10,000 New Beginnings (ft. Yi-Ting Chiang)

Thanks for tuning to Digital Voices Podcast, where we chat digital transformation challenges and opportunities across healthcare and life sciences. And now, your host, Ed Marx. Ed here, Digital Voices. Another super podcast guest with us this week. It is a friend of mine, Yiting, and you'll get to hear all about her story. And it's really about tech leadership and sort of mid-career. You know, a lot of time our guests are sort of at the top of their careers, but I thought it'd be really interesting to have mid-career. And then she has one of the most profound, beautiful stories that I've ever heard, so I, I wanted to acquaint my audience with her and to hear about that. And she's also a musician, so we'll talk a little bit about music and digital. So Yiting, welcome to Digital Voices.

Thank you so much. So glad to be here.

It's great to have you. And before we jump in, I'm going to ask Megan, our producer, about her musicality. Like, Megan, do you play an instrument?

I don't, but I do— I come from a very musical family. I've got a lot of talented musicians in my, in my family, but I took piano growing up. It's something that I do wish that I would have Stuck with. Um, but I don't— not— I don't know how to play it anymore.

Yeah, I, I, you know, that's kind of a common theme. People— a lot of people are exposed to music early on and, and they don't follow through with it for a variety of reasons. And, but that's always like a regret, right? A prominent regret people have is like, now that they're older, it's like, I wish I would have stuck with music. I'm sort of the same way. Uh, so we'll hear sort of Yiting's, uh, perspective on that. And we first met in 2015. So Yiting and I were on the same team. So we were doing digital transformation at scale, New York City Health and Hospitals, and we were undergoing a tremendous cultural and transformational change. And Yiting was a key part of the team, and that's really where we first met. We connected, and, and then unfortunately, you know, we each went our separate ways. So it's good, you know, 7 years later to, uh, To reconnect. But the most common question we always have, Yijing, as we start off, and it'll be really interesting your answer since you are a musician, is what songs are on your playlist today? So what do you listen to when you're relaxing or working or whatever?

Oh, wow. It's a mix of classical music. So I'm a violinist, so lots of violin concertos in there, symphonies. I love operas. I also have quite a few jazz favorites. I especially love, I don't know if you've heard them, Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. Awesome, awesome guitarists and violinists, jazz violinists. Highly recommend.

Oh, that sounds interesting. Jazz violinists. I'm not that familiar with it. So I'm going to look that up. I'm definitely going to look that up. And it'll make one of my nephews proud. You know, he's a PhD piano performance. He's performed in New York City a couple of times.

Nice.

And so I'll surprise him and he'll be really impressed when I start talking about jazz violinists. So that'll be cool. What is your life mantra or passion? Is there sort of words that you live by or that help direct you?

Yeah. Wow. There are so many, but one that I keep going back to, and it's funny, I actually don't remember where I first heard this, but I just keep going back to it. It's perseverance is 10,000 new beginnings. And what that means to me is that on one hand, you know, keep your eyes on what is important. That's the perseverance part. But at the same time also, you know, get up where you fall and look for new possibilities always. And that's the 10,000 new beginnings. So the two are not conflicting. But actually, you know, work beautifully together. Perseverance is 10,000 new beginnings.

Oh, I love that. I'm, you know, I'm writing a book with Chris Ross at Mayo Clinic, and we talk a lot about resilience, which is similar to perseverance. And I love that, you know, 10,000 new beginnings. So, that'll probably show up now in the book. So, tell us a little bit about yourself as we introduce Introduce you to the audience. Yeah, you know, both personal and professional.

