The best part of my job is that I get to meet smart, energetic, creative people every day. The people who stand out have three qualities. They have a strong and educated perspective grounded in reality. They are friendly. They are willing to help.
All the women in this list have these qualities. Each one has done a little bit of everything. Instead of focusing on only one skill set, such as investing, research or business development, these women have done it all. This mix of professional experiences makes it much easier to access the chances of success, whether it’s a corporate project, a medical device startup, or a government open data initiative.
What makes these women so powerful is that they are willing to share this expertise with colleagues. They don’t hoard their smarts or observe the old-fashioned healthcare hierarchy that shuts out newcomers. They are also open and enthusiastic, which is always refreshing.
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It’s this combination that makes me optimistic about the future of healthcare. If people who are curious, determined and willing to help are focused on the problems of overtreatment, silos, and the lack of data, all those problems are doomed. It may take longer than we like, but they are on the losing side of the fight to make healthcare more effective and more affordable.
Here is why I think these women will make a difference.
Sunnie Southern – the connector/entrepreneur
Sunnie is the kind of person who – five minutes after meeting you – has compiled a list of people you should meet. She not only keeps up with everything that’s going on in the community, she knows what connections need to be made and how to make them. Because of her work launching products with Sanofi, Shire and Xanodyne, she knows what kind of support new ideas need to take hold. She understands how to get the right people in a room to have the discussions that need to take place to make sure things happen.
She runs an HIT accelerator and a consulting business in Cincinnati. She is also a health data affiliate of the Health Data Consortium. This means she is in the loop with the Office of the National Coordinator and other federal IT efforts. She works to promote open data efforts and translates Washington-speak into language the rest of us can understand.
A Personalized Approach to Medication Nonadherence
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
I met Sunnie at her accelerator’s demo day in Cincinnati last summer and again this spring at Datapalooza in Washington DC. She is always in the middle of the most interesting group of people at any event. Her optimism, drive, honest assessment of reality, and talent for making important things happen are what it takes to modernize healthcare.
Amita Shukla – the investor/inventor
I met Amita at the XX in Health retreat in Washington DC. She spoke about investment trends and I was at her table for one of the group discussions. What stood out about Amita was her perspective. She has seen the health industry from all perspectives: consultant, researcher, inventor, investor and entrepreneur. Her expansive and comprehensive view was evident in the way she framed the issues and assessed the best strategy, as the group discussed how to change healthcare.
She was a principal at New Enterprise Associates, focused on healthcare. She also was vice president of AmiKa Corp., a biotechnology company where she helped develop and commercialize novel biomedical research tools, until its acquisition by Harvard Bioscience. She has 10 issued patents from her work there. Earlier in her career, Amita founded two startups and was an analyst at Merrill Lynch, where she focused on healthcare companies. She has a bachelor’s in biochemistry from Harvard University.
Currently she is working on Vitamita, a data-driven wellness startups. Most company mission statements make me roll my eyes, but Vitamita’s is worth reading. My favorite point: Cherish honest critics and realize their courage is your greatest asset. If anyone can take the mushy motivational talk of wellness and make it appeal to a cynic like me, it’s an analyst like Amita.
Lisa Earnhardt – the entrepreneur/engineer
I met Lisa at the medtech investing conference in Minneapolis in May. She is the president and CEO of intersect ENT, a very cool medical device company in San Francisco. She and her team have created a flexible ring coated with steriods to treat nasal polyps. The current treatment for polyps is surgery. This device can be inserted in a doctor’s office. Because the steriods on the ring go directly to the polyp, the overall dose can be lower – which is a big deal for people who have to take a lot of steroids. The other differentiator with this company is that there are two versions of the ring – Propel and Propel Mini. Male is the standard for medical device development, so it is great to see an entrepreneur develop a medical device built to fit women’s bodies.
Lisa is an industrial engineer by training and worked for Boston Scientific for 12 years before starting intersect ENT. When we met in Minneapolis, I mentioned that I had a friend who had to have surgery every few years to have nasal polyps removed. A week or so later, Lisa sent me information on a clinical trial here in Louisville that my friend could check out. Many people (myself included) say, “I’ll send you an e-mail about it!” but the follow up rate is low. Lisa did send me the information which I hope will help my friend find a better way to treat her health issues.
This post is part of the XX in Health Week. Check out RockHealth’s assessment of what women in health have accomplished and what work remains to be done.
