
Perhaps the best way to describe me is that I have gravitated toward the “road less traveled” in my choices.
Dossia is an organization dedicated to improving health and health care in the U.S. by empowering individuals to make good health decisions and become more discerning health care consumers.
National symposium Achieving the Vision: Advancing High-Value Health Care
Fascination with leadership is growing daily, fuelled by global complexity, free-falling capital markets, conflict and growing environmental and social deterioration.
My leadership in the health and healthcare industry is a result of the best-in-class health program developed at Pitney Bowes while I was CEO; and the innovative personal health platform created during my time as an entrepreneur leading Dossia.
I am very interested in leading discussions related to improvements in clinical care, both on-site and in private physicians’ offices, the pharmaceutical marketplace, Medical Schools, academic and contract medical research, wellness providers, health information technology, health policy, public health and health plan design, and evidence-based medical standards. It has been an interesting journey as I became knowledgeable about fields far removed from where I started.
In my work on healthcare, I focused on all aspects of prevention, including the creation of a healthy workplace, excellence in on-site clinical care, innovative, value-based health plan design, stronger consumer and patient engagement.
I created a comprehensive culture of health at Pitney Bowes, a model on which others have built. GSK published two books on value-based innovation in health care at Pitney Bowes. I built a healthcare program over a period beginning in 1990 and ending with my retirement at the end of 2008 that was called out by many, including a case study by the Harvard Business School, as a best-in-class example of producing a "culture of health."
As a chief HR officer, healthcare cost containment had to be reconciled with healthcare quality and employee satisfaction objectives. The company also had to strike a balance between having a relatively simple administrative process and requiring an increasingly diverse set of benefits to address an increasingly diverse workforce.
I have also focused on employee safety to reduce injuries, as well as illnesses, and on ergonomics that reduce repetitive stress injuries. As a chief safety and environmental officer, my goal was to reduce risk by enabling the company to make targeted investments that helped the business, while reducing hazardous emissions and workplace injuries and illnesses.
As an entrepreneur, I have invested and advised several companies, in markets as diverse as nutritional, organic foods, wellness products and services, early stage development of a drug designed to cure multiple neurological diseases.
I have also attempted to influence the healthcare marketplace as a Board member of the Management Services Organization of ProHealth Physicians, and as an Executive Advisor to Alexander Proudfoot, and an advisory board member of RAND Health and the Yale School of Public Health. I have recently taken on the responsibility to participate in an initiative called The Worldwide Wellbeing Initiative.