Pam Saechow Podcast Transcript
Pam Saechow joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Pam Saechow. Pam Saechow is the CEO of Ellit Groups. She’s an experienced I.T. Executive with over 20 years in health care, who has a proven track record for helping organizations create and reshape business models using technology innovation.
Pam is a strategic thinker and planner who balances short term targets with long term enterprise architecture foresight to ensure technology propels the organization value forward in a competitive advantage. She’s a trusted C-suite partner with a keen sense of the various innovation and digital solutions that exist while remaining grounded in the reality of the various downstream needs to assure the benefits are realized by patients, providers, and payers.
Pam has served in multiple roles throughout her career as a clinician, business strategist, and technologist in some of the largest and most complex environments. Pam’s experience utilizing an agile methodology with a project management professional background combines the art and science of the essential toolkit to intertwine soft skills with a risk based IT governance to produce returns using data driven facts to drive results at the speed of light.
Required in today’s VUCA, or otherwise known as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous healthcare and technology landscape.
Well, good afternoon, Pam. Welcome to the show!
Pam Saechow: Good afternoon, Brian. Good to be here.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. I appreciate you making the time and You’re one of those busy executives reminds me of the day when I did some travel, but, you know, New York to well, just East coast to West coast is sometimes a little bit crazy but hailing out of the great state of California in Sacramento today.
I appreciate again, you jumping on and Pam, we’re going to jump right into your questions here. Could you share your journey from the early days in healthcare to becoming a CIO and now a CEO, particularly the challenges and opportunities you encountered along the way?
Pam Saechow: Sure, you know, I would say to address that, you know, let’s just take a walk down memory lane for me.
That’s kind of where I would like to get started. So, it actually all started back in Laos. My grandmother, who is a health care provider in our village, was my early inspiration. And I would say if you fast-forward to when I moved to the U. S. around the age of nine, I really found myself helping out the Laotian community with language and health care navigation because of my English skills.
That’s really where I think the heart for patient advocacy really took root for me. I then went on to dipping my toes into the healthcare world as a pharmacy technician and gradually made my way into IT and leadership roles. I’ve certainly earned a lot of promotional opportunities and was blessed to have worked for some amazing bosses who had advocated for me along the way.
But certainly, no smooth sailing along the way. Faced some challenges and hurdles, you know, anything from racism to gender bias to being put in a box, you name it, but I think at the end of the day, you know what, they always say what don’t break you makes you stronger. I really feel like those challenges didn’t hold me back.
If anything, it taught me to build a leadership style that is all about breaking barriers and empowering others for me. This is the spirit I bring to my role at Ellit groups as a CEO, being able to create opportunities without limit and ensuring that the people feel valued and appreciated both internally and externally, whoever I interact with.
So, I would definitely say that, I’ve been given a lot of opportunities, encountered a lot of hurdles, but all those hurdles really became opportunities for me to also learn and really pick the best of what I see and build my own leadership style that fits me and what I am comfortable in.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome.
Thank you for sharing the story. And again, at the end of the day, we all love to hear every guest’s story here and what they had to go through to get where they are today. And that really that story there, Pam will resonate with somebody in our audience, which makes me, gives me a lot of joy. And that’s why I love this podcast.
So, I appreciate that. And Pam switching gears during your tenure at institutions like the Cleveland clinic and. New York City health and hospitals. You’ve been instrumental in digital transformation. Can you discuss some of the key strategies you employed to revolutionize patient care and caregiver experience?
Pam Saechow: Absolutely. Digital transformation. You know, have we ever lived one day in I.T. these days, Brian, where you don’t hear the word digital transformation anymore? You know, certainly I would say that’s been the most exciting part of my journey. You know, every time I step into a new role, whether it’s New York City Health and Hospitals or Cleveland Clinic, you know, I come armed with what I call a 90-to-120-day plan.
People, you know, probably even yourself have applied something like that, but, you know, I kind of have my own twist of what I call my own secret sauce in that 90-to-120-day plan. And, you know, it really helps me to understand the organization and take that deep dive into knowing the people. Their processes, you know, and really everything about them.
And then it’s all about putting it into action, you know, I’m very results oriented. And so, you are what you do, right? So, for me, it’s tweaking the plan as needed. Once I kind of get that up and running, but there’s something we truly believe in. There is absolutely no substitute in my opinion for getting right into the thick of things.
And so that’s where you call the Gemba, right? Where the real value is being created. It’s where you see the real action, the frontline work. I get really inspired by being able to be part of the Gemba and spending time there, observing really opens my eyes to understanding the actual needs versus what you’re either told in meetings or what you might’ve heard from other people.
And so, it really allows me to kind of see it. And then actually be able to comprehend what’s really happening. And then my ultimate goal really for me is I really and aiming to foster a high performing team, you know, and that is really important to building a culture where people are genuinely excited about waking up.