Sure. So I was born in Taiwan, the other end of the world from here. The first 16 years of my life was completely dedicated to classical music. I started playing the violin when I was 4 years old, so I actually don't remember, have no memory of time when I did not play. And I also started performing very early on, I think a couple years after I started. So, that was my whole life. I had an opportunity to come to New York when I was 12 years old to study at Juilliard. So, that was quite a big change, cultural shock, and all of that. So, I did that for a few years, but then unfortunately was diagnosed with a health condition. And so, I actually had a stroke at age 16, and that completely ended my professional music career. I then turned to medicine briefly. So, I did a pre-med and psychology program at Columbia for undergrad, and after I graduated, I went into clinical research. for a couple of years. I was extremely fortunate to have my boss at the time who became a mentor and a great friend who is a doctor, and he really saw something that I did not at the time and encouraged me to develop skills. He said, you would just— he said, knowing you, I think you would just be really frustrated. if you go into medicine as a physician. So he encouraged me to develop skills that would sort of strive to make a difference more systematically. And so I took that advice and went into a Master of Public Health program at Columbia, again specializing in health management. And then after— right after graduation, sort of stumbled into IT, and here we are more than a decade later.

Yeah, no, that's fascinating. So you were this— if I can sort of dig a little bit deeper— so you were sort of this child protégé, or not protégé, but what's that called when you're a child and you're gonna be the big—

Prodigy.

Thank you. Yeah, protégé and prodigy. Yeah, so you were a child prodigy, so you were definitely on this You were performing at around age 6. You come to New York City, you leave the security of your family and culture that you're familiar with in Taiwan, and you come over and then you have this great experience, right? Or learning, and then this traumatic event happens right at age 16.

Mm-hmm.

And sort of flipped your life around a little bit. Is that where your perseverance came from? How did, you know, how did that change your life perspectives?

Oh boy, it changed everything. But I would have to say, I think the perseverance— I'm forever thankful for my classical music training because, you know, starting at age 4, and I was, mind you, I was practicing 6 hours a day by the time I was 6 years old. It was a very regimented, extremely disciplined way of looking at life. So, I think I was taught early on that if you want to do anything significant in life, there's only one attitude about it. And that's with this utmost discipline. And obviously, facing life and death at 16, I wasn't supposed to survive the stroke.

Yeah.

but did. Wasn't supposed to recover much, but, you know, thank God, you know, that wasn't the case. And so that definitely changed me a lot. I think in some ways I've become fearless in some areas in life, but also more vigilant in other areas of life. It makes me appreciate how how short life is and just how precious time is.

Yeah. So what would you say to— so our audience, digital IT transformation leaders across payers, providers, life sciences, pharma, and where a lot of us are super career-oriented and climbing the ladder and different things and hopefully, right? No one ever has to go through a traumatic life experience to sort of get this different perspective. So you have, and you've transitioned super well, and you, the things that I've written down, you know, and I know about you already, you know, the vigilance, fearlessness. What, what would you share with our audience in terms of like additional insights that you learned from that experience that would be helpful to us without having to go through that experience ourselves?

Yeah, yeah. Man, there's so many, but I think I'll break it down into the sort of what I learned as a musician and how I've seen that translate into health technology. I think, you know, as a musician, playing music is as much about listening to who you're playing with And paying attention to who you're playing for as it is about just actually playing the music. The worst concerts, worst performances there are, are when 2 or more musicians just decide, you know what, I'm going to show you. I'm going to play louder than you and just show off. That just is not a nice experience for anybody involved. So I think having learned that early and coming into health technology, it definitely taught me to— I mean, listen, you know, we all bring something different to the table, whether, you know, it's somebody working on the backend, somebody working on the frontend, more user-facing, whatever. We bring something different. And what I bring is different from what you bring and vice versa. And we should be complementing each other and always having— the end user, in this case, providers and patients in mind. So, I think that just for me is natural to always in every situation, whether it's giving a presentation or developing a product, thinking, who am I playing with and who am I playing for? And so, that's just something that I always take with me. The other, the more sort of life-altering dramatic experience Is that I've had experience firsthand as a patient, and I think just that sort of empathy and compassion goes a long way, whether— and now being on the other side, being somebody who's actually developing and implementing technology solutions that would impact patients and working with providers, it's always— You know, putting myself in the patient's shoes, in the provider's shoes, thinking back to those specific moments when I felt like, oh man, you know, as a patient, if things were different, that this would really make my life so much easier. Or thinking back to specific providers who want to help me but couldn't because of limitation in the tools and thinking, you know, what would help them.

