Food Safety, Efficiency and Ease of Cleaning a Focus at this Years’ National Restaurant Association Show

May 29, 2018

By Rachel Makoski, Director of Foodservice Equipment and Supplies

With it being the largest event in foodservice each year, it’s no surprise that last week’s National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show broke its record for a fourth year in row with more than 715,000 square feet of space at McCormick Place from May 19-22. If you missed it, the show had more than 65,000 attendees from around the world bringing innovations in foodservice products, equipment, supplies and software to one place.

As it has been in recent years, the focus was on innovation, this year with food safety and sanitation standing out. I talked with start-ups just recently breaking into the space with new concepts, to the most recognizable brands in the industry, all with the same basic idea – innovating to become more user friendly, easy to clean and efficient, and aiming to bring product ideas that disrupt the market.

Below are just a few of the companies that I chatted with at the show.

Ice-O-Matic

With their new line called the Elevation Series, Ice-O-Matic has created a more modular unit with the environment and sanitation in mind. The Elevation Series cube ice machines are now easier than ever to clean with snap-in parts that are dishwasher safe. The equipment also offers groundbreaking technology that gives the unit a dual exhaust so that it can adapt to airflow requirements you need without an extra kit.

Blendtec

Mixing delicious samples for attendees, Blentec’s booth was booming with attendees. Last year Blentec took a 2017 Kitchen Innovation award for their Nitro Blending System, improving on sanitation and efficiency and saving on labor.

Vulcan

Always at the forefront of foodservice innovation, Vulcan took a 2018 Kitchen Innovation award for their SonicSafe Ultrasonic Scale Prevention for Steamers which eliminates limescale to prolong the life of steamers. And still gaining attention at the show was their 2017 Kitchen Innovation award-winning Gas Convection Oven, which offers easily removeable, dishwasher-safe doors.

Broaster

In business for more than 60 years and known for its signature fried chicken programs, Broaster aims to offer an experience, not just products – and that it did at this year’s National Restaurant Association Show. Right at the front of the North Hall, you would’ve thought Broaster was throwing its own party with an extensive and energetic display of their lineups.

Alive & Kickin’ Pizza Crust

The Alive & Kickin’ Pizza Crust booth was hosting lines of attendees waiting for their turn to get a slice of pizza on their variety of crusts. One of their sales reps said they were seeing great responses this year. With a variety of delicious recipes, from Focaccia to Quinoa, Crushed Flax & Honey, Alive & Kickin’ sells into retail, foodservice and deli settings.

What were your thoughts on this year’s NRA show? What innovations did I miss? Reach out to me if you’d like to discuss!

*For more information on our Foodservice practice area, see https://www.directrecruiters.com/food-service-equipment/

Rachel Makoski
Director of Foodservice Equipment & Supplies
440-996-0871
rmakoski@directrecruiters.com

4 Steps to an Efficient and Effective Hiring Strategy

In today’s candidate-driven market, every company is competing for top-talent. While in the past, candidates may have been more hesitant to make major job decisions, they are now fast-moving and have their pick of jobs. This makes it extremely important to pay attention to the time taken to complete the hiring process. However, speeding up the process doesn’t mean you have to lower your standards. Here are 4 tips for hiring faster while still ensuring quality during your process:

Write a great job description
Starting off on the right foot and getting ahead in the process starts with a clear and concise job description. It is extremely important to provide details like required competencies, skills, motivations, behaviors, etc. for the job at hand. An accurate description will help you and/or your recruiter pull in relevant candidates faster than having a too vague or too lengthy description.

Streamline your process
How many steps are candidates currently going through in your hiring process? Identify the parts of your process that could be consolidated or eliminated, to save time in your process. For example, instead of asking for references after the position has been offered and waiting to get them, consider references at the time of a final interview. Additionally, be sure to hold hiring managers accountable for making a decision in a timely manner to keep the process from slowing down.

Utilize Technology
To accelerate your search process, allow job seekers to use video interviewing to provide a more comprehensive profile of themselves beyond the traditional resume. For hiring managers, this is both efficient and collaborative as well as enables them to gain a truer sense of the individual before inviting them to interview in person.

Rely on your recruiter
An outside recruiting firm will have the network and resources in place to find passive candidates and the talent needed for the job. This will save you the time of sorting through countless resumes and setting up the entire process on your own. Recruiters will present you pre-qualified candidates that fit your needs, making the hiring process efficient and effective.

Analyzing your hiring strategy is important to do periodically to continuously improve. Not only will you land in-demand talent by moving quickly, you will also have an edge on your competition.

Highlights from ATA 2018 by Norm Volsky

May 16, 2018

By Norm Volsky, Director of Mobile HIT

Earlier this month I attended ATA in Chicago, the world’s largest telehealth innovation and networking event. With over 4,500 participants at the event, I was able to meet with many leading professionals in the industry. Specifically, I enjoyed meeting with 14 innovative companies to discuss the new and interesting things they’re doing in the healthcare and telehealth industry. Below I have highlighted these companies with an overview of each company and some of the new initiatives they’re taking in the space.

Agile Health: Mobile health engagement vendor creating digital conversations to improve population health and achieve better healthcare outcomes through lasting behavior change. Agile intelligently and seamlessly blends automated and live coaching support to deliver a suite of highly interactive, evidence-based programs with a substantive record of clinical validation and proven results. Agile has an 85% engagement rate, a 25% reduction in total cost of service, a 46% reduction in readmissions at 90 days, and 4.75 of 5 patient satisfaction rate.

Analyte Health: Care enablement platform that helps consumers better own their health. Analyte allows consumer to do lab testing in the comfort of their home and get lab diagnostic information and test results quickly and accurately. Not only is Analyte speeding up the time of diagnosis, the simple and convenient platform encourages consumers to get tested for conditions that they would have put off otherwise.

