This summer, I joined Thea Health as an intern with no prior experience working in healthcare nor at startups. However, I was armed with the drive to learn about the ever-complex field of healthcare and the desire to contribute meaningful value to a startup. Now as my internship comes to an end, I’m impressed by the plethora of things Thea Health and the team have taught me. From obscure healthcare abbreviations to startup workflow processes, I’ve certainly learned and grown so much. I want to share some of my personal discoveries to those also starting out at a healthcare startup. I hope that some of these words can help you in your path—we’re not in this alone!
Ask all the questions.
Sure, onboarding at any firm involves asking dozens and dozens of questions. But onboarding at a healthcare startup? Multiply that times one-hundred. Most people are only familiar with the terms that are relevant in their lives, such as a deductible and primary care physician. But the world of healthcare is so much more vast and convoluted. As soon as I learned about value-based care, a new term like ACO (Accountable Care Organization) would pop up. Don’t even get me started on HEDIS metrics. Googling all of these terms and recording them down is a great way to establish your fundamentals. However, this word soup won’t make sense unless you engage with members of the team. How does your work effect value-based care metrics? How are ACOs relevant stakeholders? The path to truly understanding all of these healthcare terms is asking how they fit into your work and your firm. It’s a great idea to compile a list of questions and grab time with your supervisor every week to ask away. In addition, don’t be afraid of “bothering” anyone on your team either. If you’re working with healthcare entrepreneurs who are truly passionate about their mission, they will gladly chat. At Thea Health, I’ve been fortunate to work with such a bright and genuinely kind team. They can talk about healthcare for days, which is honestly both a little concerning but also incredibly inspiring. If you’re working at the right healthcare startup, the team would welcome your questions with open arms.
Get uncomfortable.
Asking all the questions is a nice transition into getting uncomfortable with your current knowledge set. There are many skills in healthcare and startups that can’t be learned without joining one to begin with—and that’s A-OK! It’s important to recognize that any task you work on, there’s always going to be something you don’t know, and sometimes it’s even the first time your startup is doing it. This is the unique opportunity for you to establish that path and set those precedents—an opportunity not commonly available at non-startups. In addition to accepting the fact that you don’t know what you don’t know, when you’re at a startup, chances are you’re probably doing work way beyond your normal scope. Startups are a fast-paced environment where there are constantly things to be done, thus constantly things on your to-do list. Can you create an entire outbound marketing strategy and execute that plan? Sure thing! Let me spend weeks researching best practices, delving into what other firms have done, scheduling user conversations with physicians, and picking the brains of my team members. The whole bundle sounds grossly intimidatingly (and it certainly was), but you can’t let that initial uncomfortableness shy you away from accepting such projects. This is the time for you to dive right in and push yourself to those uncomfortable bounds so that you could learn and accelerate your pace of growth.
Focus on outcomes—not processes.
All of my previous internship experience came from corporate firms where there are very clear work processes in place. When I joined Thea Health, I was initially confused by the lack of such rigid structures. However, I have since learned that this is exactly the specialty of startups, and Thea Health nails it. Unlike established corporations, the way startups do anything will change constantly over the years. For instance, it may seem efficient to invest a ton of time and money into setting up and purchasing advanced, scalable software. However, as your strategy shifts, you may change platforms completely in the next month. What’s crucial is focusing on the end outcome without trying to optimize how you get there in every way possible. Continuously building a better product and gathering users is the ultimate foundation to a growing startup. It’s okay if that path to get there is a little scrappy as long as you get the right outcomes. In particular, startups in the healthcare space have an end focus on patient outcomes. If you don’t see a clear line between your work and how it furthers your firm’s mission, then it may be time to re-evaluate it. This was something our founder actually said during a meeting, and it stuck with me. Even though we’re a B2B software platform, our ultimate goal is to improve the quality of care delivered to patients. These are the values that the founding team built Thea Health on and what continues to drive our workflows to this day.
As you get started at your healthcare startup, voice aloud all the questions floating in your mind, push yourself to take on those uncomfortable projects, and make sure patients are at the center of your work outcomes. And finally, every now and then, don’t forget to take a step back and take in all of the incredible work you have accomplished at a mission-driven organization making real impact.