career, all markets have done the same thing, which is they've gone from best of breed to best of cluster, to best of enterprise.

In other words, integration wins. Yeah. Kafka. Would essentially legislate integration. It, you know, it keeps healthcare moving on the digital highway. It's really synergistic with consumerism because it'll, it'll help patients, it'll help us navigate, it'll help care coordination. Um, so I think that, uh, and quite frankly, as a vendor or as a potential vendor or as a startup, Teka would, you know, open up that ecosystem.

I mean, we all know, you know, people block competition, um, sometimes around data and participating in it. So I, I, you know, I think Kafka has extraordinary, complex issues to solve. That's, that's sort of what I wanna ask you. I mean, why do we have to legislate integration? Um, and I, I think I, you know, in, in, in my time as ACI.

I, I experienced this. You sit across from, uh, different people and you're like, Hey, you know, let's let for the good of the community, let's share this data, and you get pushback. I, I'd think, I don't think people realize that you do get pushback. There is a competitive, uh, the, the competitive advantage of having the data, the competitive advantage of, of potentially not sharing the data, uh, still exists.

I mean, do you, I I, I sort of think that we do have to legislate this. Is is that sort of where you, you think we we're falling down on this? Um, I, you know, I would love to, I, number one, it's certainly better. I mean, I think that, uh, you know, CCDs and exchanging frameworks and data, data blocks of data, um, are, are fine.

I think that what we've seen now is that with scale, the regional health systems have gotten so large. If you're a patient inside of a large regional health system, you somewhat are getting protected because the health system's now so large and is probably on a single provider, you know, uh, vendor framework.

It appears integrated, but when you have to leave that ecosystem go elsewhere, you see that it's still quite, uh, quite disaggregated. So I do think legislation is most likely gonna have to be required here because people still believe. That data is their competitive advantage. And it's not just in healthcare.

It, I mean, I spent the last years around med tech, right? Real time data flying around the world. There's a lot of walls around that data. That's physiologic parameters, that's monitoring and surveillance in real time. So I, I, so I look at Teca and I, you know, and again, I, I think you and I probably have watched over the years, like, oh, things fall short of expectation.

But Tef could have a very, very systemic. Impact. And again, I think open the market for innovation, which I think is very difficult right now for small companies. Yeah. You know, a couple years back I was at JP Morgan talking to a bond holder and they said, you know, uh, the, the company, they define the floor for scale of a provider at about, uh, two and a half, 3 billion.

And they said, you know, if they're not at that scale, their acquisition target, uh, these regional providers that you. They're, they're, you know, 10 and some of 'em are $20 billion organizations now. And, um, you know, I mean, they're almost getting too big to fail. And quite frankly, the bigger they get, they have scale, but they, they move a little slower on, on potentially the innovation side is, is there.

Is there a model on the horizon that could, that could challenge the way we deliver care today or, uh, upset it or, or even nibble around the edges at it? Well, let's talk about the scale and a couple of different perspectives and, uh, one of them, uh, I'm gonna go back to within thing you kind of hinted at in that question, which is that scale has had an impact.

So again, if I keep coming at this from the investor, the innovative side of this . The scale of healthcare, and you're right, I think now you have to default to their 10 billion, 10 to 20 billion. They, they, those processes that drive healthcare now look much more like Fortune 100 companies because they are of that scale.

So years ago as a vendor, I'm, I could make a sale at dinner. I could make a sale on a golf course that is so long gone. I mean, that's not necessarily bad for healthcare, but the buying pur purchasing decisions are now part of large scale, um, administrative processes, and it simply is going to take longer.

And I think that, that an investor is going to have to be far more patient. I. Because the lifecycle of a decision is much longer, um, in terms of the scale effect and will there be a change in the delivery process? I keep, I go back to something that we've been talking about since I was at, you know, at Siemens, which is that the, you know, the model of future that hospital's going to be in ICU in terms of acuity, uh, MedSurg today is the same acuity as IC used ICU used to be.

So the hospital's going to be ICU. Everybody's going to be pushing that care, be decentralized and distributed. Um, and I think that you're seeing that now CVS and Aetna are trying to get in there, but you see it, I'm sure where you live. The regional health centers are gonna keep pushing care out into the communities.

