Five years ago, I walked away from a great career, working for an extraordinary brand. And as a marketing executive, that’s kind of big deal. It’s worth noting I wasn’t unhappy by any means. In fact, I was rather comfortable in the life I had created. But sometimes we can get too comfortable being comfortable. And so I began a search for something more than a career, a journey in which I found myself thrust into the TeleTracking mission. As today marks my fifth year at TeleTracking, and because missions don’t come with readymade blueprints, I thought I’d reflect on five things I’ve learned endeavoring in the TeleTracking mission.
We didn’t set out to create a category. The Health System Command Center started off as an idea, with a few health systems putting it into practice. And because we had many of the right pieces—and outcomes that were impossible to ignore—a category emerged. Yet, at the same time, it’s still challenging―it requires customer engagement, committed and patient leadership, comfort with ambiguity, and willingness to pioneer. Not to mention the fact that there’s no such thing as “market share” when you’re creating a market, so however, do you keep score? I guess we’ll settle for what Gartner recently reported when they said that by 2025, half of all large health systems will adopt a Command Center.
Competition isn’t the toughest challenge. Organizational change is. I’m a realist—no one can go it alone to solve the backbreaking administrative burden our healthcare system has put on clinicians and operators. But by fostering collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement; recognizing health systems who are leading and innovating in Command Center operations; establishing standards and benchmarks for Command Center operational maturity; and creating a peer group framework to accelerate knowledge sharing we are creating the foundations for success. Take for example these guys. Or these guys.
Productivity is elusive―however not for a lack of trying. The demands on the healthcare workforce continue to grow, while their numbers remain in dramatically short supply. We have made it impossible for well-trained clinicians and leaders to perform at the top of their license and this needs to end. We owe it to clinicians the world over to ease them of the administrative burden the modern health system has created.
I feel confident saying everyone in healthcare is legitimately trying to make a difference. But even if we’re all in the same boat, we’re not always rowing in the same direction―and some aren’t even rowing, they’re still trying to figure out how to use a compass. The point is, to row in the same direction we need to be working off the same variables, same assumptions and same goals―and that can only happen with the right data. While no one has set out to make data interoperability particularly hard, I don’t know that the industry could have engineered a more complicated version if we actually tried. And so we remain committed to never letting access to the right data be an obstacle for our customers.
You really do learn a lot about how well a system is run when that system has to respond to a crisis. And this year, unfortunately, we’ve had more than our share―both natural and manmade. Yet, it still never ceases to amaze me how our clients respond when they receive those calls―whether it’s a tragic downtown shooting that no one saw coming or preparing for what was potentially the worst hurricane in a decade encroaching on the coast of Florida. Every time, our clients (and our TeleTracking employees) rise to the occasion―because they truly believe no one should ever wait for the care they need.
Kris KanetaTeleTracking
Kris Kaneta is charged with the transformation of the TeleTracking brand from patient flow category leader to healthcare’s leading operations management platform, with overall responsibility for marketing, communications, and corporate strategy.
Prior to joining TeleTracking in 2014, Kris served as Global Marketing Director for GE Healthcare’s global asset management portfolio and key growth initiatives across the organization. There he led the launch of multi-million-dollar growth platforms, as well as the commercial business case and integration for select acquisitions.
A seasoned marketing executive with multiple roles of increasing scope and responsibility, Kris considers himself foremost an instigator and data-driven storyteller. His teams have received numerous awards including Advertising Age’s B2B Campaign of the Year, ITSMA’s award for Thought Leadership, and the IABC Pittsburgh Golden Triangle Award.
Kris has an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business with concentrations in Marketing and Decision Sciences, and a BA in Economics from Illinois Wesleyan University. Prior leadership posts also include marketing and business development roles at JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and First National Bank Holding Co. He is also a member and contributor for the Forbes Communications Council.
TeleTracking is doing its part to educate systems to respond and recover in a consistent, reliable way – with technology and standard work. In fact, we will host a Disaster Readiness Essentials for Health Systems 4 credit continuing education workshop October 10th (webinar) and October 23rd (live at TeleCon19) for $99.