CareDash: Doctor Review platform that makes it easy for consumers to find, compare and review doctors. CareDash is hell-bent on bringing transparency to the healthcare market and developed a tool to notify patients if their doctor has accepted money from Pharma companies. The peace of mind CareDash provides its users is invaluable to patients who are not sure if they should be on a certain medication. This type of info can help the entire healthcare system fight the opioid epidemic.

CirrusMD: Text first virtual care platform that gives patients instant access to healthcare. Having 4 of the largest 10 health plans in the country as customers, CirrusMD delivers impactful interactions with in-network doctors for millions of patients. 70% of virtual visits require no additional follow-up resulting in major cost savings for the entire healthcare system.

Fitango: Care Management and Patient Engagement vendor helping its customers move towards value-based care. Their HIPAA compliant solution enables all the stakeholders to communicate including: Care Managers, Care Givers, Providers, Network Managers, the Patient and their family. Fitango’s approach is preventative in nature and is geared towards the post-acute setting. Recently the company launched Oncology Pathways which is a precision oncology platform. In addition, Fitango launched an advanced care planning module for end of life situations which helps family members navigate through very difficult decisions.

GlucoMe: Digital Diabetes Care company that simplifies the way patients, caregivers and providers manage diabetes. By combining diabetes monitoring hardware, mobile app solutions and cloud-based computing, which supports their Digital Diabetes Clinic, GlucoMe enables healthcare professionals to continuously monitor their diabetes population. Based in Israel, GlucoMe works with the top HMO’s in Israel. Partnering with Apollo Sugar Clinics allows GlucoMe to potentially help hundreds of thousands of diabetes patients manage their condition in India. Also, a new parternship with Diaman in Latin America is expanding GlucoMe’s global reach. A year ago, industry veteran John Erickson was appointed to be EVP and GM of North America.

Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems: IRIS’ Diabetic Retinopathy Diagnostic solution helps caregivers prevent their patients with diabetes from going blind. Its early-detection screening platform provides an end-to end-solution for primary care including patient identification, diagnosis, reimbursement and referral. This allows its customers to increase access, improve care coordination, reduce costs and achieve HEDIS compliance. The number-one leading cause of blindness in adults is diabetic retinopathy - and 95% of vision loss is preventable with early detection which is the problem IRIS helps to solve. After winning a Microsoft 2017 Health innovation award, IRIS was also featured at the Microsoft Build Conference 2018 this past week for their work on Artificial Intelligence algorithms to enhance the identification and diagnoses process for diabetic blindness.

InTouch Health: Made big news in acquiring Reach Health which was announced at the show. Offering secure, reliable and scalable telehealth, InTouch has 130+ Health System customers at over 1750 locations. They provide over 30+ use cases and were recognized as a category leader for virtual care platforms by KLAS with a score of 90.1 out of 100.

Medici- Created WhatsApp for healthcare with an emphasis on user experience allowing patients to avoid waiting rooms, save time and money and get treated faster. Medici built a business platform for providers to communicate HIPAA compliantly with their patients and “unchain their practice.” The text, phone and video capabilities allow for seamless communication, e-prescribing and referrals. Providers can also bill via the app which caters to patients with high deductible plans. Medici launched in South Africa last year and is looking to expand their international footprint. Veterinarians have started using the Medici app which is an entire new market vertical for the company.

Medsolis: Care Management and Patient Engagement vendor offering a BYOD app that was named a Top 10 Telemed company by CIO Review and won the Most Innovative Care Management Product award from Frost and Sullivan (out of over 50 vendors). With the ability to personalize, automate and humanize, their solution is extremely interactive and loved by patients and care teams. Their ‘My Goals’ module allows a patient or care team to set out goals and the simple and interactive platform allows them to track the patient’s progress on their way to reaching their goals.

Pillsy: Smart pill caps and software system that provide smart reminders for patients to take their prescription medication correctly. By levering Bluetooth (low energy) smart caps for their patient’s pill bottles, Pillsy reduces the cost vs. older generations of smart pill bottles while providing a modern user experience. The software was designed to be super user friendly and simple, resulting in a nearly instantaneous setup when the product is distributed by pharmacy. In addition to selling to consumers, Pillsy also has an enterprise platform that helps organizations manage medication adherence across their patient populations

Trapollo: Enables payers and providers across the United States to have collaborative relationships with their patients/members. With the infrastructure of being a Cox Communication owned company behind them, they can provide their customers unmatched services with their remote patient monitoring program design, management and logistics expertise. Trapollo’s integrated solutions deliver keen insights that help clinicians monitor a patient across the continuum of care inside a patient’s home, helping them manage chronic conditions and comorbidities. Trapollo realizes that their employees might be the only voice a patient hears all day and their goal is to “have an attitude of compassion and love as they help solve any technical issues they might experience while enrolled in a program." Recently Trapollo hired Cox veteran executive Mike Braham to lead the company into explosive growth.

Vivify Health: Remote Patient Monitoring Platform helping move the industry toward value-based care. Helping its patients manage their chronic disease, Vivify is one of the leaders in mobile population health management. In 2017 Vivify was awarded a patent for extending EMR’s with Digital Health. UPMC which is a customer’s of Vivify did a presentation at the show explaining how Vivify has helped them improve patient outcomes in their health system.

Zipnosis- Provides its customer a significant ROI which has been proven to convert 25% of patients from the telemedicine platform to in-person customers with an average spend of $3K per year. The providers that were using the Zipnosis platform met guideline adherence up to 95%. Key customers include: Baylor Scott and White, UCLA Health and Mission Health. In April, Zipnosis added post-surgical care services to its telehealth platform. Zipnosis also partnered with AAFP which gives thousands of family physicians access to their telehealth platform.