Doing their work and passionate to bring the vision to life. You know, while I think fiscal responsible and customer satisfaction are important, which every organization wants us to pursue in a leadership role, I think at the end of the day, it’s all about our core mission and remembering we’re in the healthcare industry and that we are ensuring we do the right thing by our patients.
And to me, that’s the heart of everything we do. Brian.
Brian Thomas: I love that. I appreciate you breaking down kind of how you look at things when you go into a project or a new role. We’ve all been there, and I totally agree with you, as far as you know, that 90-to-120-day plan what I’ve learned through that process.
And we all have our plans, right? Our, our vision, our strategies, but is really understanding the customer’s business, right? When you understand the business, whether your customers are internal or external, but if you understand that you’ll do a better job of providing the solution to some of the challenges that they face.
So, I appreciate the share and Pam as the CEO of Ellit Groups, how do you approach bridging the gap between technology and healthcare and what are your primary goals for improving patient outcomes?
Pam Saechow: Well, Brian, here to lead groups, you know, we really start with the desired outcome in mind, and then we kind of work backwards from there, you know, really trying to understand, like, identifying what are the gaps in measurement, you know, are people measuring success?
How are they measuring success? Because as you know, the saying goes, you are what you measure, right? So, we look at their measure, measurements and what are the gaps in those processes? We look at user adoption. How are people embracing the tools and technology to enable them and really help them find those operational efficiencies or things they can do to really be a catalyst to help them create those competitive advantages?
How are they communicating things, you know, internally, externally, you know, around the change and then how is technology be interpreted throughout their organization? Those are things we really kind of, like, focus on and our goal is really to look at the current investments before exploring new ones, ensuring that we’re always prioritizing the patient journey and experiences.
We know that as time goes on, you know, depending on external and internal influences are. How things are shaping the organization, we need to make adjustments, but having those guiding principles to kind of ensure that you’re kind of maximizing your IT investments, you know, doing, you know, more with less is always a philosophy that we use.
And I think the other big piece about improving outcomes for us is nothing can be done unless it’s intentional and you put a plan into action. So while we are a healthcare IT company where technology is an enabler and a catalyst, we know change can only be successful by partnering and aligning people, process, tools, and knowledge to deliver those results and outcomes.
And I always include the word knowledge because you’ve probably heard Brian about people saying people, process, and tools, but I think knowledge is so important. So, here at Ellit Groups, we add that fourth component, or if you will, to our journey to make sure that you have the people and the talent with the right knowledge to really be able to do what you want to have happen.
Brian Thomas: Awesome. Thank you. And again, I, I do appreciate that at the end of the day. And you really highlighted obviously that people are the center of it, but that communication is so important, and we need to under understand where everybody’s at as far as. You know, where they’re at as far as a stakeholder or they’re buying in, in these types of projects.
So, I appreciate the share on that Pam and Pam. The last question of the day is you’ve mentioned your life and professional philosophy centers around the 5 L’s lead live, learn, laugh and listen. I like that. How do these principles guide your leadership style and decision making at Ellit Groups?
Pam Saechow: Absolutely. You know, they, they really are something that I truly preached to our organization, and I live myself with. And really, when I look at the five L’s, right, it’s very simple for me. You have to live in the moment. You have to listen intently. Gotta love what you do. That is so important to have passion and know the purpose.
And you have to laugh a little, you know, have fun doing the things you do and keep that positivity going because we are so privileged to be serving in a healthcare industry, right. In terms of the influence we get to make and the impact we need to make. So have fun doing it and have good positivity and be contagious to others.
You know, you have to be able to learn continually. Whether it’s an external influence with federal regulations or CMS regulations or new technologies that’s coming in, you know, we have got to always be willing to learn new things all of the time, right? Unlearn and learn new things. So, learning continuously is very important.
And I would say that these principles really help us shape our customer relationships. To really highlight the importance of building that trust and continuous improvement, as well as a commitment to leaving a really lasting positive impact. And at the end of the day, I want everybody to feel at Ellit Groups that when you work with us, you, your success is our success in how, you know, we partner with you.
And that’s really how we measure the outcomes. And so, I always self-reflect and say at the end day, are we really. Applying this philosophy across the board in what we do. So that’s kind of my response to that. Brian,
Brian Thomas: I love it. I really do. And I like how you’ve kind of blended your professional and personal philosophy together with the 5 L’s and that is really so important that because.
You have one life to live. And sometimes we put that face on to go to work, but at the end of the day, it’s just great that you’ve kind of melded those together and shared your philosophy. So, thank you. And Pam, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon!
Pam Saechow: Well, thank you, Brian. It’s been a pleasure discussing my journey as well as our lead group’s approach with you. I also appreciate you having me, and I look forward to future interactions.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Pam Saechow Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