Yeah, those are both really profound in terms of the analogy to— I was thinking, you know, like a symphony and the different instruments, you know, woodwinds working together with the brass section. And I gotta be careful here because I'm gonna get out of my element. And the strings, but not trying to outshow each other, but work in concert, no pun intended.

Yep.

And then, you know, the empathy that you learn naturally by being a patient, having been on the other side. And, you know, we wish no one to have the experience. You know, I've had a traumatic experience as well, and you have. And certainly, I know, I know you well enough to say that we both wish no one to have those experiences themselves, but we can certainly learn from other people's evaluated experiences like yours and to really, you know, develop that empathy and that compassion. And then as we do our work, and specifically in digital, You know, that we always keep that end in mind. So that's, that's really good. Do you still play music today?

I do. I'm so thankful for that. So I don't really play classical music anymore. It just has, just physically, you know, require things that I cannot do anymore. But fortunately, It actually opened doors for me to be exposed to other genres. So, once I started playing again, I have been playing with jazz musicians. I play rock, play pop. I play primarily at a church these days as an act of worship, but also just helping out a friend occasionally for a recording session here and there, weddings. So yeah, definitely, definitely still play.

Yeah, that's cool. And I know that you, for a while, you participated in something called Musicians on Call. Is that related to healthcare?

Yeah, yeah. So Musicians on Call is this really cool organization. They send professional musicians to different healthcare facilities. So hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and within hospitals, you know, we played at ICUs, we played at EDs, oncology units. And they typically send 2 people at a time. So, it would be a musician, myself in this case, and a guide. And then we would go to individual rooms, and the guide would go in and ask the patient, you know, would you like some— would you like your very own private concert, a professional musician coming in to play by your bedside? So, we would do that, and then I also get a chance to play for staff.

Yeah, that's really cool. I remember when my mom was in hospice care and they had a harpist. So it's not necessarily an easily movable instrument, but she did, this particular harpist did. And it was just such a beautiful ministry of music for all the patients there really responded well. And then I know my mom in particular just loved it, and then she would make requests. And even though they weren't traditional songs you might play on a harp, the harpist was, you know, a very gifted musician, and she would learn how to play all of my mom's sort of favorite songs. And I remember that we started buying all of the— musician also had CDs. They weren't there to sell it, but we were asking, you know, about it. And it just provided an otherwise dark place, this ray of sunshine and hope. And, you know, I know you and I both believe, and, you know, have common belief in terms of where that music comes from and, you know, soothing to the soul. And so it's a great ministry. And that's really cool that you could do it. Have you seen changes in music, you know, in terms of digital, like as digital becomes more pronounced in healthcare, we've seen all the changes, right? We're hoping to lead those. Have you, you know, as you still play a little bit, have you seen the impact of digital in the regular music world?

I definitely have. So the musicians that I now and more, you know, have come in frequent contact with, many of them, you know, have their own home studio and make their own music. Many of them play multiple languages. I think digital definitely allows You know, one person to have their vision of what they think that music should sound like and actually make it happen without so much depending— without depending too much on, you know, on everybody else. I've also had experiences where I go into a studio to record and just folks coming up with the most creative and crazy ways of making music to just get the kind of sound that they want. I remember one specific recording session, the drummer was just not happy with the kind of sound that he wants to make, or maybe it was the soloist, the vocalist. But anyway, we ended up— the only way out of it actually was the vocalist was wearing this very interesting combination of plastic and beads necklace. And so she's like, you know what, why don't we try just using this necklace and put it on the drum and see what kind of sound comes out of it? And it was exactly what they wanted. So we did the whole session with this huge necklace singing on the drums. But, you know, I think that sort of thing, you could definitely do it live, but there's nothing like digital that sort of Creates more space for creativity.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's cool. Yeah. A little improvisational output there as well. So you are sort of mid-career. You're younger in age than some of our guests, right, who are later in their careers and are currently like SVPs or EVPs, you know, chief digital officers, those sorts of things. What advice? So I always ask the same question, but you know, you're, you're, your advice might be even more profound than theirs because, uh, there, there may be a little, you know, too many years removed. Uh, what advice would you have for those first starting out in healthcare tech? Uh, what, you know, in terms of, you know, how to, how to, you know, perform to get to that mid-level so that they could have other options once they reach that mid-level?

