1. C. Sean Howard – Q & A
Job History
My Bachelor’s Degree is in Business Administration with a concentration in
Human Resource Management. I also spent a year in Sweden studying
intercultural studies.
Post graduation, in 1997, I worked at a medical insurance company in a large
national call center. From there, I went to my first IT job for a Medical Practice
Management system. I worked on the helpdesk as well as coordinating their EDI
program for electronic claim submissions.
In 1999, I had the opportunity to work for a software start up company out of Yale
University. I was employee number 13 and the only person in their support
department. The company started out as a Yale Doctoral thesis program with
the hopes of making it a commercial product. At this company, I ran the support
and training department for our web based knowledge management software.
When the start up ran out of funding in 2002, I took my medical background at
the insurance company and practice management company, and went to Quest
Diagnostics as the Client Systems Manager. I managed a group of Field Techs
that were responsible for hardware and software support. I worked closely with
our sales department for onsite demo’s, making physician and hospital workflow
suggestions, and interfacing Quest Lab data with physician/hospital Lab and
electronic medical records systems.
In 2008, I worked as an Operations Manager for CuraScript Specialty Pharmacy,
a subsidiary of Express Script national mail order pharmacy. Learning the
Pharmacy business was a new and exciting experience for me. While at
CuraScript, I was a people leader of up to 50 staff members that were supporting
the specialty prescriptions needs of our Patients.
Most recently, in 2010, I took my Six Sigma, Medical, and Technology
background where I am currently the Implementation Manager for MEDai. MEDai
is a data mining software suite (Pinpoint) that facilitates improved quality care in
the hospital setting.
Management History / Style
My management style has a focus on collaboration. I view the manager as the
person that removes obstacles for the employees, motivates and develops staff,
and keeps the group focused on the goals of the business, and empowers them
with the tools they need to effectively do their job.
2. In my previous roles at CuraScript and Quest Diagnostics, I had employees with
more work experience or have been with the company a decade longer than
myself. I value and respect their experience and recognize their unique
perspective.
I find that being available for your employees is a key factor to being a successful
manager. When my employees report a problem with their job, I assist and
facilitate to gain a solution. I am their advocate. An open door policy is an
understatement for me. My staff has a judgment free zone when they come into
my office. They feel comfortable to come to me about anything and I will be there
to listen, offer advice, and work towards a resolution.
My Six Sigma Green Belt certification has taught me the methodology for
managing projects with facts and data. That is a critical way to track
performance. As long as the expectations are clearly defined to the employees
and you empower them to reach those goals, the group will be successful.
Currently, I am in a non people leader position, but with future growth it can
easily develop into a larger team.
Can I perform my staff’s jobs if I had to? How well?
I absolutely can do 90% of what my staff does. I think an effective leader needs
to be able to do what their staff does. You gain the respect of your staff when
they know you will roll up your sleeves and do their job.
Now, as a Manager, it may not be possible to do the job as effectively as the
employees, but as a leader, you can’t make changes if you do not understand
the process.
Describe helpdesk experience (customer size, solution type, etc.)
I have worked on 5 helpdesk / call centers in my career: Oxford Health Plans,
Vital Works, Mirror Worlds, Quest Diagnostics, and CuraScript Pharmacy.
Oxford Health Plans was a customer service desk with approximately 40 call
center analysts. I did not manage this group, but it gave me experience of a call
center environment. Each analyst would take about 50 calls per day focusing on
medical claims and benefit questions.
Vital Works was an IT helpdesk, which I worked on supporting the proprietary
medical practice management system. The software was client sever based.
Each day, analysts would take approximately 60 calls.
At Mirror Worlds Technologies, I started out as the only helpdesk person. When
we expanded to three more staff members, I became the manager of the group.
This is where I learned the most about helpdesk operating procedures. Because
3. it was a software start up, there were no resources to refer to with questions. I
had to teach myself about service level agreements and establish standard
operating procedures for the team. We only took about 15 calls each day, but the
complexity of the issues was much more involved. We supported a web based
knowledge management product with a SQL back end.
In 2002, I joined Quest Diagnostics. Quest is a clinical laboratory company. The
team, consisted of four direct reports, but grew to eight a few years later. The
entire group took about 40 calls per day. We were Tier 1, 2, and 3. We
supported a web based portal for physicians to do their laboratory ordering and
resulting online. I also worked on demographic interfaces from a physician’s
billing system into our web application as well as result interfaces into a
Clinicians EMR.
