Digital Transformation in Healthcare: Ryan Prindiville Of Armanino On How Medical Practices Can Use Digital Transformation To Provide Better Care
Segment your goals: Digital transformation is a journey. Success can be found by breaking up that journey into bite-size attainable goals. Don’t assume you need to accomplish everything at once. What small steps can you implement to get this transformation underway?
As part of our series about “Medical Practices Can Use Digital Transformation To Provide Better Care,” I had the pleasure of interviewing Ryan Prindiville, Partner-in-Charge, Consulting at Armanino LLP.
As the leader of Armanino’s Consulting practice, Ryan drives business strategy, outsourcing, advisory, data analytics and technology consulting for clients across all industries. He leads a team of several hundred consultants that solves clients’ broad, increasingly digital business challenges. Ryan applies his expertise to drive shared services and capabilities involving outsourcing, advisory services, strategy services, technology and data analytics.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I’ve always liked to solve problems and be challenged. I like to be engaged and always learning. I started my career on the client side and was lucky to have mentors and coaches put me in a position to always be working on big challenging problems and fast-moving initiatives. Consulting has allowed me to continue that and to work with clients in every industry, varying from distressed businesses to clients on the upswing. It has allowed me to work with CEOs who are building something new, and leaders who are facing the biggest challenges of their career.
I get to help build teams and coach people that solve those problems for our clients. That is exciting and rewarding. When a client calls and says, “Your team saved me again,” that is amazing. But the best part of my role is watching our team members grow, build confidence and capability, and expand their personal horizons as well. Andy Armanino (former managing partner) and I were talking the other day, and I was saying that I still feel the same way I did 20 years ago. I never want to be bored, and I love that we are continually evolving and growing our business to provide opportunities for our team.
Can you share the most interesting or most exciting story that has happened to you since you began at your company?
I am not sure this is the most exciting, but it is memorable. After a day of interviews on-site with a client to kick off a project, the CEO of a business asked if we could push our 4 p.m. interview to 6 p.m. after most of the staff had left the building. So we did that. When we walked into his office, he was literally pulling in a couch from the waiting area and said, “I am going to lay here and unload on you two (my peer), and explain why everyone here hates me. And like a good counselor, you are going to help me fix it!”
We proceeded to talk for a couple hours. Over the course of several weeks, we then helped the CEO lay out a plan to meet the objectives of his leadership team and investors. We helped the CEO gain confidence and rebuild trust with his leadership team. The exciting part of this job is often navigating the people involved. When an early boss of mine (a Marine) was promoting me to a manager role from an individual contributor, he said sternly, “People are harder to program than computers; are you up for a challenge?” He was right, is still right, and I think of that moment every time one of these situations arises.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Then, can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
There is one experience that some of the team members who were there like to bring up periodically to make fun of me! I had been in client meetings in New York City, and needed to quickly get to a client in New Braunfels, Texas. I went straight to the airport in my pinstripe suit and ended up at a late afternoon meeting in Texas. While I had removed my coat, I did not “fit in” at all with the crowd of clients who were mostly wearing jeans and hats since we were meeting in a distribution/field operations center.
One of the client leads made that clear and said if I couldn’t reflect an understanding of who they were, I shouldn’t be there. The team likes to laugh about this since I have always prided myself on understanding clients, but I didn’t come across that way in that situation. It stands out as a good lesson to learn for a new consultant — know your audience.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
All three of the traits below are actually part of Armanino’s “PVAs,” our Purpose, Values and Anchors. However, I have always believed these are critical to my happiness and success, and that like-minded philosophy is likely what drew me to Armanino to start with.
Positive Energy: I, like many people, have faced challenges in life. However, I believe I have a choice every morning. I can get up, put on a smile and make today a good day, or I can think about the negatives. I choose every day to try to bring positive energy and build up the people around me. That does not mean I can’t be direct or tough sometimes, but I think intentionally about my actions and try to make a positive impact every day. I hope our teams do also.
Empowered: I feel lucky to have been empowered throughout my career to make an impact. To me, that means problem-solving, finding solutions, helping our teams succeed and making our clients successful. I have had leaders in my career who have enabled that, and I hope that I am seen as someone who puts people in a position to take advantage of an opportunity and be empowered. Recently, one of our younger managers has inspired me by taking on the leadership of our internship programs and empowering others to grow and build their careers. That is pretty cool.
