A conversation with Kate McCarthy – Senior Analyst at Forrester
Kate McCarthy is a senior analyst serving CIOs; she focuses on how healthcare organizations can leverage technology to optimize organizational performance and engage patients in new, innovative ways in the age of the customer.
Kate is an expert on healthcare operations, healthcare reform, HIT adoption, and HIT competitive intelligence, providing analyses of trends from strategic direction to operational functions. Her research also addresses the security, system rationalization, and tools necessary to turn big data into actionable insights as well as the digital tools, tactics, and strategies needed to engage today’s empowered healthcare customer.
BRW: What do you hope the audience will learn from this webinar?
Healthcare remains in its infancy on the road to becoming a digital business. Analog processes-paper and phone-remain prevalent in the industry and stand in the way of customer experience and encourage siloed, disconnected care. As the industry seeks ways to better engage their customers, building digital experiences should be top of mind for healthcare leaders. Life science organizations will play a key role in healthcare’s digital transformation journey. As clinical trials are disrupted with apps and as connected digital experiences enable better management of chronic diseases, the life science sector is at the forefront of the digital transformation journey. This webinar will help life science leaders build a digital transformation strategy that enables better customer experiences for personas from physician to caregiver to patient.
BRW: What discussions do you look forward to having with the audience?
I hope attendees bring curiosity about how healthcare is breaking down siloes to better engage its customers. Digital transformation brings new opportunities for life science companies to work hand-in-hand with direct care providers, insurers, and technology innovators to transform the patient experience. I look forward to questions about how to navigate this journey and both the challenges and opportunities ahead.
BRW: What do you enjoy most about your role?
Being an analyst allows me to see the healthcare industry from 30,000 feet. I work with organizations invested in making healthcare better. Seeing digital innovation disrupt the patient experience and deliver improved engagement and outcomes is energizing. Care continues to get closer to the patient as life science, medical device, direct care, insurer and big technology companies all work to digitally transform. Being able to help organizations successfully navigate that transformation is the most exciting part of my work.
BRW: How did you get into the industry?
From a very young age, I was fascinated with healthcare. I pursued a career in the industry in hopes of improving the patient and physician experience. I spent most of my career doing strategy work with providers and insurers, but shifted my focus to digital innovation after being diagnosed with a rare disease in my early thirties. After living through a clunky, disconnected, cost-prohibitive patient experience myself, solving for a more connected patient journey across the ecosystem is something I am personally and professionally committed to.
Where is your favourite place in the world and why?
Telluride, Colorado is my favorite place. It is a little ski village buried in a dramatic box canyon in the San Juan mountains. It is a place that feels stuck in a simpler time in history where outdoor adventures are literally right outside your front door. Whether you’re there for years or days, you will feel right at home in this friendly community. When I’m not working in healthcare, you will almost always find me outside. As John Muir famously said, “The mountains are calling, and I must go.”
Join Kate McCarthy on 25th January for a webinar entitled ‘Digital in Life Sciences: Are You Future Ready? at 4PM GMT / 11AM EST / 9:30PM IST.