ATA was a great event and I was thrilled to meet with these great companies. Please reach out to me if you’d like to discuss your insights from the event or if you’d like to chat about the telehealth industry in general.

Norm Volsky
Director of Mobile HIT
nvolsky@directrecruiters.com
440-996-0059

6 Tips to Coping with Stress at Work

May 9, 2018

By Christy Fox, Director of Marketing

Stress in the workplace is extremely common and known to be a big challenge affecting employee engagement in many companies. Not only does stress impact engagement at work, but also productivity and overall health of employees. While a certain level of stress is expected with any job, it is important for you to pick up strategies to reduce stress and create a better working environment for yourself. After all, 1/3 of the average person’s life is spent at work. Everyone handles stress differently, but these six tips will help you lower your stress levels and feel less anxious at work.

Keep a positive mindset.  Instead of looking at stress from your own filtered view where you may tend to magnify the negative aspects of situations, blame yourself for conflict, or immediately assume the worst, view stress objectively to help minimize these types of negativity. Practice positive self-talk, and be open to learning from stressful situations instead of letting them bring you down.

Focus on others. Volunteering, lending a helping hand, or even complimenting others is proven to increase happiness. Positive actions towards others at work such as showing gratitude for help, giving compliments on a job well done, or mentoring can minimize negative impacts on your mental health.

Set yourself up for small wins. Oftentimes professionals find themselves buried with countless projects and it feels like the workload is too much. When the stress of work overload gets to you, try to find a small task or challenge that you can solve quickly and easily. This small success can act as a positive jump start to your day and get your mind ready to take on bigger challenges.

Take small breaks. When you are facing a stressful day at work, stop and take a couple of deep breaths to reset yourself. Other helpful tactics include a quick walk around the building, meditation, or mid-day yoga to help refresh your brain and lower stress levels.

Create a schedule. Poor time management often leads to stress at work. Plan your time wisely and structure your day to ensure that you’re prioritizing the right tasks and staying on top of deadlines. It is also important to eliminate as many interruptions as possible. This will help you relax knowing that you are completing your work in a timely manner.

Exercise, eat healthily and get plenty of sleep. These basics contribute to your stress levels and have a huge impact on your overall health. It is crucial to get some type of exercise during the week or every day if possible. Stress has a tendency to make us turn to unhealthy foods that can elevate blood pressure, raise cholesterol levels and more. It is important to choose healthy foods including plenty of fruits and vegetables with the right nutrients to boost your immune system and make you feel better in general. Lastly, reducing stress depends, in large part, to how much sleep you get. Make sure to get an adequate amount of rest each night to perform at your best during your workday.

We all deal with some type of stress at work. Take the necessary steps to positively impact your mental health and create a better work environment for yourself. What actions do you take to reduce your workplace stress levels?

5 of the Biggest Resume Mistakes

The quickest way to eliminate yourself from a job process is by having mistakes on your resume. Beyond the obvious grammatical and spelling mistakes to avoid, there are 5 other BIG mistakes to be aware of and stay away from:

1) Not including keywords that match the job. Your resume must show that you are qualified for the job so include keywords on your resume to refer to the specific position. You have very little time to grab a hiring manager’s attention so don’t send a generic resume. You will be lost in the pile.

2) Focusing on the wrong thing. Candidates often explain their responsibilities but forget to include results. Set yourself apart from the pack by highlighting specific accomplishments. The more quantitative, the better. In fact, numbers and metrics speak louder than words.

3) Being too modest. Don’t forget to include any awards or recognition you’ve received such as “President’s Club Member” for being over quota by 25%. Also, include any community service awards you received. Hiring managers look favorably upon people who not only work hard at the office but make a difference in the community as well.

4) Leaving unanswered red flags. Candidates usually wait until the first interview before addressing any gaps that may be on their resume, but this can prove to be a mistake. Most candidates won’t make it to a first interview if the issues are not explained on their resume, cover letter or even LinkedIn profile. So if you moved around a lot in your career, it would be to your benefit to explain the reasons for your movement.

5) Writing too much. When writing your resume be as succinct and concise as possible. Keep your resume to 1 or 2 pages max. Bullet points and short paragraphs enhance readability. Limit your resume to the last 10 - 15 years of work experience. You don't need to include everything you ever did.

 

Ashley Gannon Interviews Steve Eglowstein, Director of Sales at IPL Plastics

Ashley Gannon, Executive Recruiter for Plastics and Flexible Packaging recently had the opportunity to interview Steve Eglowstein, Director of Sales at IPL Plastics. Mr. Eglowstein shared helpful insights regarding the plastics packaging industry, innovation, and leadership.

Please tell us about yourself and your company, IPL Plastics.

I have had over 15 years of Plastic Packaging experience, most of which have been in the manufacturing of rigid plastic containers. I have had roles from producing in sales to leadership. Currently, my title is Director of Sales and I lead Sales Reps from the Southeast, out to the Gulf Coast and the entire West Coast throughout that division. IPL Plastics is now the third largest manufacturer of rigid plastic containers in North America. IPL is comprised of 4 business units -The bulk division which is all plastic containers from 0.5 up to 6 gallons in rounds, squares, rectangles and various shapes and styles, a retail division, which is the smaller type of plastic containers that are synonymous with yogurt and sour cream and products you see mostly in the retail sector, a material handling division which is primarily storage handling containers, and an environmental division which are roll-out trash cans.

What led you to pursue the Plastics/Packaging industry in your career?

