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Optimum ExInt Preview

[00:00:00] This episode is sponsored by Optimum Healthcare IT, a best in class healthcare IT digital transformation and consulting firm. Based in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, they offer comprehensive services including Intraprise application services, digital transformation, and workforce management, which includes their Optimum CareerPath skill development program with a leadership team of experts.

Optimum provides tailored healthcare consulting solutions specializing in large scale INITIATIVES LIKE EMR IMPLEMENTATIONS, SERVICE NOW, AND CLOUD MIGRATIONS. THEY EMPOWER HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS WITH ADVANCED IT SOLUTIONS, SEAMLESSLY INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE PATIENT CARE AND STREAMLINE PROCESSES, SHAPING A FUTURE WHERE TECHNOLOGY and Healthcare Intersect.

For more information, check them out at thisweekhealth. com slash Optimum.

I'm Bill Russell, creator of this Week Health, where our mission is to transform healthcare, one connection at a time. This is an [00:01:00] executive interview

quick powerful Conversations with Leaders Driving Change. So let's get started.

Bill Russell: Today we're doing an executive interview, and today I am joined by Scott Gilday, EVP of Managed Services with Optimum Healthcare. It, Scott, how's it going?

Welcome to the show.

ScottGildea: Hey Matt. Great to be here. Good to meet you.

Bill Russell: I'm looking forward to this conversation. There's a lot going on in this space and, I think this is one of the more interesting, discussions, with the one big beautiful bill that has come out and the, cost pressures, really mounting. I've heard a lot of, CIOs looking for creative solutions, and I, I love the direction you guys are going. with a, creative solution here. talk to me a little bit about, what's going on with Optimum Health in, Costa Rica and how are you guys thinking about, that launch and managed services out of that location?

ScottGildea: Yeah, no, absolutely.

So we made some significant investments in Costa Rica, right? an opportunity down there with the presence of talent and a significant amount of foreign direct investment that's been made in [00:02:00] Costa Rica over the last many years by organizations like ServiceNow.

Workday, Amazon, and the like. So we're capitalizing on some of that momentum down there. the presence of talent as well as the kind of geographic similarity and, time zone similarities to the United States and just generally, it's a very friendly place to be from as, a US organization.

So. that coupled with the fact that, our EHR vendors have allowed service in those areas is providing us with some really unique capabilities to serve some of the challenges that we're seeing across the ecosystem today.

Bill Russell: it's interesting we saw this move to India and one of the biggest challenges of moving to India has been they couldn't support everything, specifically with Epic support and those kinds of things. is that one of the reasons you look at a Costa Rica is to be able to do that full suite of services?

ScottGildea: Yeah, a hundred percent. as I alluded to, you know, the geography because of its alliances with the United States and its, friendliness [00:03:00] around IP or, or,

Bill Russell: Epic allows support to be done from there.

ScottGildea: Yeah.

Bill Russell: that's essentially,

ScottGildea: It, it does.

Bill Russell: where we're going to, I mean, yeah, I mean, it was always been one of the challenges as you look at. doing services and, you're not just talking about call center services, you're talking about a full suite of services being offered out of there.

ScottGildea: We are, we are. So when you think about, both the EHR ERPs and the technologies that are surrounding them, We've got the capabilities and the ability to support those ecosystems, And those applications, in totality down there with the talent that they have.

Right. As I mentioned, you know, when you think about, Workday just announced, their investment in Costa Rica, I think in 2024 or late 2025, ServiceNow. AWS just having, a significant presence in that geography, is helping to grow, and make available a significant amount of talent where we haven't seen and candidly at, certainly at, um, at, at a, at scale and with the ability to help us to kind of reduce our portfolio cost to our customers.

Bill Russell: What does this look like? [00:04:00] So, as a former CIO, I'm thinking about this, there was services we just absolutely struggled with. we struggled with, hiring enough security professionals. So we went to a soc and, we move that out. But it's almost that selective outsourcing. That's the mindset I would bring to this is, is there's certain areas where either hiring is difficult.

There's certain areas where the cost of resources, I was in Southern California, the cost of resources was, exorbitant. we actually ended up hiring a lot in West Texas and other places almost with that same mindset of you know, maybe there was just a, a, a more, know. Cost effective, more efficient, and a better access to resources way of doing it.

is that how you, do you see people doing more selective kind of things?

ScottGildea: we have seen a gr significant growth in what I call a la carte, selections around, especially in the managed services space, We're finding that we have to create. And tailor unique solutions to our customers to meet their different needs because their needs are well, cost savings is at the top of everybody's mind [00:05:00] right now,

What we're seeing is, some organizations are more focused on performance base and outcome driven partnerships, they want us to help inject SLAs, KPIs, and processes and procedures inside their organizations, some. Are really genuinely looking for increased flexibility and capacity,

We're in this new cycle of constant innovation in healthcare right now. So they need additional capacity. So they, they're saying, Hey, help us to run the business right while we work on growing the business. And then there's always this underlying need for this cost efficiency, this predictable, predictable, ROI.