They're going to have branded urgent, urgent care centers and those things. So, and I think value-based care and con providers are now facing the decision. Am I going to put that community-based care out there on? Is that my p and l? Or am I gonna subcontract that? Am I gonna try to mitigate that risk and subcontract that?

And this goes back to the old days of per reimbursements and those things, but, so I think distributed, decentralized is going to be a theme when you talk about the model I. Um, and that again, which begs the question of integration, which gets us back to, is it get integrated because it's one vendor or is it that it integrated because it's legislated through something like Teca?

I think the other thing that I look at in terms of the way we deliver care, um, I think if I go back to the acute care setting, you know, we, we have another thing happening here, which is that the, because it's an ICU, every admission is more complex and has more comorbidities. Which requires higher levels of staffing, which would be great if there were infinite cash, right?

There's infinite cash now, plus there's a shortage of doctors and nurses. Okay, so now we have an extreme gap in productivity. Well, again, I think this is where you learn from other verticals. There is only one way to address that productivity gap, and that's technology and automation. So I think here comes sensors.

Here comes realtime sophisticated clinical surveillance across all acuity levels. Here comes a lot of remote surveillance with AI embedded keeping track of patients across all acuities. So for those who ha, you know, I, I do believe that that is absolutely a very real area where innovation and technology are going to have absolutely a dramatic impact.

'cause it, it must. We have to sell that. I mean, that's, I, that's an exciting future that you paint. Uh, the, the last topic I really wanna cover with you is a topic I hope we don't have to talk about in, you know, a year from now. But it seems like, uh, you know, every time I have someone, uh, uh, a female leader, ACEO, somebody who's attained the levels within your organization, uh, and within your career, um, I, I, I want talk about this topic because.

Uh, I don't know. Such a, a challenge today and, you know, women represent a high percentage of the overall population, high percentage of the healthcare, uh, uh, population in terms of employees and staff. Um, and I, I guess the open-ended question, and now I'll do some more specific things, is why, why are there so few women leading.

Healthcare, it, tech startups, just companies in general? Well, I would argue, my quick answer would be we look like every, we, we look like most other verticals. There just aren't as many women, um, in leadership positions. And I think that there are a couple different reasons for that. You know, one is the process itself is, is self-selecting.

Um, and I think you see this especially in boards, which is a huge . To get leaders to drive leaders boards a lot of times are self-selecting. Um, so if I'm at the board and you know who you, you typically are gonna reach out to people who look like you. Yeah. Who are like, so that network is, is closed. So again, good board governance would say open up that selection process, drive for diversity because the data says diversity, um, is a better thing for performance.

Um, and I think that, you know, that's, that's just a long pull in the tent. But I also think women, quite frankly, uh, you know, and I have been a part of this for my entire career, women are getting better, but absolutely must get better at pulling each other forward. I. It is just not as natural. Um, we just don't, you know, we joked about playing golf earlier.

I mean, there's a lot of informal ways that networks are built and business is done, and it doesn't have to be on a golf course, but women must be better at pulling each other. Forward. They must. It's a more, it's a moral imperative. . Yeah. So, so let's talk about that. So, um, you know, so, uh, there's a, you know, a female listener who's saying, I aspire to be C-level.

How do they get a leg up? How do they find a mentor? How do they get what's the right training? Um, how do they get board exposure? I mean, what, what are the, how do they do that? How, what would you say to somebody, what would you say to my daughter, uh, today who is, um, at about 25 years old in the industry saying, Hey, someday I want to get to that level?

Well, my first guide in tonight, you know, I've mentored, mentored quite a few folks over the years. Many of them have been women. Um, and if they do say they wanna aspire to senior management, I've constantly said the same thing, get to AP and l. You will not get a seat at the table until you demonstrate you can manage and grow AP and l.

Mm-Hmm, . So go. And if you're, I, I tell my daughters the same thing. I mean, you know, a 25 year old, get somewhere where you can learn, be a sponge. Must be self-learning, but then get into operational roles. Get where you really learn the levers of the business. You're going to, you know, some roles, you're just too far removed from the fire, you wanna aspire to the c-suite, you wanna run to the fire.

You wanted to be part of solving that fire. So get to those operational roles, get AP and l as early in your career as possible. Yeah. And, and running towards, towards the fire is the way to stand out. Um, you know, I had, I had a, a person who I was, who reported into me, who I decided to mentor later, who kept coming into my office saying, what's your biggest problem?