I think what really caught my attention in the Plastics/Packaging industry was the opportunity to work within an industry that is always growing and changing. Whether it is in food, chemical, or industrial, types of packaging are always changing. There are many initiatives that have been ongoing in the OEM to retail markets. The innovation and constant change is very present in Plastics Packaging, and finding a company that was open and invested in innovation allows you to get to the right customers for the right reasons.

IPL has a culture of innovation and commitment. How do you encourage innovation on the teams you lead?

It starts with a company like IPL who provides best in class product and service. Having these key components allows your team to collaborate with customers and truly provide solutions and the ability to differentiate yourselves from the competition. We, at IPL, encourage our teams and our sales folks to constantly think outside the box. We hire creative minds who are constantly looking to provide solutions, options or variations to the way that you’re doing things. Hiring people that have that mindset and then having a best in class company, best in class product, and having a team internally that welcomes that, drives innovation and people take to it. Each opportunity in our company is worth exploring and if it makes sense we will do it. We are probably more flexible than most of our competitors, so for that reason it creates an environment in itself that promotes innovation, thinking outside the box and coming up with new ideas.

What trends do you expect to see in the Plastics/Packaging industry in the next 5 years?

Source reduction is definitely a key proponent, not only from an environmental standpoint, but also reduction in costs. In addition, state of the art decoration has become more accessible to medium and small customers. IML or in mold labeling is something 10 years ago only large brand owners could afford to do. Through technology advancements, it’s not just for the companies who have a huge wallet, now some of the medium and smaller accounts can use state of the art decoration. I think you will see more and more of that. Being able to do shorter runs with decoration will be more available in the next 5 years, so driving out material, driving out costs, and using types of decoration in an economical way are trends I see. Lastly, innovation is not going to stop. Coming up with the best and newest mouse trap is an ongoing topic that has no finish line.

What traits do you believe are necessary in leadership?

The first is being able to hire the right people. One of the reasons we work with DRI is they give us the ability to hire the right people, by putting the right people in front of us. Additionally, being able to have access as a leader, keeping your ear to the ground and finding talent that can add value to the team is important. I think that once you’ve got the right people on board then it becomes leading by example. My job, in essence, is to remove obstacles and do everything in my power to help that person succeed whether in metrics, goals, and dollars; that’s my mantra. My job is to stand behind someone and help them move the pile and help them succeed in closing business, and achieving their personal and professional goals. We provide all the training and guidance but once you hire the right people and give them the right tools, leaders should be asking, ‘how can I help you?’ It’s not about who works for you, it’s more or less becoming teammates and partners and creating collaborative relationships.

Describe the approach you take to attracting and retaining high impact talent at IPL Plastics.

I think one of the assets that IPL’s culture has is having a collaborative and entrepreneurial type spirit. Some of our best in class competitors are very set in their ways. Having a leadership team that is open to new ideas, and wants to collaborate with their teammates seems very well received with the people that we talk to. It seems to be the culture people want to be around instead of the less flexible environment. There’s nobody at IPL that puts themselves above anybody else. We all consider ourselves partners, coworkers and we all work together for a common goal so people feel apart of the process and that’s how you get a better buy in.

What or who has motivated and influenced you to be successful in your career? Have you been involved in mentorship throughout your career, whether being mentored or mentoring others?

I have been very fortunate to have worked with and for people I would consider mentors. I have been given the opportunities to go through formal training and worked with good mentors who have taught me great skills in sales and leadership. These people have enabled me to pick up some great habits and great skillsets. As for mentoring others, part of my job is to mentor the people who report to me to certain degrees, helping them provide solutions and recommending how to handle different situations. Some people are just as experienced as I am, so the last thing I want to do is to tell them how to do their job. My job is to find out what can I do, how can I help, and how can I remove obstacles. For those with less experience that come across a situation they need help with, we will sit down, brainstorm, and look at our options to figure out the best way to handle it – that is one way I can provide some mentorship.

What is the biggest challenge facing the industry right now?

Top manufacturers need to have the ability to be flexible to meet and exceed customer expectations. There are folks that are much larger or much smaller that are very ingratiated in standard operating procedures IE, “that’s how it’s got to be done”, but business climate has changed over years. There are spikes and valleys in businesses and there are different senses of urgency and needs so the biggest challenge in the industry is being that company that not always says yes, but has the flexibility and open-mindedness to look at ways to help customers meet and exceed their expectations.

What do you think is necessary to be a successful salesperson in your industry?

There are a lot of people in our industry from the sales standpoint that are used to doing things the same way that everybody else has done it for some period of time and I don’t believe that necessarily holds true anymore. Customers in the industry have evolved. The average customer is more astute as to entertaining a new vendor coming in, listening to the questions they ask and the way they conduct themselves, and they’re saying to themselves, “Is this someone I can look at as a partner? Do they have our best interest at hand? Are they bringing new ideas to the table?” This is a different mindset than just trying to speak to customers to sell your product or service. Salespeople need to enable themselves to get in front of customers and ask them a lot of questions, find out what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, where they want help, and then providing solutions, suggestions or options. When you do that, then you become an extension with a company and you are viewed as a partner with your customer. I think that’s very important and the industry needs it.

 

Ashley Gannon
Executive Recruiter
agannon@directrecruiters.com
440-991-1064

Norm Volsky Recaps HIMSS 2018

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend HIMSS in Las Vegas, joining over 45,000+ professionals in attending educational sessions, visiting vendors throughout the exhibition floor, and networking with professionals immersed in the Healthcare IT industry. Being my 6th year attending HIMSS, I look forward to the opportunity to meet with emerging technology companies and leaders in the Healthcare IT space that are making an impact and growing significantly. Below I have highlighted several of the interesting companies I met up with to share an overview of their company and the interesting initiatives they’re taking in the Healthcare IT space.

