Ep. 178 - Debi Willis - Would you like to have direct access and control over your own healthcare data? Debi Willis tells us why she created a program that helps patients do this at no cost at all. Debi is a software engineer and the CEO and Founder of PatientLink Enterprise. She and her team build software (MyLinks.com and MyPatientLink.com) that allows patients to link and share their data with their physicians and researchers. Healthcare is too fractured and our personal health data is spread across multiple healthcare systems. She believes the causes and solutions to many of our illnesses can be found among all those data points. Linking people to their data to give them a better view of their health - and also linking them to each other - will allow us all to help find cures, improving the lives of those we love and those who come after us. Giving a personal view of their health is the purpose of their consumer-facing MyLinks product! In this episode, she shares what provoked her to start her business and how she has continued to grow it, closing in more gaps in the healthcare sector. Debi shares the new laws, new healthcare technologies, and consumer expectations that will have a tremendous impact on research in the near future. Listen in to learn how to be prepared emotionally and financially when starting a new business. You will also learn how to understand who you are to overcome any challenges you face as an entrepreneur.
Key Takeaways:
- How to be emotionally and financially prepared for the first few months of starting a business
- Learn to understand who you are and stop comparing yourself to become successful
- How to smartly split time between work and family, so you don’t neglect one over the other
- How not to be afraid when pursuing who you are and what you believe in
"Know who you are, and be okay to push through any kind of barriers that you want to push through." -Debi Willis
In this episode you’ll discover:
Debi on how she started and grew her company in healthcare technology [1:48]
Why Debi is passionate about empowering patients to be in direct control of their data [7:31]
The challenges she had to overcome especially in a male-dominated field [13:39]
How she overcame her hurdles by understanding herself from a different perspective [15:46]
Why you should trust your gut and check references when hiring [19:23]
She explains why she chooses to bootstrap her business and not team up with investors [21:00]
How to be conscious with your spending during hard times to keep growing your business [23:11]
The future of AI in healthcare data management if done in the right way [24:17]
How she handles working with family and splitting time between work and family [27:52]
The difference between PatientLink and other similar platforms [31:27]
How to go about educating young girls about computer programming [35:15]
Why the MyLink program is only available in only the US and for free to patients [39:00]
The importance of understanding who you are and not being afraid [40:49]
CAREER
Debi Willis is the CEO and Founder of PatientLink Enterprises, a software company focused on creating products to meet the needs of the ever-changing healthcare industry.
MyLinks is a health-focused platform that allows patients to gather and aggregate their medical records from all their health providers, transmit their records to anyone they desire, and link with family/friends and researchers. The main goal of MyLinks is to save lives and find cures faster by enabling patients to easily gather and share their records with research. An overwhelming majority of patients have indicated a willingness to directly share their data for medical research, fundamentally changing healthcare and research - making it truly “better, faster, cheaper”.
AWARDS
She was recently named by Health Data Management magazine as one of “11 Leading Innovators in Healthcare IT”. Her latest product, MyLinks, won first place in the recent ONC Consumer Health Data Aggregator Challenge. In addition, she received the 2019 Technical Innovation Award and the 2018 Patient Engagement Award from Allscripts Developer Program.
RESOURCES
https://twitter.com/debikwillis
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