The Future Is Now: Mike Lipps of Intelerad Medical Systems On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
The value — and broader impact — of enterprise imaging technology can be broken down into three different constituents: hospital admins, clinicians, and patients — with the end goal of achieving the triple aim of healthcare: elevating the patient experience, decreasing the cost of healthcare, and improving the overall health of a population.
As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs I had the pleasure of interviewing Mike Lipps, CEO, Intelerad Medical Systems, a global leader in medical image management solutions.
Mike Lipps is Chief Executive Officer of Intelerad Medical Systems. With over 20 years of software industry and leadership experience at companies such as Intuit, LexisNexis and insightsoftware, he has a proven track record of driving transformative growth for customers by applying technology to solve complex challenges. Mike’s expertise in technology combined with his deep understanding of the healthcare industry and passion to help others has led Intelerad to significantly expand its presence globally and deliver innovative solutions that enable healthcare providers to improve efficiency and patient outcomes.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I’ve always had a passion for technology and using it to solve large, complex problems in our world. My career started in functional roles like marketing and product management and then pivoted into more operationally focused roles, which ultimately led to my CEO tenure today. After holding various leadership positions at several large software and technology companies, I found myself with the opportunity to lead Intelerad, a global leader in medical image management software. My passion for healthcare stems from my family. I, along with my two siblings, were raised by a single mom who did everything for her children but often put her needs on the back burner. When she was diagnosed with cancer in her early 50’s, it was already too late — she had reached stage 4 and didn’t live beyond her 60th birthday. It was too late for me to become a doctor at that stage of my career, but it’s the type of painful life experience many of us have had that illustrates the critical importance of quality healthcare. It certainly motivated me to want to lead Intelerad and see how I could use my expertise to contribute to this important field.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Throughout my career I’ve been fortunate to have met many valuable mentors along the way — and I’m very grateful for that. However, one day in particular changed everything in terms of my career direction. I was in a marketing role at Intuit, and I received a phone call to meet with the CEO. I admittedly was a bit nervous. He told me that he saw a leadership path for me at the company, however, in order to be a future leader, he believed I needed to have a stronger operational background. So, he pulled me out of my marketing leadership role and threw me into a Six Sigma process excellence role, working on projects across the company. I walked into that meeting as a manager of a big team, and walked out as an individual contributor in a role that I knew nothing about. It turned out to be the most impactful 18 months of my career. My mentors during this time helped me to not just be successful in my role, but to also understand how great businesses operate. From learning customer needs, driving operational rigor and cultivating an engaging employee experience, I developed a passion for how to decompose a business into actionable pieces and improve them systematically over time. This role is what fed my desire to be a CEO.
Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you/your company are working on?
In the context of healthcare, technology is nowhere near being evenly distributed amongst populations, and this gap is where my passion for solving disparities of imaging modalities began. Access to care, especially in rural or underserved areas, is imbalanced, and this is one problem Intelerad solves. We enable records, images, etc., to be read by any specialist, no matter their location, and we’re focused on delivering a best-in-class, cloud-based enterprise imaging solution that elevates the patient experience, decreases the cost of healthcare, and improves the overall health of populations. Our goal is to provide an enterprise imaging hub that supports our clients’ overall growth, and that helps hospitals and health systems truly achieve efficiency and interoperability.
How do you think the tech/product will help people/an industry at large?
Hospitals and health systems have faced immense, unexpected challenges during COVID-19. From spiking patient demand, increasing costs and lost revenue, to overworked staff and the need to quickly add virtual care services, providers are facing record levels of exhaustion and burnout. At the same time, they have been navigating the move to value-based care, which is a cataclysmic shift in the way hospitals historically operate. At Intelerad, we (and our customers) know that an enterprise imaging platform can ease the pain points associated with the value-based care movement as well as COVID-era challenges.
The value — and broader impact — of enterprise imaging technology can be broken down into three different constituents: hospital admins, clinicians, and patients — with the end goal of achieving the triple aim of healthcare: elevating the patient experience, decreasing the cost of healthcare, and improving the overall health of a population.
- Hospital Admins — Hospitals need solutions that automate mundane, time-consuming tasks and provide greater insights about patient information. A cloud-based enterprise imaging platform can help them maintain a high quality of patient care and avoid the challenges and expense of recurring investments in technology and IT staffing, while also providing up-to-date technology and security controls to maintain productivity and business continuity.
- Clinicians — By reducing technological burdens, providers can focus on treating patients and improving care, a key tenet to value-based care. Hospitals are looking to broader platforms that consolidate multiple systems into one interoperable environment, further optimizing workflows and ultimately improving patient care.
- Patients — Via a central, cloud-based solution, patients can have their images examined and interpreted by leading experts anywhere in the world as fast as it may have taken a local doctor just a few years ago. These capabilities play a key role in value-based care going forward, giving patients in rural or underserved areas better access to high-quality healthcare diagnostics and treatments.
Thank you for your time, and your excellent insights! We wish you continued success.
The Future Is Now: Mike Lipps of Intelerad Medical Systems On How Their Technological Innovation… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
