When a calling is strong enough, there’s simply no stopping it. This was certainly the case for Howard Rubin, CIO of Evara Health. Rubin’s career plan actually began in architecture, not health, but he quickly discovered that he lacked the creative skills required. What he did learn, while studying at the Georgia Institute of Technology, was his love of tech.
Eventually, Rubin saw an opportunity to join Community Health Centers of Pinellas – now Evara Health. He was blown away by the excitement and drive of the newly-installed CEO and President, Elodie Dorso.
“Up until she took over, it had been a fairly traditional health system,” says Rubin. “Not very innovative; taking good care of their patients but not really growing. The new CEO had some huge plans for growing the organisation and providing more and better access to health for our patients.”
Health for all
Evara Health’s mission statement is to help people become healthy and live healthy lives, and that means all people. A lot of health organisations don’t serve everybody and their treatments aren’t available under many types of insurance. However, Evara Heath doesn’t turn anybody away. It supports the underserved and the uninsured, and patients are treated regardless of whether they can afford it. Around 25% of patients have no insurance at all, and over half are covered by Medicaid, which isn’t accepted by everyone.
“Our goal is to provide quality healthcare to all of those patients, not just treat them,” Rubin says. “We don’t want to be looked at as an organisation that just treats people. We want to be a quality provider for all. That’s really the focus we have. We even have a mobile health centre that we take to homeless shelters a couple of times a week to treat people there so that they don’t end up in the emergency room. It’s a really critical piece that makes me feel fulfilled. Everyone has the right to healthcare. Being able to see these people who may not have the access to the resources or service they need receive that healthcare is amazing.”
Technology for the right reasons
As somebody who has been instrumental in turning the technology landscape at Evara Health around, Rubin is well-placed to speak on technology in healthcare more broadly. It’s no secret that healthcare organisations are often falling behind when it comes to IT, so why is it that so many get it wrong?
“My advice, first of all, is don’t use technology for technology’s sake,” Rubin says. “A lot of organisations love to go out and play with the latest technology, but they have no idea what it can be used for. It’s great to play around with it and find out, but there has to be a reason for it. In our case, we look at technology from two aspects: how is it going to directly benefit our patients in terms of access and quality of care, and how is it going to directly benefit the productivity of our employees? I would recommend identifying the benefits and quantifying them before making any decisions. Don’t just go, ‘hey, everyone’s doing AI, we should too’. That’s not a recipe for success.”