Caresync: Care Coordination solution with over 100,000 Medicare patients using their solution/service. Their goal is to allow collaboration between every stakeholder in the care continuum and help get the right information to the right care team member at the right time. In helping their patients navigate their way through the Health System, they improve the quality of care and patient experience drastically. CareSync recently opened a new futuristic office in Tampa due to its explosive employee headcount growth. In 2017, CareSync received a 5-star rating from BridgingApps.

Certify: Biometric Authentication solution that was customized for healthcare. Certify is focused on Patient Identification to improve patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes and security while reducing fraud and duplicate EMR records. Using biometric data like a fingerprint, patient and hospital staff can be easily identified to improve clinical workflow and efficiency.

Cohero Health: Respiratory Disease Management company that is leveraging mobile digital therapeutics technology to keep their patients healthy and breathing smarter. Recently the company has brought in a new CIO, CTO and Chief Client Officer. They have partnered with AccuWeather to predict symptoms and triggers for their patients based on environmental conditions including temperature, humidity and seasonal allergens.

Conversa Health: Healthcare Conversation’s platform is using its “Conversational AI” to improve how patients and care teams communicate around key health experiences like chronic condition management, post discharge, pre- and post-surgery, medication adherence and lifestyle health coaching. Patient data is utilized to make these automated digital conversations more personalized. Conversa was also featured in some new industry research that highlights the growing adoption of automated patient experience technology and AI.

Datica: Providing Cloud Compliance to promote health innovation. Datica provides any healthcare company the opportunity to focus on health innovation while they ensure the solutions their customers invent meet the burdensome healthcare compliance and security requirements (HIPAA, HITRUST, GDPR and GxP). Datica manages compliance and security on AWS and Microsoft Azure and helps healthcare companies bring their software solutions to the cloud.

Happify: Evidence-based gamification platform that helps people build resilency to better deal with the stress, anxiety and depression of everyday life. The Happify platform promotes better emotional/mental health and overall wellbeing.

Healthfinch: Practice automation platform that covers prescription renewals, care gaps and visit planning to help healthcare organizations automate, delegate, and simplify routine busywork so their clinicians can spend more time treating patients. It saves providers, on average, 30 minutes per day. It helps increase staff efficiency at least 4X, resulting in faster turnarounds on patient requests. Healthfinch won the 2018 Innovation Award from athenahealth’s MDP program and was a member of Epic’s first App Orchard class.

ILÚM Health Solutions is a subsidiary of Merck Healthcare Services and Solutions and is focused on the use of real-time information to support patient management decisions, quality programs, and better outcomes in infectious diseases. ILÚM partners with provider organizations through a program-level Insight platform, point-of-care clinical decision support and clinical collaboration and ongoing quality consulting. The ILÚM approach is powered by precision medicine capabilities which support improved antibiotic prescribing and individual patient management.

Intelligent InSites: Real-Time Operational Intelligence vendor that focuses on RTLS/RFID, Asset Management, Workflow Management, Environmental Monitoring, Patient Safety and Infection Control. Having both a mobile and desktop platform, Intelligent InSites provides its customers with second to none analytics and dashboards to improve financial and operational efficiency, quality, regulatory compliance and patient satisfaction. InSites helps its hospital customers improve their operating margin, bed occupancy rate, asset utilization rate, patient satisfaction and physician performance while reducing hospital incidents’ time to service and length of stay. In the Summer of 2017, InSites won the Best IoT Healthcare Platform Award from MedTech Breakthrough.

Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems: IRIS’ Diabetic Retinopathy Diagnostic solution helps caregivers prevent their patients with diabetes from going blind. Its early-detection screening platform provides an end-to end-solution for primary care including patient identification, diagnosis, reimbursement and referral. This allows its customers to increase access, improve care coordination, reduce costs and achieve HEDIS compliance. The number-one leading cause of blindness in adults is diabetic retinopathy - and 95% of vision loss is preventable with early detection which is the problem IRIS helps to solve.

Livongo: Chronic Disease Management and Remote Patient Monitoring vendor that started its focus in Diabetes Management, but has since expanded into Hypertension with more disease states to be released in the future. With over 200 Employers (including Pepsi, Lowes and Target), and 4 of the largest 7 Health Plans offering the Livongo platform to their employees/customers, they have established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the Chronic Disease Management space. The platform saves its customers an impressive $83 per patient, per month. 

LogicStream Health: Clinical Process Improvement and Control software firm helping hospital clinicians improve and better control vital clinical processes that guide patient care. LogicStream Health software works with all major EMR platforms and is in use at more than 300 hospitals today.  It is must-have software that reduces variation and ensures customers’ clinical processes and workflows are standardized and aligned with evidence and best practice. Healthcare systems are saving millions of dollars and improving quality with LogicStream Health by reducing costly variation and inefficiency.  Customers include Providence Health, Texas Health Resources, Yale-New Haven, and Fairview Health Services. The company is a leading innovator in the clinical process improvement category.  LogicStream Health recently launched a series of clinical process modules that provide out-of-the box capability to improve specific clinical workflow and compliance related to numerous conditions, such as sepsis, catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI); and, venous thromboembolism (VTE).  In March, the company introduced an Opioid Clinical Process Module to reduce inappropriate uses of medication and identify high risk patients based on EMR data. 

Medical Informatics Corp: Patient Monitoring Analytics vendor that unlocks monitoring data from the bedside and transforms it into actionable information. Their Sickbay product is an FDA cleared clinical intelligence platform that gives real-time patient data that clinicians can use to identify high risk patients and improve clinical outcomes.

Odoro: Dynamic Patient Scheduling vendor that improves self booking, patient access and referrals. Odoro allows patients to schedule via: website, mobile device, portal, phone or IVR. The goal is to improve patient scheduling while reducing no-shows and leakage. 

