Notes from the Field – 7 Questions with Vineeth Yeddula, CEO at KPI Ninja

“Notes from the Field” is a special newsroom feature, highlighting industry professionals working to transform healthcare. In this edition, we spoke with Vineeth Yeddula, CEO atKPI Ninja.

1. Tell us about your role as the CEO of KPI Ninja?

I started the company with two friends, Naren Parimi and Vijay Musunuru, CTO and CPO respectively at KPI Ninja. Each of us had unique skill sets that informed our roles. My job was to build and nurture the culture, be the face of the company, form the right partnerships, and build high-performing teams in conjunction with my cofounders in order to solve bold problems in healthcare. One such bold problem that came along was COVID-19. We worked with one of the state-based organizations to connect more than 60 health systems and labs throughout the state and built a COVID application to provide real-time bed management in less than three days. The team at KPI Ninja is energized when we see those kinds of wins and build those types of incredible partnerships.

2. Unrelated to the pandemic, what is one thing you’ve learned over the past year?

在过去的一年里，我学到了很多东西，但如果让我选一个的话，那就是不确定性会一直存在。这个教训不仅来自疫情，还来自在疫情期间用有限的资金运营一家初创公司。从在远程文化中整合工作/生活平衡，到学习与客户和潜在客户沟通的新方式，能够根据需要进行调整和接受持续的变化已经成为团队的核心优势。

3. Have you found your pandemic silver lining?

就我个人而言，我有一个一岁半的孩子，所以尽管我的时间有限(因为我们正在创建公司)，但在这段时间里能够灵活地与他相处是我将会珍惜的事情之一。与Health Catalyst合作是一段令人难以置信和激动人世界杯葡萄牙vs加纳即时走地心的旅程。我们团队中100%的人都加入了Health Catalyst，这一事实证明了我们建立的文化和团队的实力。世界杯葡萄牙vs加纳即时走地我们很感激，也很兴奋，这对未来意味着什么，不仅对我们，而且我们可以一起颠覆医疗保健。

4. Who is your mentor and why?

I’ve had many mentors throughout my life, starting with my parents, who’ve been my greatest mentors. They instilled in me the value of hard work and being grateful to others–these are core values that have only been strengthened as I move through life. They are my biggest supporters. I’ve also had the privilege to work with several awesome colleagues over the past decade or so, and I’m grateful to them for all the formal and informal learnings I’ve had because of them. I also had a professor, Ram Bishu, during my master’s program that helped me and Vijay, one of the other co-founders of KPI Ninja to get exposure to the healthcare industry even though we were in an engineering program. He played a key role in cementing why we wanted to focus on healthcare. I’m grateful for that mentorship and the many relationships that have helped shape me.

5. What inspired you to pursue a career in healthcare technology?

I touched on this a bit in the last question, but I moved to the U.S. for my master’s in engineering and was able to work on several healthcare projects, like medication reconciliation. I also did my thesis on the impact of actual and perceived wait times on patient satisfaction. I fell in love with the whole opportunity that existed in healthcare, like how improving processes impacts outcomes, and, in some cases, even saves patient lives. It felt like both an awesome career opportunity, but also an opportunity to really do something meaningful.

There are many opportunities to improve healthcare, but there’s a few that I’m personally passionate about. The first is to help solve the shift from volume to value-based care. For healthcare organizations to be prepared, they really need to have a data-driven, team-based, patient-centered, and continuously improving culture in order to make this transition. These four elements for success resonate with me and I’m passionate about helping organizations transform.

6. What do you see as the biggest opportunity to improve healthcare?

第二个机会在数字医疗和人工智能领域。在20世纪90年代和21世纪初，从手工记录到采用电子病历的转变是一个很大的关注点。现在，数字化有了新的、扩大的机会，包括远程医疗和另一种全新的数字化转型正在发生。最后，关注访问、质量和负担能力。医疗保健的视野正在扩大，以促进社会和金融包容，有很多机会让患者成为这一愿景的中心。

7. What is the greatest challenge facing healthcare?

There are several big challenges facing healthcare: price transparency, the availability of a skilled workforce, effective payment models, cybersecurity, etc. But one challenge that I’m the most passionate about and is still a signification hurdle is the adoption and ability to harness advanced technology. I see this as one of the biggest challenges still today and look forward to figuring out how, together, we can impact organizations and help them fully make this digital transformation while keeping patients at the center.