Monthly Archives: October 2020

Make your voice heard, your vote counts!

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Like more than 75 million people, I have already cast my vote. My husband and I were there on the first day of early voting in our state. Millions of voters are willing to stand in long lines to vote. And at a time when new COVID-19 cases are averaging over 72,000 a day.

We are on track for record voter turnout before the election is over. In 2016, about 60% of eligible voters actually voted. Given early voting numbers, the projected 2020 total votes could be record breaking at over 150 million compared to about 135 million in 2016. Voter suppression is real and has taken many forms in this election cycle. It is already too late for mail-in ballots in many states – you will have to take it to a dropbox. And yet, early voting is at a record high.

Yes, I voted for Biden. That should be no surprise if you know me or have read many of my blog posts. I do believe this is the most consequential election in our lifetime. When the votes are counted, it will be either Biden or Trump.

The number of undecided voters is at a record low. If you are one of those undecided voters or leaning towards Trump despite all your concerns, I offer up a few statements for your consideration from some unlikely sources on why they also support Biden:

  • Former Republican Party Chairman, Michael Steele has endorsed Biden. He clearly and thoughtfully articulates his position as a longtime Republican in a recent podcast “My Country Matters: Why I am Endorsing Biden”. In the last few minutes of it, he talks about leadership, decency, and character. He quotes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in saying “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
  • A conservative New Hampshire newspaper, The Union Leader, has not endorsed a Democrat for President in a 100 years. Their editorial “Our Choice is Joe Biden” says “We have found Mr. Biden to be a caring, compassionate and professional public servant. He has repeatedly expressed his desire to be a president for all of America, and we take him at his word. Joe Biden may not be the president we want, but in 2020 he is the president we desperately need. He will be a president to bring people together and right the ship of state.”
  • The CEO of Expensify, David Barrett, has publicly endorsed Biden in an email to 10M customers entitled “Protect democracy, vote for Biden”. In his opening he says, “That’s right, I’m saying a vote for Trump, a vote for a third-party candidate, or simply not voting at all — they’re all the same, and they all mean — I care more about my favorite issue than democracy. I believe Trump winning is more important than democracy. I am comfortable standing aside and allowing democracy to be methodically dismantled, in plain sight.” His full email is included in this Business News article.

I saw a story of a 102-year-old woman born before women had the right to vote who said this is the most consequential election in her life as she cast her vote. If she can get out and vote, so can you.

Don’t sit this one out. Make a plan to vote and help your family and friends make a plan. Make your voice heard. Every vote matters. This election must be decided at the ballot box by your vote, not the courts.

Resources and Related Posts:

I Will Vote

When We All Vote

Fair Fight

Vote your values

Forward together

12 more days – forward together

Doomscrolling? Break the habit with a good book

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I guess I am behind again. The first time I heard the term “doomscrolling” was several days ago when someone tweeted that they looked forward to when they could just read a good book at bedtime instead of doomscrolling. I presume they were referring to getting past the election in two weeks. It resonated with me.

Doing a google search, I see articles going back to the summer months about doomscrolling and anxiety and how to break the cycle. It is described as the practice of endlessly consuming doom-and-gloom news. I find myself looking to see what awful things have happened, been spoken, or tweeted when I get up in the morning and again late at night.

The practice of always having a good book that I’m reading has been harder since this pandemic started. A novel I had just started in early March was set aside for months. I just couldn’t concentrate on reading a book in those early months. A political book I was reading was also set aside. I realized I didn’t need to know the inside story about all the outrageous things that had happened since 2016. I eventually finished the novel though I had to go back many pages to refamiliarize myself with the characters. I have yet to pick up that particular political book again and probably never will.

I just finished a novel that I would highly recommend – “The Daughters of Erietown” by Connie Schultz. It is an excellent story starting in the mid-1940s tracking four generations of women in a northeast Ohio town. It weaves daily life in a blue-collar community with significant historical events including the 1970 shootings at Kent State and the early days of the women’s movement. And yes, I am open to recommendations on my next novel.

I’ve started a non-fiction business book that one of my coachees sent me a while back – “Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder” by Chip Conley. It is described as part manifesto and part playbook for how to become indispensable in the second half of your working life. Continue reading →

Digital health has arrived

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Every healthcare organization seems to be focusing on developing their digital health strategy these days. But do we have a common definition and understanding of what digital health means? A few months back I wrote a post called “Knocking on the digital front door” addressing what many organizations mean when they talk about digital health. Meeting patients where they are and guiding them along the right care pathway with efficient, consistent, and easy processes in the background. It was a very popular post, so I guess it resonated with many.

But digital health encompasses far more than just the digital front door. My StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, has taken on the broader issues of digital health this year in a multi-part blog series on View from the Bridge. Here is his four-part series if you are ready to go deeper on digital health:

Digital Health – Is Healthcare Ready? Are You and Your Organization Ready?

Becoming a Digital Health System

Digital Health – Governance in a Digital Health System

Digital Health – The Role of Empathy and Understanding

If you are interested in future posts in David’s digital health series, subscribe to View from the Bridge to get notifications of new posts. Our team of advisors regularly contributes posts on a wide range of topics relevant to today’s healthcare executives and IT leaders.

And if you are looking for help developing your digital health strategy and roadmap, David or I would be happy to schedule time to talk.

Adapting to virtual project work

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It is encouraging to see major system implementations continue to move forward during this period. Seattle Children’s, UI Health and Steward Health Care are just a few examples of EHR go lives in recent weeks. Kudos to all the teams who are working to ensure they go smoothly and safely as they provide a combination of virtual and onsite support.

My StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, and I just completed an ERP selection with a client. We have moved into the contracting and planning phase. All our work has been virtual. There was a short period where the client team was partially back in their offices but as case numbers in that state rose, they returned to the work from home arrangement with the exception of senior leaders in the office on certain days. The vendors successfully conducted virtual demos over several days with very high participation and engagement by the client organization.

While the vendor of choice is understandably anxious to meet with the client team in person, that is not happening for the foreseeable future. By the time of go live in Spring 2022, it should be a very different situation with onsite work. But for now, it will be all virtual work. And even when regular travel and onsite work is considered safe, I expect more work by the vendor and their implementation team to be done remotely to save on travel costs and time.

Bottom line, we have all made this virtual way of working a success. Yes, there were a few times when being in person in the same room would have really helped – the initial period of work when we were getting to know the client team and some of the key decision meetings. Learning the culture and “reading the room” can be a challenge in the virtual world but it is all doable. Continue reading →