In 2008, when I was at CuraScript Specialty Pharmacy, I managed a Physician
call center that facilitated Clinical in calling in new prescriptions or clarification on
existing orders.
How well did I know the products I supported?
As someone who trains and supports the product, I consider myself a subject
matter expert. The product constantly changes, which means I need to
continuously learn the new features and functionality. I often logged into the web
based product to learn what new features had been added. It is essential that I
stayed up- to- date on the release notes. By participating in release validations,
my knowledge increased. I often got involved with the business requirements in
order to represent the end user’s perspective. It was my job to make sure the
features the development team added to the product made sense for the end
user.
Describe experiences interacting with senior management (VP and above)
I had many opportunities to interact with senior management. Often I was asked
to give presentations to local executives as-well-as regional VP’s. At Quest
Diagnostics, I led a regional group between peers and IT Directors to share best
practices and facilitate collaboration. At CuraScript, I routinely presented to the
Senior Director level.
How do I handle upset customers?
It is important to acknowledge the problem. You need to let the person vent.
There is nothing worse that trying to speak to someone if you cannot let him or
her express their feelings. I speak to someone in a calm tone to get them to
match my communication style. I gather as many facts on the problem and
explain to them how I will work on the issue. I communicate the expectations with
the client on how that issue will be addressed and resolved. Also, it is important
4. to keep in contact with the customer on their outstanding issues. Clients get very
frustrated if they are not kept in the loop. Even if I do not have a resolution, I will
still let them know that the problem is still under investigation.
Describe a stressful day.
Everyday has various levels of stress. When I first started as Quest & CuraScript,
I had to get use to the minute-to- minute changes. In the beginning it was very
stressful having a set of priorities and then having them turn upside down. Now,
I have learned to go with the flow. It is impossible to have a predictable day. I
have learned to adjust and have developed a skill for prioritization. Sometimes it
is not possible to get everything done by the end of the day, so prioritizing is
critical.
Top 2 strengths and Opportunities?
Strengths – Collaboration & Organization
Collaboration – There are hardly any accomplishments I can do all on my own.
This is especially true in a Project Manager role that I am currently in. In order to
get an objective met, I need to work both with various groups within the business
and outside of the company. I heavily depend on the relationships I have built.
Organization – I am very organized. I receive a lot of information and data on a
daily basis and need to be able to recall and retrieve it quickly.
Opportunities – Stopping & To Do’s
Stopping – I like everything to be done to the best of my ability for specific tasks
and my overall job. Not everything can be perfect in a job, so I need to remind
myself that I do the best I can especially when there is a clear deliverable date. I
have learned this mostly when I worked for the software start up company. We
would have SDLC (software development life cycle) and although we would try
and find all the bugs, it was not possible to do so. This would require us to make
decisions on production go lives and understanding there will always be minor
opportunities with each release.
To Do’s – When I joined my last two companies, there were many different
deliverables with due dates. It was a challenge for me to keep up with all of them.
I have taken steps to remedy this challenge by keeping an electronic to do list in
my outlook folder and to schedule time on my calendar to work on a specific
project.
5. Describe Healthcare experience.
I have had extensive experience in the Healthcare field. I have worked several
aspects of Healthcare (Medical Insurance, Physician Practice Management
Software, Laboratory, Pharmacy, and Hospital software).
I worked for Oxford Health Plans as a Medicare Liaison doing claims adjustments
and providing benefit support to the members. I supported both patients and
clinicians.
At Vital Works, I worked for a practice management / EMR company that made
products for oral and plastic surgeons. I supported customer offices with their
PMS as-well-as supporting their EDI module for maximum claims
reimbursement.
At Quest Diagnostics, I learned the laboratory side of healthcare, which is a
fascinating business. I went to many physician offices to sell them on our web
based connectivity solutions. There was nothing more satisfying than to take a
physician’s office from all paper to electronic lab orders and results. I was able to
provide them with the tools they needed to better manage their patient
population, negotiate better reimbursement rates, pay for performance, and do
better disease management. The end result was better patient care.
At CuraScript, an Express Scripts subsidiary, I was exposed to a new aspect of
the Healthcare field, Pharmacy. Specifically, CuraScript is a mail order pharmacy
that handles medications not available at general pharmacies. The urgency and
expensive of these medication is very much escalated. Servicing the Patient
literally can be a life or death deliverable. I managed various teams including the
Pharmacy Technicians that were responsible for obtaining prescriptions and
entering the prescripts into the system. I also managed the Prior Authorization
team which was tasked with ensuring proper insurance approvals were in place
prior to the Patient’s need by date.