Yeah, thank you for that question. Um, and I, I feel so humbled to, to Thank you. To be even asked that. So I would say, I mentioned earlier that I stumbled into IT, and by stumble, I really do mean stumble. Towards the end of my master's degree, you know, I really dig deep and, you know, sought advice from people who know me well and come to realization that I enjoy solving problems with people. I enjoy navigating ambiguous situations and connecting people and concepts and just really trying to be a thought partner. And so with that realization, I thought consulting was a natural fit. And so I was looking for something in consulting, in healthcare and consulting. And literally 2 weeks before graduation, this IT consulting company came to my healthcare IT class and the guy wrote down his email on the whiteboard and said, we're hiring, send me your resume. And that was it. And so I thought, why not? I sent my resume and got an offer right away. And I just thought, you know what? Let me, let me try this. And no turning back. I'm just forever grateful that that's how I got into IT. So my first advice would be don't take anything too seriously. Don't— definitely don't take yourself too seriously. I think, I think understand, um, understand what your core skills are, what makes you tick, uh, what you think you do well. And then beyond that, um, I— and I still say this to myself every day, you know, don't Don't feel like you have to prescribe yourself to a certain career path because none of us really know. Like, you don't know until you get there. So yeah. Yeah.

Interesting note on consulting. And then I have another question for you related to all this. So I found when I was hiring that some of the greatest skilled individuals were those coming from consulting. So I agree with you. If you can get consulting experience. And I don't say that because today I'm a CEO of one of the best consulting organizations out there, but I truly mean that. I didn't actually have that experience myself. And when I saw my peers that did, I knew they had skills and experiences that I never did, and I sort of coveted those. And so when I was building my own teams, I always looked for individuals who had consulting experience. So that's really a good Not just for entry level, but certainly at entry level, it's good to jump right into consulting and gain those multitudes of experiences. How about education? So another common question I get, and better for you to answer being mid-level career, is, is it worth it to get my master's? So I know you went on and got your master's, but how would you answer that question for someone who's a couple years into their career with their bachelor's?

Yeah, so I took 3 years between finishing my bachelor's and then going to get my master's, and I'm very glad that I took a bit of a break between the 2 degrees because that, in that time, was when I did clinical research and actually, you know, learned what it means to be entry-level person and just, you know, I was young, I was in my 20s, I was like, you know, just plugging myself into everything. And in that process, you know, discovering what it is that I really want to do. And that was also where, you know, I really got to have precious time with my mentor who, you know, convinced me to go and get a master's. And then, you know, having that experience, then getting into the master's program, it helped me to, whatever was taught, to really think critically and think about how I can apply. I think for somebody who may perhaps may have spent even more time than I did in a workplace and going back to getting their master's, I would imagine that they may even get more out of it because there were just so many memorable conversations that I've had with my professor where they are either mid or senior career, and so they've seen how that textbook knowledge translates into what they're doing, and I also. So, you know, you get— you end up in a situation where you're really not just absorbing what's being taught, but also challenging the other party. And it's just, I feel like you definitely get more out of it.

Yeah. So I should have said this upfront, Yiting, but for our audience, Yiting's a rock star in health tech. And so when you hear her speak about, should I get an education or not, or what were some important learnings earlier in her career, You really need to take hold of these. And on the degree, I'll say this in a tweet. A lot of times, if your hope is to become a senior executive, you have to have a master's degree. It's right or wrong. That's just the way things are today. So you've got to check that box. And the earlier you do it in your career, I think you get more value out of it later in your career. But often later in your career, you start, you're married or partnered and you're starting to have children and And life gets really busy. So I always advise people, similar to what you did, Yiting, is that get your master's early. Yeah, if you can separate a couple years like you did between bachelor's and master's, again, to get that more of that life experience, it's good. But what I love about the master's is that's when you really know what you don't know. You know, when you graduate your bachelor's, you kind of think, okay, I know the world, I know what's going on. But when you get your master's, because you're specializing now, you're realizing, oh my gosh, there's so much more. I don't know. And the networks that you create are much greater than the ones you create with your bachelor's. And so I'm definitely a big, big proponent of getting your degree as well. So as we come towards the conclusion of our time together, what are— can you talk about one or two things that you're most proud of in your career? You know, I, you know, whether it was what we did in New York City or something that you've done since then, or before New York City. But anything, you know, how would you answer that question? One or two things that you're most proud of?