So it's really helping us as a tool in our toolbox to meet the diverse needs of our customers right now.

Bill Russell: It's interesting, the, section and off by, the run grow methodology, the Gartner approach. that makes sense to me. There's a whole bunch of things that run is, uh, is, is a natural a natural progression for this. The other thing I'm thinking about is we went to, I mean, during the pandemic, we went all remote.

So this is A [00:06:00] pretty natural migration for a lot of organizations I would think.

ScottGildea: Yeah, hundred percent. I think what we're seeing is, Many of our customers have adopted this remote philosophy while they haven't fully capitalized on some of the benefits that it brings in terms of, targeting certain geographies to help manage cost. We, you know, we did that 10, 15 years ago when I worked, for large systems integrators, right?

We would target. unique geographies in the country that had these little pockets of talent, but significantly less cost. But now we get to do it. Now we get to do it, countrywide, right across the country of Costa Rica. So it certainly opens up a lot more possibilities to us. And again, we're particularly excited about because of the relationships they have with the US because of the political and and geopolitical climate down there.

Um, it's not, you know, it's not like a Mexico Or a Columbia where we see some of our competitors looking at, right. this is genuinely a place, an office, and a geography in which we find our customers want to go, they want to invest in, and they want to see [00:07:00] flourish.

Bill Russell: we've learned so much about how India has done this. They have educated at a very early age. They've, focused on. the STEM skills master's degree. So there's an abundance of talent. That's the reason that they've been successful in this space. I think people would, as we're having this conversation, I'm thinking, man, I've gotta research this a little bit more. Costa Rica has a lot of investment, as you talked about, and the, companies really, looking there and the relationship between the US and whatnot. but I'm wondering about that talent. how is the talent being cultivated in that country?

ScottGildea: Yeah, I mean, I think, what's really unique, and I think what is a really strategic differentiator for us at Optimum is Optimum over six years ago. Optimum created what they call the Career Path Program, and this program was focused on partnering with CHIME to create a 16 week curriculum in which we historically were taking individuals that were college graduates in the United States, running 'em through our curriculum, working with our EHR partners to have them certified or skilled on those respective EHRs, and then placing [00:08:00] them in healthcare organizations for our customer.

And it's been wildly successful. We've placed hundreds and hundreds of individuals. So we've effectively already developed an educational curriculum that's applicable to our people in Costa Rica. So we effectively have a turnkey capability, to start orienting and educating them on the basics of healthcare.

And then coupling that with shadowing and certification process by EHR vendors as well as. shadowing our teams. what's coming out of that is, a tremendously powerful tool, with individuals who are skilled and educated. No, no, certainly not as skilled as educated as we have experienced analysts in the United States, but there's certainly, we're, there's, we're finding that they're certainly, much more successful, than we would've ever hoped for.

Bill Russell: that only improves over time. I guess my last question on this is, you know, what does it look like? I've seen a lot of different programs over the years of. rebadging, rehiring, I've seen uh, different programs where it's again, you know, selective outsourcing and you just take it, take an area and do that.

I mean, [00:09:00] what kind of mechanisms are available to organizations as they're looking at this?

ScottGildea: Yeah, there's several, as I mentioned, molo carte solutions previously, right? So, we offer a multitude of solutions. One is. You know, we work with our customers to, it's been a crawl, walk, run type of philosophy, right? Where we look to inject these capabilities and capacity inside their organizations fractionally, right, to help as a strategy, to, as a, as an attrition strategy inside their organizations, right?

other organizations. We look to help, segment. when you think about that, that, plan, build, run delivery model, we look to try to help them segment their organizations and focus their resources on specific areas within a plan build run model. Where we may, as an example, we may take the run functions of the organizations and we're finding that, it really is helping them drive towards the, their.

their goals around cost, cost efficiency, and driving increased flexibility and capacity inside the organizations

Bill Russell: I could see us also if we were doing a migration to have you guys take [00:10:00] over some things while the team. Focuses in on, a new build or something to that effect. that makes a lot of sense.

ScottGildea: helps.

Bill Russell: Well, Scott, I appreciate the time. I look forward to, seeing how this progresses and, you know, we'll, we'll chat some more in the future.

I'd love to hear how, everything, moves forward.

ScottGildea: Yeah, thanks for.

Thanks for joining us for this executive interview with me, bill Russell. Every healthcare leader needs a community they can lean on and learn from. Subscribe at this week, health.com/subscribe and share this conversation with your team. Together we're transforming healthcare.

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