Data-Driven Work Cultures: Angela Fox Of Bright.md On How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
View Analytics as Storytelling. Build a data analytics team that includes people who are skilled at turning numbers into stories and insights. This can help make overwhelming data streams more easily digestible and helps to inspire others across the organization to get excited about data. It also helps you communicate big ideas simply and clearly to stakeholders.
As part of our series about “How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Angela Fox.
Angela Fox is the Head of Analytics at Bright.md, a leading asynchronous telehealth solution trusted by health systems to automate clinical workflows and administrative tasks, improve patient and provider engagement, and drive operational efficiency. In her role, she leads all aspects of analytics and business intelligence to bring to life key data stories that inform business strategy, measure the impact of product improvements, inspire customers, and strengthen the brand. She is a healthcare analytics leader with a deep understanding of risk-based financial models, measurement best practices, and population health strategies.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I got started in data pretty early on in my career. I studied math in college, and my first job out of school was in analytics doing statistical reporting for a property and casualty insurance company. Eventually, I found my way into healthcare analytics and worked for Providence Health & Services for nine years in the population health division. That led me to my current role at Bright.md, where as Head of Analytics, I lead all aspects of data analytics and business intelligence to inform business strategy, measure the impact of product improvements, inspire customers, and strengthen our brand.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
Mistakes when it comes to data are rarely funny! I still cringe to think about calculation errors, data refresh failures, and awkward presentations from those early years. We have all done them. Enough said!
One big mistake I did make earlier in my career was thinking it was just a matter of how you present the data that will get someone to respond to it. So, if people were not reacting, I thought I must not be presenting it correctly. I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels and iterating and refining my visualization skills to present data in a way I thought would inspire people and encourage them to take action.
Although it was a great learning experience and allowed me to hone my skills, I eventually realized that sometimes organizations are just not going to respond to the data, no matter how well you present it to them. Whether that’s because there are other strategic considerations at play, they need time to consider their next move, or they are just slow to act, the root cause is not the analyst presenting the data. Learning this lesson was very freeing. I now recognize that sharing data is like telling stories — some will resonate with your audience and others will not. It’s not always obvious to me what is going to inspire people and now I think that’s one of the things that makes my work so interesting.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
I think my real-life experiences have had a more significant impact on me than any book or podcast. I’ve learned valuable lessons from my colleagues and mentors about how they’re approaching data, how they’re measuring performance, and how they’re creatively working with imperfect information. I have found that learning from your peers and having a curious mind has been essential to a successful career in data.
Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
One of the things we’re currently working on at Bright.md is an overhaul of our customer-facing dashboards. There has been a realization when it comes to reporting that just seeing numbers isn’t quite getting anyone where they want to be. What organizations really want are insights to help guide them to success. To achieve this, we’re building a robust, customer-centric reporting package that really equips our customers with the information they care about most — patient experience, provider efficiency, clinical quality and overall value. We’re hoping to translate the large amount of data at our fingertips into data stories that will help customers make program decisions and get the most out of asynchronous care.
We’re showing them data about provider variation that can spark conversations among clinical teams. These conversations often lead to process improvements around quality and efficiency. We’re highlighting trends in patient experience that will reinforce workflows that best meet patient needs. Through industry benchmarks and comparisons with similar customers, we’re helping our health system partners understand what’s possible and inspiring them to think bigger and broader.
We’re excited to serve up data stories that will ultimately improve healthcare for years to come.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about empowering organizations to be more “data-driven.” My work centers on the value of data visualization and data collaboration at all levels of an organization, so I’m particularly passionate about this topic. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly it means to be data-driven? On a practical level, what does it look like to use data to make decisions?
To be data-driven, you need to be leveraging data to make better decisions. Metrics should be used as feedback to evaluate how you are doing and if you are on track, and not as a measuring stick or a punishment tool. You can almost think of data as street signs or GPS, guiding you in which way you need to go to get to your destination. Listening to that data as a guide and responding to it is ultimately how you succeed in becoming data-driven.
On a practical level, I have seen a lot of companies focus on success metrics which are often outcome-based measures. It can take a long time to get that information, and in healthcare in particular it can often take years. While you wait for those results, your program could be headed way off track and you may waste a lot of time, money and resources. So, you must learn to be comfortable with leading indicators — these are the activities that are most likely to result in the desired outcomes. They are easy to measure, can be tracked early and often. Then, you need to listen to that data frequently and tweak your strategy in response.
Which companies can most benefit from tools that empower data collaboration?
Absolutely all of them! I can’t think of an organization that wouldn’t benefit. Within Bright.md, we have a lot of different divisions. I’m working with product and engineering all the time to measure whether the product feature had the impact we hoped it would, if it is driving more business, etc. Then I’m working with sales and marketing to discuss how we talk about the product, what quality metrics it is hitting, and how that is ultimately helping physicians to deliver better healthcare. At the same time, I’m working with finance, and customer success to monitor volumes and ensure we’re delivering financial value. There is a place for data in all organizations and throughout all departments.
We’d love to hear about your experiences using data to drive decisions. In your experience, how has data analytics and data collaboration helped improve operations, processes, and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.
One of the things I appreciate most about Bright.md is the truly data-driven leadership team we have in place. The planning phase of every new initiative, project, and product feature includes a set of success metrics and predetermined measurement plan. These are co-designed with analytics to ensure the measures will be available, reliable, and timely. As soon as the project is implemented, tracking begins and the entire organization can watch the progress through company-wide dashboards.