Well, definitely when we met, we were doing a huge scale, wouldn't even call it large scale, I think it's a huge scale EMR implementation at the largest public safety net hospital system. So I think that, and For me, that was just always something that I'll always hold dear and near because I was involved early on and really saw firsthand how leadership made that decision and was part of just forming that large team that ended up performing so well. And so, very proud of that. I also, since leaving New York, City Health+ Hospital, was involved in the DSRIP program. That's New York's 1199 waiver Medicaid 5-year program and implemented a whole suite of IT solutions. And that was such a fun experience because at that point, it wasn't just EMR. There's everything from backend data processing storage all the way to the frontend, you know, the mobile apps that patients could use. And then right now, I am working on many different population health-related initiatives, working closely with community providers, and particularly proud that I am the IT point of contact for all things social determinants of health. So that's another passion of mine is just to see how, you know, things that's not clinically related ultimately tie back to the health of the patient.

So one last question for you. So where are you headed with your career? Like ultimately, you know, 5, 10 years, you've got like many more years ahead of you than that, but where do you sort of see yourself? Where would you like to be? In terms of your career?

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure that out. And I think that's such a good question. What do I want to be when I grow up? I think some things will not change. I will always be— would always love to be that thought partner, always be that, you know, co-problem solver with whoever I, you know, I work with. I would love to just be more and more at the table with folks who know what needs to be done and who has the means and the decision-making power to do it. And ultimately, just keep at it. I really think that health technology is such a field, I mean, much like music, there's just so much room for all of us to bring our talents and so much needs too for this field to, to always keep evolving, and I want to be a part of that.

Yeah, I, I know you've got an incredible future ahead of you, and it'd be fun if we were able to serve together again in some capacity down the road. Yiting, we covered a lot. We, we, we went from, you know, learning about jazz violinists to concepts around perseverance. We talked about things you learned in your own story and having a stroke at age 16 after being this protégé for violin and, you know, the empathy and compassion that came out of it and that vigilance and the fearlessness and the discipline, all the different things that you learn in your life. Then we talked a lot about sort of mid-career and you gave a lot of really good advice around that. We did some analogies between music and tech or teamwork and leadership. Is, and, you know, sort of, you your advice on different things for new people getting into the field. Is there something else that we maybe missed or something we talked about? I just want to give you the last word in any closing comments you might have.

Yeah, thank you. We've definitely covered so much and I feel like I could go on forever. But I'm just, I'm so thankful to be alive. I know this sounds so cliché and just, you know, I'm so thankful that even though it's such a chaotic world out there and there's so much need, but I am thankful to be where I am, the field that we are working in. As I said, I think a lot— I'm very excited to see how far we have come in healthcare. care. And I know that firsthand as a patient and now as somebody who's directly in it. But I also think that there's a lot of room ahead of us. I keep going back to that, you know, perseverance is 10,000 new beginnings. I just know that there's practically no limit to the number of new beginnings that we can do. And ultimately, that end goal of better health for everyone, absolutely everyone, I think is what we persevere towards.

Yeah, I love it. This has been such an uplifting time just reconnecting with you and learning from you. And I know that you will inspire others to do great things with their lives. So thank you so much for being our guest.

Thank you.

All right, that wraps up another drop for Digital Voices. Look forward to connecting with you this time next week. Thank you for listening to Digital Voices Podcast with Ed Marx. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe on your preferred streaming service and leave a rating and review. And most importantly, thanks again for listening.