Pieces Tech: Predictive Analytics software vendor that helps improve patient outcomes and reduce hospital costs by leveraging social determinants of health such as housing and transportation - along with medical conditions. The founder is a physician who, with his team, built a better solution for case management using AI for the entire patient journey. Pieces' models have extremely high accuracy rates due to proprietary clinical NLP and the use of licensed clinicians as human-in-the-loop are key components of the AI solution. Recently launched a new sepsis prevention tool by leveraging dashboards.

Propeller Health: FDA-cleared asthma and COPD management vendor that helps patients and physicians better manage chronic respiratory conditions. They make digital products that have therapeutic benefit. In February, Propeller achieved ISO 13485 medical device quality certification. Also in late 2017, Propeller achieved HITRUST CSF certification and partnered with Express Scripts to introduce their solution to 750,000 members in 2018.

Proskriptive:  AI for healthcare company focused on helping payers and providers improve their performance with value based contracts.  Proskriptive uses data science to help healthcare organizations to identify vulnerable patients that would most benefit from care management.  Proskriptive’s unique suite of technology allows its customers to more accurately target and prioritize which patients will benefit from tailored care.  Examples include future utilization risk, care management impactability, non-acute ED utilization, and many others.       

QLess:  Cloud-based technology is customized for healthcare organizations to deliver vital patient services in a timely and efficient manner. Patients are able to join a virtual waitlist and wait remotely – from the office, while running errands, or from the comfort of their own home – until they're ready to be seen. The platform allows healthcare providers to create tailored management solutions to provide high-quality care, reduce the time patients spend in the waiting room, and boost efficiency among doctors and staff. Built within the QLess platform is FlexAppointments which seamlessly integrates existing appointments with walk-in customers – an elegant solution to eliminate scheduling gaps when appointments are canceled. The interactive appointment scheduling solution also offers bi-directional communication connecting your staff with patients so if they are running late, they can request more time.  

Redox: Integration Platform that allows healthcare organizations and software companies to exchange data in a matter of days. Interoperability is all the rage in healthcare these days and Redox makes it easier than ever and removes barriers to innovation.

Relatient: Patient Engagement vendor focused on reducing no-show rates by providing appointment reminders, non-medical transportation and on-demand patient outreach. In addition, they improve the patient experience by improving the patient check-in process, providing health campaigns and administering automatic patient surveys. Relatient also allows patient to pay over text which significantly improves customer collections.

Solera Health:  Solera has introduced a non-medical network model that has quickly gained traction with over 35 health plan clients and 75 employers. Solera integrates highly-fragmented community and digital prevention and health management solutions into a network, and matches individuals with their “best fit” program provider based on their needs and preferences. Solera’s high performing network solves for program fatigue, sustained engagement and pay for performance. 

UpDox: Healthcare CRM Connectivity platform for Medical Practices, Pharmacist and Post-Acute Care. Updox allows its customers to collaborate with their referral partners to get a complete 360-degree view of a patient’s health. Updox provides: Appointment Reminders, Surveys, Patient Portal, Patient Payments, Direct Messaging, Online Scheduling and Electronic Faxing. These tools reduce no-show rates by approximately 30% while reducing paper and hardware costs by 50%.

Validic: Health Data Platform that enables access and integration to patient-generated data from mHealth apps, devices and wearables. They have connected to over 400 clinical and consumer-grade health devices. Validic provides hospital and health plan customers with real-time alerts based on a rules engine it developed. In February of 2018, Validic launched its own lightweight Remote Monitoring platform.

Vivify Health: Remote Patient Monitoring Platform helping move the industry toward value-based care. Helping its patients manage their chronic disease, Vivify is one of the leaders in mobile population health management. In 2017 Vivify was awarded a patent for extending EMR’s with Digital Health.

Voalte: A healthcare communication platform transforms the way clinicians communicate, improving clinical workflows, operational efficiencies and patient outcomes. With a Voalte smartphone solution, clinicians can share information securely and seamlessly inside and outside the hospital. Voalte has more than 275 customers, including major health systems such as Ascension, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Sarasota Memorial Health Care, Texas Children’s Hospital, TIRR Memorial Hermann, UConn Health, UCSF Medical Center, and WakeMed.

Norm Volsky
Director of Mobile HIT
440-996-0059
nvolsky@directrecruiters.com

 

 

DRI Healthcare IT Team Prepares for HIMSS 2018

HIMSS 2018 is less than one week away and the DRI Healthcare IT team is gearing up to join thousands of professionals to learn, network, and collaborate at the leading health information and technology conference. As the DRI HIT team attends annually, there are five key tips and tricks to remember each year, or to take along with you as a first-time attendee.

  1. Be prepared before you leave for the conference. Do your research regarding keynote sessions, exhibitors, and educational sessions and be sure to establish what your goals are for the conference, what you plan on attending, or who you would like to meet. This will give you the opportunity to make a game-plan for the conference, and allow you to schedule meet-ups with other attendees. Downloading the HIMSS18 Mobile app can also help you plan.
  2. Get involved on social media before, during and after the show. Connecting with HIMSS Facebook page, as well as the HIMSS Twitter handle is just one extra way of networking and following what’s happening at the conference. Use the hashtag #HIMSS18 on Twitter and be sure to post your photos and insights including it to gain more traction with other attendees.
  3. Wear comfortable shoes, your nametag, and bring business cards and snacks. Being such a large conference, you will be doing a lot of walking; do yourself a favor and wear shoes that won’t hurt your feet, and snacks to keep you fueled all day. In addition, you should be prepared to brand yourself from wearing your nametag to handing out multiple business cards to other industry professionals.
  4. Take notes. Stay focused during the event, be sure to write down who you meet, interesting facts you learn, or reminders for follow-up after the conference. Listen and observe attentively and engage with as many professionals as possible.
  5. Enjoy the conference! Whether it is your first time attending, or you are a HIMSS conference veteran, enjoy the opportunity to connect with others in an environment focused on Healthcare IT and how to make it even better as a whole.

