Stephanie Lapré Podcast Transcript
Stephanie Lapré joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
[00:00:12] Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Stephanie Lapré. Stephanie Lapré is a transformational healthcare executive that has led critical and cross functional initiatives with almost 20 years of nursing experience. She has extensive experience in complex, large scale enterprise environments, both profit and nonprofit, proving to be instrumental for driving care coordination, healthcare strategy, and revenue cycle solutions.
She holds a B. S. in Nursing from the University of Washington. Stephanie has been a contributing voice to several national healthcare organizations, such as Becker’s, Concero, as well as remains an active member in key associations, such as ANA, ACHE, ACNL, and ACMA. Stephanie is the co-founder and CEO of the Lapré Group.
She loves that in her role within case management and utilization management, she gets to design programs and secure access for patients and health systems to ensure they are getting the right care at the right cost at the right time.
Well, good afternoon, Stephanie. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:12] Stephanie Lapré: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:14] Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Appreciate you jumping on and sharing your story with us today across the globe. We have a lot of people from all over the world. So again, thank you. And you’re hailing out of the great state of California.
Appreciate that. I spent some time there as well in Orange County. Love the state. The weather’s amazing. So, Stephanie, we’re going to jump right into the questions here. You’ve got quite the career in health care, a registered nurse, you were a senior executive, you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a board member, and now you’re the founder and principal of The Lapré Group.
Could you share with our audience the secret to your career growth and what inspires you?
[00:01:49] Stephanie Lapré: I’d say first and foremost, I’ve had some pretty remarkable people that have come through my life, both in the form of mentors, as well as a strong foundation within my family. I’d say starting with my mom my mom is a nurse and, funny enough, I never thought I was going to be a nurse.
I always thought I would be a musician. I played violin for several years. I wanted to go to school for music and my parents told me that I could not go to school for music. so, I had to quickly change my career path in college went to school for premed originally and learned early on that nurses really had the most time at the bedside and that my mom was right.
Nurses really had the best careers and I ultimately ended up becoming just like my mom and was really, really grateful for following in her footsteps. Her career spanned a wonderful 40 years, and not only did I follow in her footsteps I really followed in her footsteps. My career really has been specialized in care management and UM, and that was exactly what her career detailed.
And as far as mentors, I think throughout the years every organization I’ve been with. I really have met and been inspired and led by some amazing leaders that have believed in me and really shined a light on both strengths and opportunities. And I really feel that that is something that I have been able to give back to those that have been on my teams as well.
[00:03:45] Brian Thomas: Love the story. Thank you. Stephanie. And very heartwarming. Obviously, as I mentioned before, I was in health care as well. And I think the people that truly care about helping other people are those in health care. And I love the story of you following your mother in her footsteps and becoming a nurse and doing all the great kind things you can do in healthcare.
So thank you. Stephanie switching gears a little bit here, like you mentioned, I was in healthcare space for many years and know there are some opportunities for improvement. We all know that. What are one or two top opportunities you are seeing in your consulting company today?
[00:04:22] Stephanie Lapré: In my space, specifically for care management and UM, we really focus on patient centered care and the growing emphasis around personalization for individuals.
No two people are alike. And that really had a light shined on it after COVID and the health equity divide. People got much sicker because individuals didn’t want to access hospitals and technology came into play. And individuals really were. not understanding access to care that was available. And so really there’s an opportunity for an extreme understanding for care coordination across the continuum.
And so for our organization, we’re really trying to grapple with how we can bridge all of transitions of care, whether it be coordinating and facilitating for physicians with home health and the hospitals and directly communicating with their patients. And making that really personalized care plan and having it really centered around the patient and having a true individualized care plan.
[00:05:56] Brian Thomas: Thank you. And again, some of the things that you did in your previous careers, obviously in healthcare and as a nurse has contributed to some of the insights that you’re seeing or providing to your clients. And I know that that’s just adds a huge set of knowledge to your toolkit when you’re helping others.
So, I appreciate you breaking that down for us. Stephanie, next question here. Again, I’ve been in health care quite a long time and dealt with some of these platforms, but telehealth has improved since the pandemic, but there still are some technology challenges, in my opinion, and the adoption rate is not where it could be. What’s your assessment of the state of telehealth?
[00:06:34] Stephanie Lapré: I think the biggest challenge that we’re seeing is there is a big gap in understanding one in the availability of what technology and platforms are accessible for users. A good example would be a personalized AFib card. So, if let’s say my dad has AFib and he goes on Amazon, it doesn’t require a prescription and he types in AFib card and he gets five different types of AFib cards.
How does he know that one, it’s even usable? And two, should he call his doctor and have a discussion? Three, he orders one, starts to use it, and it reads that he has an AFib event, then doesn’t call his doctor because he’s not really experiencing symptoms. To me, that’s a technology challenge in terms of health plan integration, user provider breakdown, and then there tends to be adoption rate challenges in terms of patient provider comfort levels. Because insurance covers. The coverage is not quite where it should be. So, when providers are recommending certain telehealth tools. companies still don’t have that comfortability, , in terms of understanding use case for those types of tools. I think that we are making strides in that area, but we’re not quite where it should be.
[00:08:21] Brian Thomas: Thank you. And again, love your perspective on this being a clinician but also navigating these waters, you’ve got a lot to look at as far as problems from your clients, not just back at the bedside.
So, love to dive into some of these health tech questions and conversations with you. So, thank you. And Stephanie, last question, and this is a segue. Into the last question to this question about technology, we are a tech podcast and platform, we ask every guest if you’re leveraging any of that new and emerging tech in your business, and if not, maybe you found a cool tool or app you might share with us today.
[00:09:01] Stephanie Lapré: So, we are not yet. We more advise our partners, primarily for machine learning opportunities specifically related to care management and predictive model for discharge planning and utilization management. We really are an advocate in terms of how we can better promote patient access to care.
We really are a strong proponent in how we can better improve care coordination and facilitation of access for patients overall. Also, I think that there still is an opportunity to educate individuals in what is AI and machine learning there seems to be a fear in terms of AI and machine learning in healthcare and as a healthcare community, we still need to do a better job in terms of one, being transparent when we are utilizing it.
What it’s being used for and positive use cases for it, because there really is a really positive influence in terms of when we utilize it properly it really does transcend care for patients.
[00:10:22] Brian Thomas: Thank you. And yes, there’s a lot of skepticism. There’s been a lot of negative news, rightfully so for how AI is being developed at such a rapid pace and it’s almost out of control, but on the flip side, and I’ve shared this, the conversation with many healthcare entrepreneurs on this podcast recently around the positives with artificial intelligence. So, you’re right. We need to embrace it. Sometimes things that are uncomfortable or maybe seem foreign to us. We all need to jump in and learn more about it so we can make it better and provide a positive impact in our health care space. So, thank you.
Stephanie, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
[00:11:03] Stephanie Lapré: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate your time. It’s been a great pleasure to speak with you.
[00:11:09] Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Stephanie Lapré Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