One great example of this is when we launched Navigate, a digital front door for our customers. With this product, patients can go to their provider’s website, search for their condition, and get directed to the recommended care option in the health system based on their symptoms. When we released this, we also implemented a pathway that enabled patients to choose Bright.md through the digital front door and begin an asynchronous visit.
Because we were so closely monitoring the funnel of patients entering Navigate and then at key points along the journey, within an hour of releasing the product we were able to see significant drop off at one point in the funnel. We quickly brought a team together to develop a few hypotheses around why this might be happening. As we tested each hypothesis with product tweaks, we could track the impact nearly in real time. After just a day, we uncovered the root problem in the patient journey. Within a few days we repaired the issue and cleared the blockage in the funnel.
This was only possible due to our culture of early collaboration with analytics, defining key success metrics, making data visible company wide, being comfortable responding to early feedback and leading indicators, and embracing data as a source of guidance.
Has the shift towards becoming more data-driven been challenging for some teams or organizations from your vantage point? What are the challenges? How can organizations solve these challenges?
I think the shift towards becoming more data-driven has been challenging because a lot of organizations may recognize the need for data, but never make it beyond the foundational stage. They start out on the right track with establishing data governance for reliability, developing driver metrics for tracking and accountability, and ensuring access to data for visibility. But then they stumble on building a data-driven leadership team to evangelize and set the tone for the organization, integrating analytics into strategic decisions, and figuring out how to get comfortable taking action on early indicators.
Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Effectively Leverage Data to Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Establish the Analytics Team as a Strategic Partner. Whether it is the product, marketing, or operations departments, incorporating analytics expertise early in the organizational process is pivotal to ensuring teams can track and measure progress. The involvement of the analytics team will also help to improve data literacy across the organization through modeling, coaching, and partnering. Including them in conversations early will help to steer the organization to success and ensure that the necessary information is captured.
- Involve Data Decision-Makers in Leadership Discussions. So many companies position analytics as order takers — this is a mistake. Leadership should come to the analytics team with big questions and a starting hypothesis or two and let them take it from there. If your analytics team understands the business and where it’s headed, they can anticipate what key information leadership will need to get there. Sometimes it will mean new data they have to start collecting and incorporating into the data infrastructure
- View Analytics as Storytelling. Build a data analytics team that includes people who are skilled at turning numbers into stories and insights. This can help make overwhelming data streams more easily digestible and helps to inspire others across the organization to get excited about data. It also helps you communicate big ideas simply and clearly to stakeholders.
- Get Comfortable with Leading Indicators. It’s all about frequently listening to what the data is saying and tweaking your strategy to respond accordingly. Data will not be perfect — and you need to be OK with that. This sentiment is particularly true within healthcare and with any kind of innovation, as outcomes that are statistically significant can take months or years. Do your research and rely on existing studies in the interim to pick the right early indicators.
- Reward Measurement that Leads to Action — Don’t Obsess Over Outcomes. Of course, you need to have success metrics and target setting for new initiatives to hold teams accountable. However, it’s the way you hold them accountable that really matters. So many organizations get data wrong by viewing this in terms of black and white. It’s not — we met/we didn’t meet (pass/fail). It’s about what have we learned and how are we responding to it. This requires risk-taking and building a culture where it’s okay to fail sometimes in order to promote innovation in the long run.
The name of this series is “Data-Driven Work Cultures”. Changing a culture is hard. What would you suggest is needed to change a work culture to become more Data Driven?
To create a data-driven culture, you really need data-driven leaders that understand and recognize the importance of data. Having that data literacy at the top will help to reinforce the importance of data within the company culture. I would reiterate the importance of having storytellers on your analytics team, as they will be the ones to get people excited and help them realize the possibilities that data can provide. At Bright.md, we have a big Slack culture, and the analytics team is constantly posting insights on team channels about new trends we see emerging that might be interesting to that team. This opens up the conversation and continuously keeps the organization excited about the work we are doing.
The future of work has recently become very fluid. Based on your experience, how do you think the needs for data will evolve and change over the next five years?
I think the need for data is absolutely evolving, and it’s not just the need for data itself anymore — it is the need for insights and stories. Early in my career, I saw this big movement to simply have access to data and capture it correctly. From there, it evolved to creating dashboards and providing public access to this information, regardless of the fact that it was overwhelming and indecipherable to most people who weren’t specialists. Now, we’re in an age of insights and storytelling which is really inspiring people to see the value in data. From my perspective, our next data frontier will be leveraging big data for predictive analytics and machine learning, where we’re already seeing a lot of innovation. I think we’re only at the beginning of that journey and I’m excited to see where it goes next.
Does your organization have any exciting goals for the near future? What challenges will you need to tackle to reach them? How do you think data analytics can best help you to achieve these goals?
We have some exciting things coming up on our product roadmap at Bright.md, including deepening our EHR interoperability, improving our patient and provider experiences, and widening access to make it easier for more people to use asynchronous care. Analytics will continue to partner with the product team to set success metrics, provide real-time feedback and tell those key data stories that emerge.
Coming out of discussions with our health system partners who are struggling with massive financial losses and workforce shortages, we’re refining our approach to measuring the value of telehealth investments–and asynchronous care in particular. We’re analyzing large customer data sets so we can better project future visit volumes, quantify the impact of key value levers and articulate the distribution of value across multiple cost centers. Healthcare is complex and we want to make it easy for our customers to deliver fast, high-quality, convenient care to those who need it most.
How can our readers further follow your work?
You can find out more about the work Bright.md is doing by heading to our website or following us on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Data-Driven Work Cultures: Angela Fox On How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