    As we prepare to put these five tips into action, let us know about your experience at previous HIMSS events, what you are looking forward to, or if you have tips to add to our list. If you are attending HIMSS, the DRI team would be happy to schedule a time to meet up with you to network. Please contact a DRI team member to set up a convenient time to network!

Brian Silverstein Interviews Florence Hudson

Brian Silverstein, Director of Life Sciences recently had the opportunity to ask Florence Hudson, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer, former IBM Executive, and Editorial Board Member for Blockchain in Healthcare Today a series of questions. She shared insights regarding her impressive career, trends in the tech and healthcare industries, and advice for up-and-coming STEM professionals.

Please tell us about yourself.

I’m a Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer, and that interest started when I was about 3 years old. I was brought up by my maternal grandparents because my mother died the day I was born, so my mother’s brothers and sister became my brothers and sister. My oldest brother loved space. He used to get me up at 5 or 6 in the morning to watch the Apollo missions take off. I remember thinking it was so cool and wondering how they do that, and how they get up there and back to earth safely. They say that’s when you become an engineer - when you start asking ‘how.’

From there, I got a number of scholarships out of high school and ended up going to Princeton to be a Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer. I worked at Grumman and then NASA at the Jet Propulsion Lab, so I’ve always worked on things that are the leading edge and the future. I was able to work on the space shuttle program and met Sally Ride; she was going to be flying in the space shuttle, and I was building the space shuttle. At the end of the 70’s, the aerospace world was really in a decline, so I took a look around and thought that computers were going to run the world someday, so I interviewed with HP and IBM, and took a job with HP in California. I was there for a little over a year then my grandfather got sick, so I moved back to NY and got a job with IBM. They called me an early identifier, which means I was on track to be an executive, and I was fortunate enough to have a 33-year career at IBM, including Vice President and Director roles.

When I got to the point in my career where I wasn’t going any higher, I decided to look for roles that met my goal to become a Senior Vice President and C-level executive as I had documented in my 1-page lifetime strategic plan created in 1983. At that point, my friend introduced me to a Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer role at Internet2, which was a really fun job. From there I joined the Blockchain in Healthcare Today Editorial Board, which I still do now. In addition, I am the Editor in Chief for a book on women and the Internet of Things and this framework called TIPPSS – trust, identity, privacy, protection, safety and security for the Internet of Things. I’m focused on this area to increase awareness of the need to improve trust and identity of things, people, software, and cybersecurity to keep people safer in this hyper-connected world we live in. There are about 15 women writing chapters in this book from different parts of my life; research, industry, government, academia and more. I am also Special Advisor for Next Generation Internet for the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub at Columbia University, a very cool role. I also speak at many events regarding Internet of Things, smart cities, Women in STEM, Blockchain, and more.  Now I’m looking for the next cool thing I can do whether it is board positions, or new roles where I can make things better – that’s what engineers do.

You have a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. What led you to get involved with healthcare in your career?

When I was at IBM in Corporate Strategy, Lou Gerstner as the CEO inspired us to look at some of the newer markets we should be participating in. Healthcare and Life Sciences was one of them. At the time I was a VP in Corporate Strategy and my team led the development of a number of new strategies, including creating the analytical structure to understand and operate in new markets that weren’t really defined yet, as documented in a Harvard case study about the IBM EBO (Emerging Business Opportunities) program. We created a framework to assess market potential and value creation, then developed a range of uncertainty for the new markets including everyone’s opinion to help us move forward together. We did that for healthcare and other markets. I also worked on the IBM Watson cognitive computing strategy which included choosing healthcare as a prime opportunity for cognitive computing.

As I started getting involved more with Internet2, Healthcare and Life Sciences came up as a key focus area. As Chief Innovation Officer, I did a community survey to find what areas of open collaboration we should work on together, and came up with distributed big data and analytics, the Internet of Things, and end-to-end trust and security. Within big data and analytics, one of the use cases that came forward was Healthcare and Life Sciences. When the Cancer Moonshot came along I was fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in the summit at Howard University in Washington, DC to discuss how the scientists and technologies can support the acceleration of cancer research and data sharing. I was fortunate to be appointed to the program committee for the computational approaches for cancer workshop at the annual SuperComputing conference as another way to leverage different types of scientists, technologists and researchers together to apply their cumulative thinking to cancer. Healthcare is a huge space with so many opportunities to improve outcomes, so much to figure out, and so many challenges. We can bring brilliant people together, leveraging existing and new technologies, to work together and use their unique gifts for good.

Being a Special Advisor for Next Generation Internet at the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub, what are the biggest challenges and opportunities you see in the world of data?

One of the biggest challenges is cultural; people have to choose to share their data. In research environments your research is your intellectual property, it’s your identity and it’s what helps you get tenure, so we need to get to thinking that data needs to be shared. The other challenge is protecting against other people changing your data. We have to apply new technologies to areas where people aren’t used to sharing data and give them protection.

The opportunity across the board is using the data for good. We need to look at data holistically to get key insights and make the right decisions to change things. Another thing as we look across the world is working together to come up with what we want to accomplish and how we can make things better by improving collaboration within data science globally.

What trends do you expect to see in technology in the next 5 years?

