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New NovoPath CEO settled in and taking questions

December 2020—CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle recently spoke with Promise Okeke, who took the helm as CEO of NovoPath last summer. Here’s what Okeke had to say about NovoPath’s case distribution module, customer service, and the advantages of offering a best-of-breed system, among other topics.

Promise, I understand you are the new CEO of NovoPath. Tell us how that came about and introduce yourself.
I was brought in by an investor group that loved what NovoPath has meant to the pathology marketplace over the past 25 years. They made an investment in NovoPath. Then I was appointed to be the new CEO.

As background, I was a premed major and I wanted to be a doctor. At some point before graduation I decided I would rather explore other career paths, particularly related to business. An excellent opportunity came about with Bain and Company in Chicago. I had the privilege with Bain to work across different industries, but primarily in the health care and retail fields. I learned a ton about strategy. It was a great launching pad. Then I worked in a startup before I wound up at Harvard to get my MBA.

After Harvard I joined Victoriaside Partners, the fund that purchased NovoPath.

Okeke

What intrigued Victoriaside and what intrigued you not only about NovoPath but the field and the market of anatomic pathology software systems?
It’s hard not to be thrilled by the legacy of customer service that NovoPath has. Customers had tremendous things to say about the level of support and the customer service experience they’ve had in dealing with NovoPath. I believe customers are the most important part of any organizational framework. When you get the customers right, you are set for sustainable success. We received great reviews from everyone we spoke to about NovoPath.

In addition, we were thrilled by the technological leadership that NovoPath has. They, and now we, are on the cusp of adding new functionalities and features that support the ever-changing laboratory marketplace.

For example, we launched a cloud-based, vendor-agnostic EMR/EHR information exchange engine earlier this year. This new platform provides multifaceted labs an enhanced workflow and a more affordable approach for the lab to interact with other software systems.

Additionally, we continuously explore means to contribute to the marketplace via innovation. For example, I believe we were the first LIS [company]—while working with a whole slide imaging system vendor partner and one of our larger labs—to develop interfaces with a whole slide imaging platform in an operational environment. Leadership and innovation in the marketplace are important to us.

One more example I will provide is NovoPath’s case distribution module, a feature we believe is quite unique. The one thing we kept hearing was that labs want to be more efficient. They want the right pathologist in the lab to quickly diagnose cases assigned to them, and they want their clinicians to get reports as soon as possible. One key is to have this case distribution module. Instead of having an FTE decide what case goes to pathologist X or pathologist Y, we have an algorithm that automatically assigns cases to different pathologists based on the case type, the doctor’s availability, and other factors.

Finally, I must mention talent. The talent at NovoPath is striking. We might not be the biggest brand per se, but we have entrenched talent that has been working in the industry on average for 10-plus years. Our employees live and breathe the LIS and the lab environment. They are passionate about their work. For me, that’s important as we build on that framework already set for success.

Readers will be wondering whether they can customize the case manager to their own laboratory and group.
Absolutely. This is a macro in terms of the algorithm that we’ve built. We want to understand key directions. How do you want us to assign a case to this person versus that person? That’s all customizable at the direction of the laboratory’s workflow and needs.

How has this case manager been received?
It’s been positive. Customers want to understand how any new product saves them money and time.

We are currently implementing this with our largest customers. If your largest customers like the product well enough to adopt it, it speaks volumes. We hope to get the rest of our base to use this, to maximize their operations and increase efficiency.

What does the new business arrangement mean in terms of the advantage you would have by being a NovoPath customer? In other words, will you have more software development, will you have more service people, will your versioning be quicker, and so on?
We are increasing our number of engineers and investing more in people. We are looking to do a lot more. For example, we have built a cloud solution. It’s fantastic. It offers a unique user experience tailored to maximizing efficiency and speed. We hope to offer this standalone product to the marketplace as it transitions from on-site, server-based solutions to cloud-based solutions. A few customers are already using the product as a hybrid. There are some things they are able to do in the desktop and other things they are able to do in a seamlessly integrated cloud/Web-based platform, according to their preference.

We also increased our customer support staff. The bedrock of our business is customer happiness, and we are fanatically driven to ensure that. We want to be better, and we want to grow with our customers. We see our clients as partners. That’s the model we’re driving toward.

Tell me what it means to be a best-of-breed vendor. I’m sure it’s a term you’ve heard a lot, even in your evaluation. What are the advantages for customers and potential customers?
I know not every player in the market is best of breed. I’m a big believer in the 10,000 hours rule championed by Malcolm Gladwell and others. The rule simply states that being a great leader in the market is proportional to the number of hours you spend on that product and the number of resources you’ve dedicated to that product. Gladwell wrote that it takes 10,000 hours of focus to achieve greatness.

We have a specialty in the space. We’ve been in AP for a long time and have mastered the domain—we’ve seen so many different workflows. And we have solutions to meet complex workflows. As the space evolves, we are evolving with our partners because we are best of breed. We understand the domain. And I think the advantage of a best of breed is you have a product fully dedicated to mastering the pathologist’s needs. Competitors who don’t may not prioritize the pathologist’s needs in the domain. When it comes to feature or product development, those competitors usually prioritize the needs of larger specialties using their flagship products.

But this is our bread and butter. If we think, yes, this is scalable and truly meets needs, we won’t hold back. We are dedicating all our resources toward making sure that that customer is having their needs met. That’s what I think is the advantage of a best of breed.

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