Connected: Most of our new hires will tell you I am pretty consistent about this one. I want our teams to be “fearless” in their willingness and ability to connect with others. That could be messaging a partner within the firm, emailing our CEO, connecting with others on LinkedIn or asking for a 15-minute call with someone you just met. I believe the more time our future leaders spend with others in the firm, the more they can see and learn from others, the stronger the consultant they will be. That learning process requires being fearless in connecting yourself to your firm and community, In our firm, we call that “Courageously Connected.”
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
The most exciting projects our teams are seeing today include everything from helping provider groups being bundled together by private equity optimize their back office and accounting, to helping product companies commercialize the next generation of prescription eyewear, to creating the business plans for new types of healthcare services. During the pandemic, we worked with municipalities to help track and implement revolutionary reporting and automation capabilities. In some ways, these are using traditional means to revolutionize the way services and products are delivered in healthcare. Exciting but occasionally scary times!
Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview about Digital Transformation in Healthcare. I am particularly passionate about this topic because my work focuses on how practices can streamline processes to better serve their patients. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly Digital Transformation means? On a practical level what does it look like for a medical practice to engage in a digital transformation?
Digital transformation is the introduction or modification of digital technologies to fundamentally alter businesses’ operations, practices and means of delivering value for clients. Digital transformation also encourages a cultural shift within the organization to adapt to a more modern workplace.
In healthcare, digital transformation could mean changing the patient experience, the practitioner experience and/or the administration/operations experience. All are relevant and required depending on where your starting point is.
What are the specific pain points that digital transformation can help address in a medical practice?
One of the many advantages of a digital transformation is the additional time employees will have upon streamlining and automating their practices. Using AI and other innovative technologies takes significant workload off of employees who would otherwise be working manually. Burnout, understaffing and heavy workloads are a rampant issue across the professional sphere, but especially in the medical field due to the pandemic. Digital transformation can offer speed and accuracy that can assist in remedying some of these pain points.
In addition, digital transformation can improve the efficiency of an organization’s overall operations. The increasing emergence of telemedicine has driven greater demand for alternative care, requiring medical practices to quickly integrate technology into their everyday services. By developing specific strategies for digital transformation, these organizations can limit the learning curve and boost the success rate of these technological implementations.
What are the obstacles that prevent a medical practice from engaging in a digital transformation?
The main obstacle that causes digital transformations to fail is the people behind the transformation. Lack of planning, consistency and communication are all factors that prevent medical practices and other professional organizations from engaging in digital transformation. Some practices may have misconceptions around what digital transformations entail, believing they are too small for such change or that digital transformation is too complex. In reality, digital transformation can suit and support any business model when the objectives and strategy are clearly defined.
Budget, confounding/complex data and lack of talent are also contributing factors in many failed transformations in healthcare. The number-one factor though is C-Level/ownership/executive leadership. It’s critical for every initiative to have a clearly defined executive sponsor who is empowered to see it through.
Managing a healthcare facility is more challenging than it has ever been. Based on your experience or research, can you please share with our readers a few examples of how digital transformation can help a medical practice to provide better care? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
Digital transformation can be described as many things and varies heavily in every industry. But for healthcare, it may be a little more apparent. It starts with the ability to serve patients better digitally, where they are. This could mean the adoption of technologies with the goal of improving workflows, efficiency and patient care. However, this is a journey, not a destination. Providers should expect constant evolution. Things like EHR, telehealth solutions and cloud technologies all contribute to digital transformation as starting points.
Personally, as a consumer of healthcare, I feel this as a patient/client when I make appointments through the mobile app my healthcare group has provided, because I am seamlessly connected to my test results, history and prior visit notes. Most obviously, it may mean I am utilizing my mobile device to virtually visit healthcare providers who also have access to that same history, lab results and prior care to provide a more seamless experience. Most healthcare groups are taking these steps as stages in the journey, and not trying to say transformation is one big project.
On the administration side, digital transformation may be more focused on automation and simplification of billing processes, reduction of manual steps and flows, and integrating office operations. This gives administrators more flexibility in staffing and the ability to use key resources for their highest value rather than repetitive tasks. Many provider groups and systems are looking at enabling service-center-type approaches to support their practice delivery, along with a digital-first strategy to drive patients to a digital platform. This was made abundantly clear and expedited by successful practices during the pandemic.
