Leading in the Time of COVID-19
Our society and the health care system have been tested during the pandemic and, in turn, so have its many leaders. My leadership style had to adapt rapidly. As CEO of AliveCor, I was challenged with evolving our offerings to aid with the pandemic, while still ensuring decisions were driven by our mission to transform cardiology. Because of this experience, I have relearned, and coached my team on, the importance of remaining nimble in the face of the unexpected. I have experienced true strength in numbers. And I have recognized again that there is something valuable to learn from every crisis.
Remaining nimble
The moment the pandemic hit, I prepared my team to be flexible and ready to pivot. We quickly shifted our efforts to deliver a solution that would help those most in need right now. AliveCor has the world’s only FDA-cleared, six-lead personal ECG device—KardiaMobile 6L. This put us in a unique position to offer real value to health care providers and patients battling COVID-19.
We developed a measurement service that helps health care providers monitor dangerous heart intervals (QTc) in patients being treated for coronavirus. This service lifts some of the burden off the strained health care system and provides crucial remote monitoring capabilities to those in need. Our commitment to remaining nimble allowed us to efficiently adapt workflows and do our part to help fight the pandemic.
Strength in numbers
I believe that collaboration and leveraging each other’s strengths is crucial for success. The pandemic has been a critical catalyst, pushing leaders across industries to come together and develop solutions for complex problems. At AliveCor, we built strategic partnerships with leading technology companies—including OMRON, ERT, and Medable—to expand our offerings to patients across the world. These partnerships have made clear that in order to scale and make health care truly accessible, collaboration is key.
Learning from crisis
COVID-19 has taught us that our health care system has much work to do in order to successfully navigate a pandemic like this now and in the future. Having witnessed the unpreparedness of our current systems, I believe that every effort in progress today should have the aim of preparing us better for the future. At AliveCor, I have committed to ensuring that everything we develop—services, AI, software, hardware, and workflows—is entirely scalable. Making these investments today will help ensure our health system is in the best position possible in the future.
While there’s no playbook for a pandemic, I will continue to drive my team to face new challenges with grit and to work together to provide our services to the patients and health care providers who need them most.
