Healthcare Leadership with Dan Nielsen

The following is the first of a regular Healthcare Leadership blog by Dan Nielsen, Founder of the National Institute for Healthcare Leadership. Nielsen will provide insight and interviews from healthcare leaders, reviews of books and other learning material on management topics, as well as other topics related to what it takes to succeed as a leader and manager in today’s business world. First up – an interview with JHC publisher John Pritchard.

 

 

Healthcare Leadership

with Dan Nielsen dnielsen@nihcl.com

John Pritchard

Healthcare Leader, Innovator and Entreprenuer 

 

Excellent leaders maintain a laser-like focus on their mission and on serving others … helping other people and organizations succeed. This is precisely what John Pritchard does! 

John is the President and General Manager of Medical Distribution Solutions, Inc., a leading publishing and content company providing information, communication and educational services to providers, manufacturers and distributors involved in the business of healthcare.  John Pritchard is also the publisher of The Journal of Healthcare Contracting and The MAX.

An enthusiastic, energetic, successful innovator and entrepreneur, John is constantly looking for and creating new ways to add value to those people and organizations he and his companies serve.

I asked John to describe his vision for JHC’s Blog.  “We envision the JHC’s blog becoming a key resource for supply chain professionals and other healthcare leaders who will use the blog to access information and have dialog with other professionals across the USA and around the world.  We envision a clearing house of critical information and best practices … finding best ways to accomplish the goals and objectives of those healthcare professionals who use the blog … and do so in real time.”

  

“The blog will stay true to and enhance our focus on providing high-value insight, understanding and community. Using all the conveniences and immediacy offered by state of the art world-wide digital infrastructure and communication tools, there will be real time dialog where supply chain and other healthcare leaders can interact with peers regarding what is top of mind. We also want other healthcare leaders to contribute to the blog.” 

“Our focus is to continue to help supply chain stakeholders be most effective and more efficient through use of our information, communication and education products. The blog adds a new level of immediacy that is imperative in today’s fast paced world. The luxury of waiting a day, a week, a month for critical information is a thing of the past. This blog, combined with our other programs, products and services, will help healthcare professionals ask the right questions, obtain the right information, make the right decisions and implement those decisions immediately.”

“We talk to supply chain leaders every single day. By truly understanding their challenges intimately, we can help supply chain stakeholders be as effective as possible when they crafting their strategies.  Successfully navigating the hospital and healthcare supply chain is more important than ever.” 

I asked John what drives him… what makes him tick?  “I have great passion and really like what I do. I love getting to know our clients and our readers and their unique challenges. They all have such diverse and unique challenges. I love helping them solve their problems and take advantage of their unique opportunities. Helping them be successful is very satisfying. The constant challenge of helping folks with their unique challenges is really a lot of fun.”

As a successful leader, I ask John what he has learned from taking risks. “Failure is not nearly as painful as success is pleasurable. Without risk, you never feel success. The older I get, the less scary it is to take a risk. The satisfaction of doing something right, helping someone with a problem, introducing a product that is successful, is so much better than worrying about a potential failure. Potential success far outweighs, in my mind, the downside of failure. If your intentions are right regarding what you are trying to do, how big of a risk is it? We are trying to provide value and help folks be more successful and that necessitates prudent risk.”

I ask John what he advises when a healthcare professional asks for advice in terms of becoming a more successful leader. “First, you are not in it alone. You don’t need to take the journey alone. Find great people to work with, to team with and to work for. Use the things you learn from successful people. The people with whom you surround yourself are really important!”

“Second is persistence. Keeping at it … staying with it … don’t give up. In college, I came across the following quotation from Calvin Coolidge and it has stuck with me throughout my professional career.   Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

John’s passions outside of business include, “First and foremost, my family, including my wife and four very active kids. I am an avid golfer and a huge Ohio State Buckeyes fan.”

I asked John what he wants to leave as his legacy. “I would like to leave a great media company that is true to our mission. I would like to leave that company for generations to come. We think that if we are doing our jobs right, and have great people, great products, and interactive customers guiding our development every day, our business model should be sustainable for a long time to come.”    

I congratulate John Pritchard and his team for their enthusiastic, innovative, value-focused leadership.  Because of their laser-like focus on their mission and on serving others, John and his team are truly making a positive difference. A positive difference not only in the lives of their customers, clients and readers, but also in the lives of individuals all across America who benefit every day by receiving more effective and efficient healthcare.  

Get engaged in the new JHC Blog of The Journal of Healthcare Contracting.  Together… we will all be better… perform better… and contribute more value to all those we serve!