A trend I see is the need for this TIPPSS idea; trust, identity, privacy, safety and security. More people are becoming aware of the threat of physical and financial harm from the connected devices and systems on the planet. We need to build in TIPPSS for new devices, and add more security to existing devices and systems. I think there will be more and more awareness and regulation in these areas. The issue of ethics will also increase regarding how we use the vast amount of data available about people and things, relating to data science, IoT, privacy, and security. There are so many aspects of making tech more safe and secure as it becomes more integrated into our daily lives. For example, quantum computing is going to be very real and provide opportunities and challenges; if you make something really smart it can be good and bad so figuring out the ethics of data and tech are more and more important as we move forward.

What interesting new projects are you working on?

The Blockchain world is very interesting. My position on the Editorial Board of Blockchain in Healthcare Today allows me to look at how new blockchain technology, which tucks under the TIPPSS umbrella, can provide better integrity, trust and security of data, whether it’s data about the pharmaceutical supply chain to make sure counterfeit drugs don’t enter, or provenance of medical or clinical research data as it is transferred between devices, institutions, people and networks in the eventual pursuit of precision medicine and precision cancer care. We focus on figuring out how to maintain integrity of the data since all devices which house the data are hackable. Blockchain can help with this, as it tracks who and what creates or changes data. It’s exciting to work with doctors, the editorial board, and medical schools to make things better by marrying technology with healthcare.

I am also involved in a number of things related to TIPPSS, which we need to get more women involved in. The way I look at diversity, until we are at human population parity in STEM fields – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math - we aren’t leveraging all the resources on the planet; if 50% of the planet is women, then 50% of everything should be women. We need to encourage women and let them know that they can do it and they should get involved.  

What types of mentor or mentors have you had throughout your career?

My first was my brother who woke me up to watch the Apollo missions when I was 3 years old. He provided me the opportunity to see what’s out there so I could see what I was interested in. My parents were also always very supportive of me. My first real mentor in the aerospace engineering field was Yvonne Brill, who passed away a couple years ago. I met her when I was at Princeton University and president of the Society of Women Engineers section. When she passed away, her NY Times obituary called her the first female rocket scientist in the US. She connected me to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab as my summer internship and she was on the NASA safety advisory board after the Challenger disaster. She was incredible. I always show pictures of her when I do my Women in Tech talks. Whenever I went back to Princeton I always tried to go and visit her at her house and give her a hug. Last time I saw her, she showed me the medal President Obama had just presented her on Technology and Innovation. I also had a number of mentors at IBM when I was on the Executive path. Now a few other women and I who were VPs at IBM have started doing peer mentoring and ladies dinners to help each other in work and life. We invite the EVP from IBM who mentored us all to join our dinners too.  He is still there for us even though we have all retired from IBM.

What do you believe are the traits and qualities of a great leader?

I think a great leader needs to care. They need to care about the business, their team, clients, people, partners; people can tell if you do or don’t care. You can show that you care by listening. I used to present to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem when I was at IBM, and I’d speak to them about our strategy, and they gave me this ornament I still have that says, ‘It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen’ – Oliver Wendell Holmes. So as leaders it is our job to listen, respond, and lead, inspiring people to look forward, look up and think of what more they can be or do, and help them reach for the stars.

You were recently featured by the New York Hall of Science with your STEM profile. How do you encourage STEM careers among your network?

I’m approachable and friendly, but I’m a geek; I worked on future missions around Jupiter, cognitive computing, next gen internet, and helping cure cancer. I say if I can do it, you can do it. I had very humble beginnings, with my mother dying and my father leaving, and I was an orphan, so if I can do it, you can do it. I encourage anyone to find what inspires them and do it. It could be boys, girls, robots, anything; I’m flexible, we just need more thinkers and doers in the STEM field.

Based on your LinkedIn profile, you have earned various honors and awards. To what or whom do you attribute your success?

My parents were my core. They were so supportive of me – they lost their daughter and then took care of me. I was first in our immediate family to go to a 4-year college and they supported that. I also had teachers who were supportive of me. You need personal cheerleaders in your life that believe you’re great. My parents, siblings, friends, daughter, have all been personal cheerleaders for me and I’m very lucky that they support me.

What advice would you give to up and coming technology professionals to be successful?

Figure out the unique gifts God gave you and use them for good. If people say you have a gift, ask them for feedback about it and what the good part was. When I was looking at how to portray myself, my mentor from IBM said that my unique value is that I’m technical and a business executive, and it’s the unique combination that really differentiated me, so that’s what my CV says at the top now. Getting feedback from other people, listening, and leveraging that can help you on your way to success. Find things that really inspire you, listen to the market, continue to pursue your ideas, and don’t give up. Look at how to leverage ideas for good and watch out for those who use their ideas for bad.

Brian Silverstein
Director of Life Sciences
440-996-0877
bsilverstein@directrecruiters.com

Management Vs. Leadership

February 14, 2018

By Christy Fox, Director of Marketing

What is the difference between management and leadership? To some, the words might seem interchangeable, however, this is not the case. Professionals across all industries should try to find a balance between the two to lead a successful team.

Here are six points outlining the differences between management and leadership. Where are you excelling and where are you lacking in your management or leadership roles?

  • Leaders are inspirational and work to take their team to the next level.
  • Managers execute day to day tasks and make sure day-to-day operations run smoothly.
  • Leaders influence people; many come to leaders for advice.
  • Managers have subordinates who just work for them.
  • Leaders take risks that might take time, and resources, but will be worth it in the end.
  • Managers eliminate risk and get tasks done in specific, set timeframes.
  • Leaders think long term with goals and vision.
  • Managers focus on short term tasks and accomplishments.
  • Leaders are typically very people oriented.
  • Managers are driven by numbers and rational problem solving.
  • Leaders are proactive in building a strategy.
  • Managers are reactive to a strategy that has been built and they execute it.

Not all managers and leaders are built the same, but a strong combination of the points above can push you from just managing people to leading people, and drive your team to be more successful.