Can you share a few examples of how digital interactions or digital intake processes can help create a frictionless patient experience and increase access for patients?
More than ever, consumers expect healthcare and provider groups to act like retail, to provide a retail experience. We often joke that the “Amazonification” of business has now been expanded to healthcare as well, and today that is quite literally happening as Amazon moves into healthcare. Everyone expects “one-click” access to information, to service, and even to results. For consumers, a healthcare provider’s digital presence can drive the entire consumer journey, from awareness, to consideration of provider, selection, treatment expectations and even ongoing loyalty. The only constant here for healthcare providers will be constant change and higher expectations.
The challenge is that most healthcare providers are still struggling with those expectations. During the awareness stage of the consumer journey, many prospective patients utilize search engines to identify care options based on their medical needs. Do the providers, whether a system or network or regional group, have the expertise to enable that search? Or are they relying on insurance companies only? Next, prospective patients consider care options, and providers need to ensure they have an easily found directory, relevant content, explanations of service, and connection to the provider(s) themselves through online appointment, chat, messaging, etc.
Selection is ultimately the result of a combination of awareness, access, ease of use and clarity of purpose, along with trust. Trust is a funny thing though. The internet has made medical information easier to obtain, for right or wrong. Trust can be the result of a referral source, connection to network, relevant examples, perception of security, brand name and more. Having an optimized digital experience can be a promoter of that trust and a beneficiary of it.
Healthcare is not the first or only industry to go through this type of transformation. In fact, we have seen and are seeing it in all industries. Financial services and banking were ahead of the game in many cases, showing that digital onboarding can create entirely new and successful business models, such as banks with no branches, lending at speeds that were unheard of a few years ago for back-office processing/funding, and mobile services that enable banking anywhere in the world. Healthcare is currently facing this and will do so more in the future. We are seeing entirely new entrants, digital-only providers, local provider groups being supported by national processing and digital services groups, and more.
Based on your opinion and experience, what are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Effective Medical Practice” and why.
To create a highly effective medical practice, undergoing digital transformation will be crucial. Practices will need to implement new and evolving technologies and services to keep pace with a modernizing industry and deliver higher-quality patient care. There are five essential tactics to undergoing this transformation:
- Identify your “North Star”: Once you understand your “North Star,” you can determine the best path forward to get to that destination. What are your patients/customers looking for? What does success look like? Identify these goals before building out your road map to digital transformation.
- Segment your goals: Digital transformation is a journey. Success can be found by breaking up that journey into bite-size attainable goals. Don’t assume you need to accomplish everything at once. What small steps can you implement to get this transformation underway?
- Develop your road map: Planning and organization are critical aspects to a digital transformation. Develop a road map of your transformation to ensure accountability and efficacy.
- Identify employees’ skills and leverage: Within a medical practice, there are a variety of staff and leaders — each with different responsibilities and technical skills that lend to the practice’s workflow and success. When undergoing a digital transformation, identify the specific skills in which each group excels and determine how they may best take advantage of technological assets, newly implemented practices and freed-up time.
- Implement early adopters as “ambassadors”: Leaders can determine the team members who are most receptive to the digital transformation and equip them with the tools, messaging and assets necessary to act as ambassadors for the rest of the organization. This will allow them to act as teachers, role models and trouble shooters for their peers to improve the flow and success of the transition.
Because of your role, you are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most people, what would that be? You never know what your ideas can trigger.
That is simple: Positive Energy. I’d like to see more people demonstrating positive energy, making a positive impact, shaking off the negative and getting up every day with a positive attitude. I do believe that positive energy is a force-multiplier (thank you, Colin Powell), making teams and outcomes better, and people happier. I worry that too much focus on the “extremes” in social media and media, in general, drives people to the poles on every topic, versus looking for the positive energy in the middle where more players win and are happy. Maybe a little Pollyanna-ish, but that’s where I stand.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
To learn more about Armanino’s services and experience in digital transformation, readers are welcome to visit our company’s website or connect via social media.
This was truly meaningful! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise!
About The Interviewer: David McNeil is the President of PatientPop, a Tebra company, a market leader in practice growth technology. McNeil is highly committed to helping the company build a modern go-to-market organization that delivers great value to practices in a time of rapid change in healthcare. McNeil’s business insights have been featured in publications such as Medical Economics and Los Angeles Business Journal.
