For Tom Langan, interim CEO of San Francisco-based Practice Fusion, leading a company at the "epicenter of healthcare" — Silicon Valley — is an exciting challenge.
Mr. Langan serves as Practice Fusion's chief commercial officer and interim CEO, a position he took in August. Before joining Practice Fusion, he was chief commercial officer two other organizations: Horsham, Pa.-based Symphony Health Solutions, a healthcare analytics company, and Yardley, Pa.-based MediMedia, a strategic analysis company.
Founded in 2005, Practice Fusion is the largest cloud-based EHR company in the nation. Through its innovative technology, the company serves over 80 million patients and connects physicians, pharmacies, labs and imaging centers from across the U.S.
Here Mr. Langan took time to speak about ICD-10, his longtime interest in healthcare and his passion for the New York Giants.
Question: What event in healthcare have you been most interested in this past month?
Tom Langan: The most significant is ICD-10 and the impact it has on our practices as well as the industry. Our team has been focusing on it for the past month.
ICD-10 is part of a larger ongoing discussion around interoperability in the hospital community and within HIT. Tied in to that is meaningful use stage 3, and there's a lot of noise in the market about what the timing of it will be. There's uncertainty about it, but I've had my team focusing and working with industry participants on it.
Q: What is one of your daily routines?
TL: Something I do on a monthly basis is conduct an open dialogue with teams across the company.
The dialogue is a CEO meeting with each department in which we discuss what's going well and what's not. It's something we started doing about a year ago. We enjoy it as a management team, and I enjoy it as interim CEO. It's a great way to open up communication and help team members feel they have input in the company.
It all starts with profiles of the team members we hire. We make sure they're a cultural fit, that they're intellectual athletes and that they'll get things done. It's very important that we hire someone who fits our team-oriented, mission-based culture.
Q: How did you decide to pursue your current career path?
TL: When I first came out of college at Fordham University in New York, I wanted to be in healthcare. I always had a passion for healthcare. After college, I began working with large pharmaceutical companies, and my first job out of college was with [New York City-based] Warner Lambert. Then I started working more on the partner side with [New York City-based] Thomson Reuters.
It was natural to come here [to Practice Fusion] from Symphony Health Solutions, which is a data analytics company. I was the chief commercial officer at Symphony. In August, they asked me to take over the leadership of Practice Fusion. I'm now a board member and the interim CEO.
Q: What can you tell me about the CEO selection process and your experience with it?
TL: Practice Fusion needed more of a focus on its commercial side. I was a natural fit because of my experience running a commercial team.
Since I've taken over the role, it's been a little bit of everything — strategic planning, meeting with customers and partners, spending time with investors and board members and working with my leadership team. I'm very focused on the culture and mission of the company and the strategic direction in which we're taking the business. There's so much healthcare IT innovation here in the Valley — it's the epicenter of healthcare.
My family lives on the east coast right now, but I meet with customers from the west coast. Although I'm bi-coastal, I'm still a Giants fan — not a 49ers fan!