Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Dr. Ann Jarris explains how she started Discovery Health MD and talks about its current growth
• How is Discovery Health MD helping with the pandemic response, and what are the biggest challenges involved in distributing vaccines?
• Erin Cavin describes some of the unique difficulties involved in telemedicine for the maritime industry
• Dr. Jarris and Erin talk about developing protocols before there was any guidance from the CDC or other national organizations
• What are the ways that Discovery Health MD uses metrics to measure success?
• Why a clear core mission, vision, and values are central to what Discovery Health MD does
• How Dr. Jarris and Erin’s differences have created balance and strength in their work
• Reading recommendations from Dr. Jarris and Erin

In this episode…

Try to imagine being in healthcare at the beginning of the pandemic. Now suppose that you primarily provide health services for the maritime industry and all of the ports are shutting down. Sick people can’t get off their ships to receive medical treatment, and you haven’t received guidance from the government on how to proceed. Also, assume your company is based at the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. What would you do?

For Dr. Ann Jarris and Erin Cavin of Discovery Health MD, the above scenario wasn’t imaginary. They were figuring out how to help people stranded in the ocean and issuing protocols before the CDC offered guidelines. In a year, Discovery Health MD would grow from eight W-2 employees to over 50 — and become one of the first to start systematic testing of asymptomatic people. Currently, they’re also navigating governmental, procurement, and documentation systems to distribute vaccines to as many areas as they can. If you’re curious about how to keep your focus amid chaos and uncertainty, you won’t want to miss this week’s show.

In this episode of the Measure Success Podcast, Carl J. Cox joins Dr. Ann Jarris and Erin Cavin of Discovery Health MD to talk about their business and its role throughout the pandemic. Together, they discuss the difficulty of vaccine distribution, the challenges of providing healthcare at sea, and the metrics they’re using to keep on top of their fast-growing company. Plus, they disclose what it was like to design protocols during the pandemic before the government was offering any guidance.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Dr. Ann Jarris on LinkedIn
• Erin Cavin on LinkedIn
• Discovery Health MD
• MD Solutions International (MDSI)
• Terry Polyák on LinkedIn
• Insperity
• Foss Maritime
• Alan Mulally on LinkedIn
• Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr
• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• Theory of Constraints by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• Critical Chain: A Business Novel by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, and Bruce Patton
• Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time by Susan Scott
• Fierce Leadership: A Bold Alternative to the Worst “Best” Practices of Business Today by Susan Scott
• American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce G. Hoffman
• Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute
• Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading by Martin Linsky and Ronald A. Heifetz
• 40 Strategy
• Contact 40 Strategy
• Carl J. Cox on LinkedIn

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is sponsored by 40 Strategy.

40 Strategy provides strategic planning and consulting to help organizations realize and achieve their dreams by creating and measuring KPIs for success.

Unfortunately, most organizations only spend 2% of their time—or about 40 hours per year—on building an effective strategy.

Increasing the success of those 40 hours is what 40 Strategy does because your success is their passion—and that’s why organizations look to them for guidance.

Not only does 40 Strategy help you craft and implement an effective strategy, but they’ll also work to facilitate teams with proven practices and help with your scenario planning.

Harvard research shows that you can triple your success when you use the right Key Performance Indicators. Who doesn’t want that?

If you have questions, you can reach out through their website or email them at catch@40strategy.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Measure Success Podcast where we feature top leaders on how they measure success in their business and life. Now, let’s learn from their experiences.

