Information is power. Having the information about patients’ health can make their families feel safe and allow them to monitor their health status. The inspiration behind the company establishment of Backpack Health was the share of similar problems and the way to solve them. It all started with Diane and Mark Goldman (Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder, Backpack Health), who were struggling to manage documents of their son suffering from a chronic condition. They met Jim Cavan (President and CEO, Backpack Health), an avid leader with a background in emergency medicine and medical research.
Jim and the Goldman duo wasted no time and gathered a team of people as dedicated to the cause and laid the foundation of Backpack Health. It is a health tech company building tools to help people manage their health details, care, and communication. The journey had its ups and downs, its hurdles and successes. But the team did not give up and today the company is amongst the leading health tech company. “We’re making it easy for everyone to access, own and control all of their health information to support better health for themselves, their loved ones, their communities, and for us all,” said Jim.
A Transformational Leader, Avid Traveler and Amateur Chef
“Being fully informed by specific personal information is the best way to participate in your own healthcare, even if you are just making decisions about lifestyle changes or something,” said Jim. He is a very passionate healthcare leader, he believes that the opportunities to have individuals take advantage of technology and access of technology to improve their healthcare by being a true health historian is achievable and real. He has been in the healthcare industry for more than two decades and has a great passion for helping healthcare companies tackle systemic problems.
In addition to this, the development of Backpack Health is the result of several key goals of his, including improved access to and control of medical information, and less obtrusive collection of research data. Jim terms his journey as amazing. He has been constantly motivated by great people along the way to becoming one of the transformational leaders. He started his career in emergency medicine, understanding the basics of compassion for patients, calm under fire, teamwork and fairness. Today, he leads the team of Backpack Health to assist patients with their records.
Apart from being an exceptional healthcare leader, he is an avid traveler and amateur chef. He is closely involved in hobbies like fishing and he is a dedicated bibliophile. “As we all hear often, I learned more from the failures than the successes,” concludes Jim. For the coming years, he plans to adjust his focus on coaching startups and working on foundation boards or advocacy groups.
Precisely Focusing On Key Issues
The roles and responsibilities of the leader are numerous; every leader has to be on the foot to take charge of any role at any given time. Being in the healthcare industry, Jim has to perform different responsibilities every day. He did highlight that the key areas that he precisely focuses on are ethics, privacy, and security of data.
Explaining his tasks further, Jim says, “Most of our users don’t actually know what our obligations are to them, but they DO know what they are worried about. So, we focus on those key issues; security of their data, privacy, adaptability to an individual’s reality or choice of expression.”
Teammates Performing Beyond Expectations
Challenges and obstacles can never be avoided by companies. However, culture is the key to resolve the evitable challenges that arise. Jim gives credit to the team and culture for tackling challenges. “Our culture has been a key to our ability to resolve the evitable challenges that arise,” proudly asserts Jim. The Backpack’s team of professionals is empowered to make decisions and solve problems collaboratively.
A great team leads to great success. Understanding the same, Backpack invests a lot of time in hiring and selecting the candidates for the company. People are the most important asset to the company and the key and foundation to the business. When these teammates are engaged to their responsibilities and the other priorities are well addressed the results are generally beyond expectations.
Flattering Client and Community Support
Backpack health is extremely thankful for the client’s feedback it receives. The support of the community and clients is always very flattering for the company. Clients have described Jim to be a consistent collaborator with them. Expressing his gratitude Jim concludes by saying, “We are very thankful for the unsolicited comments that are out there. I hope that they say I have their best interest at heart and have been a consistent collaborator with them.”
Upgrading the platform with the changes
The healthcare market is highly impacted by globalization and will continue to be affected by it in the coming years. Due to the cross border access of care and knowledge sharing, the best practices are getting into universal adoption. It is also anticipated that there will be platforms with enhanced language and cultural variability that will open up access for research and commercialization to populations despite the language or social barriers. Apart from globalization, technology is also effectively influencing the industry. The smartphones are allowing individuals to keep track of their healthcare records.
The emerging trends can only prove to be beneficial when individuals can easily access them. The company is looking forward to 2020 as a big year in terms of upgrading the platform. It will be making significant moves to add languages, requested services, and unique functionality. According to Jim, the necessity of including the voice of the patients in every aspect of the industry should be at the center of these new trends and upgrades.