I wanna solve your biggest problem. And finally I'm like, fine, here's my biggest problem. Go solve it. And, and he was able to move the, the ball forward pretty significantly. And I'm like, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start mentoring this person and, and he's, and help them, help them to get there. Um. You know, it's, it, it's, um, managing AP and l is great.

Uh, you know, how how do they, mentoring is so key. It's finding somebody who's been where you want to go and developing those relationships. Are, are there specific areas that, that, um, are specific groups that you have found to be really good to have those interactions with? Uh, people who have been successful, that have been where you want to go.

I mean, I was fortunate, you know, in my career that, um, I guess I came up in the days, everything was so new. Nobody noticed. If you were female, quite frankly, you could have been green or purple. It was just, do you have the aptitude, , you know, do, do you get this? Can you get it done? Um, I, I think that ideally I.

Ideally you find a mentor within the domain where you're working, right? So that there is somebody in that senior leadership position, um, that can help guide you. I think if, you know, if that's not possible, then you're gonna have to look harder and little go into the industry groups and things, but places like HIMSS or Chime and send notes.

I mean, I, I, I, it's, I think people underestimate how much. How often most people want to help. Yeah, so I always tell don't be bashful. Send the email, go ask for the meeting. People naturally will say yes. Yeah, you have that because you asked not. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I, my, my, uh, my, uh, Father-in-Law is living with us and he's, uh, 87 years old, but used to work for Bethlem Steel.

And when they used to have this, uh, program, they, they'd hire these people out of universities, lake Brown and others, and they'd bring these people in and, and they, they'd put them on this two year track and they served in every area. So they would serve in accounting and. Operations than they would serve.

And I mean, literally they would, they would get that kind of exposure. If somebody's looking at their career, do you, uh, recommend that kind of track to get a lot of operational experience across a lot of different things? Or do you, do you tell them to focus in on, on certain areas? It's funny, I'm living this in real time with my own daughters.

Um, I, I'm, I too grew up in a company like that. We would call it the cla when I was a, you know, becoming up the tree when I was a vice president. We'd hire the class of, and that class, we wa we rotated them very forcefully over two years to get them great exposure. Um, I think you get that in scale companies, um, you know, large employers that are quite frankly known as good employers.

Um, so I would, you know, also. Give, you know, again, I'm giving this to my daughters, get to companies that are known that they're good employers and that they grow their people. Um, I think that that's, you know, a powerful thing to do. Um, and I think that if you're, if you're in your own company and you have scale, I mean, I think that, again, if you're mentoring somebody, you are, you are getting them, you, you're saying your, your next career move has to be blah, blah, blah.

And I think again, another. The thing that I've cautioned or mentored or you know, consulted people with over the years is every move does not need to be vertical, right? I mean, some, of course you want as much vertical as fast as possible, but sometimes it's right to go horizontal to go get that gap in your knowledge field, that gap in your experience.

It could be a global . It could be a global relocation to go learn. I mean, every move does not have to be vertical, and I think that's a little bit of a myth out there. Um, which I also, you know, argue in people to get outta your comfort zone and go do something. Um, go do something and demonstrate that you can adapt quickly.

Well Janet, thanks. Thanks for coming on the show. Fantastic conversation. Is there, uh, uh, any way that people could follow you or anything you wanna leave the, the listeners with? Not me. I'm, I'm kind of in the transition myself, so I have a Gmail, so janet di@gmail.com. Like I said, I'm happy to, uh, you know, I'm happy to talk to folks.

I'm talking to a lot of folks right now myself, you know, seeing what opportunities are out there in the market. But, um. I think the female thing is, is a very real thing and I would ask my, uh, you know, peers out there, we must help pull, we must help pull each other forward. Absolutely. And uh, and, uh, the role models need to keep coming on this show so that we can highlight, um, you know, just the amazing work that you guys are doing.

I'm looking forward to seeing where you end up landing next, and we'll have to have you back on the show after that and, uh, hear about whatever new company or new thing you're gonna be doing. That would be great. That would be a lot of fun actually. So, all right. So, uh, please come back every Friday for more great interviews with influencers.

And don't forget, every Tuesday we take a look at the news that it's impacting health. It This shows a production of this week in health It. For more great content, you can check out our website at this week in health it.com or the YouTube channel on our, from our website. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.