Carl J. Cox 0:18

Carl J. Cox here and I’m the host of the Measure Success Podcast where I talk with top leaders about effective strategies that inspire success. This episode is brought to you by 40 Strategy at 40 Strategy. We provide strategic planning consulting, to help organizations organizations realize and achieve their dreams, and an era basically, we help companies create your to do plans and measure the right KPIs for success. Unfortunately, most organizations only spent about 2% of their time, or about 40 leadership hours per year building an effective strategy now know about YouTube, but I think that’s pretty crazy, don’t you agree? For sure. And so at 40 Strategy, your success is our passion. That’s why organizations call us to help not only do we come up with strategy, but we facilitate your teams with proven practices. However, research shows that when you focus on the right key performance indicators, you can actually triple your likelihood of success, and who wouldn’t want that. So please email us today. If you’d like more information at catch@40strategy.com or go to our website at 40strategy.com. Before we introduce our guests, I’d like to say thank you to Terry Polyák from Insperity. He’s the one who connected both of us, he does a wonderful job up in the Seattle region, helping organizations find the right type of health care and administrative practices and payroll, how it makes things are more effective. And from there, I like to introduce our two guests who are with us today. The first one that you could see there with the Vanna White background, which I love is Ann Jarris. She is the co founder and CEO for Discovery Health MD based in Seattle. She has degrees from Dartmouth for the Mayo Medical School and earned her residency at the University of Arizona. She also has earned an MBA from Seattle University, which is where they are. Both of our guests met each other many moons ago. And and she’s also been an ER physician for over 15 years. In January 2017 she opened Discovery Health MD you’re also the CEO for MD Solutions International, telemedicine, you’ve been a large contributor to maritime services, telemedicine and risk management and more recently, has been a large contributor for COVID-19 in the industry and in Washington and Alaska. So we’ll talk a little bit more about that little bit later. Erin Graham Cavin is the CEO for Discovery Health. She earned her MBA at Seattle University and has a bachelor from the University of Central Florida. And you also started out with managing the performance arts industry, which is really neat and special. In 2017. Sorry, 2007, you started a consulting firm for communication marketing in IT. For small to midsize nonprofits. You were an operational director at Treinen and you joined Discovery Health in December of 2017. Welcome. I’m so excited to have both of you on.

Erin Cavin 3:16

Excited to be here. 

Carl J. Cox 3:18

That’s awesome. Yeah, this is our first tag team so to speak. We have two people Ann and Erin, I’m so excited. They both agree they’re super busy right now. They even give me an ounce of time. I’m extraordinarily grateful. So let’s start with it. I loved it when I asked them the pre part. What is top of mind for you, actually, before we go to that, because it because that’s just gonna head down a path. Why don’t you tell me a little bit more Ann about Discovery Health MD for for our audience.

Ann Jarris 3:47

Sure. So, you know, this company was a combination of a lot of things that came together. Discovery Health MD was the caps my capstone project for my MBA, we founded the company, my late husband and I, I was an emergency medicine physician and a lot of interest in telemedicine and remote medicine, really trying to work within the healthcare system to to improve access. And when I met my late husband, he had similar interests and goals and was very involved in the maritime industry. So it became a perfect application for the work that I had been doing. And so we started the company we incorporated in 2016. Got our first clients in 2017. And Erin came on at the end of 2017. And was just an amazing addition to the company. She really understood what Ray and I were trying to accomplish intuitively. So when Ray passed away in March or sorry April of 2018, Erin was able to step in and keep us going and really build on that legacy.

Carl J. Cox 4:47

And that’s an amazing incredible that you went through and I my condolences Of course going through the challenges that taking place. Erin any additional things that you’d like to add that from from what What your organization does from your perspective?

Erin Cavin 5:03

Um, not really other than I like to make sure that Ann’s work is recognized without her vision and ability to see farther down the path than any other any of us that have been able to see, especially once we start talking about COVID. Um, her vision and her leadership is really what is catapulting this company forward right now? Well,

Carl J. Cox 5:30

so, so alright, so top of mine, and I loved it in the free part, we were just like, what do you think is on the top of our mind? So Ann you start out what what what is top of mind right now? what’s what’s going on?

Ann Jarris 5:42

Well, I yeah, for the past year, I don’t think I’ve thought of anything, but COVID. So I’m not sure how we get ourselves out of that and start thinking about other things. But that, certainly, you know, it’s been, it’s been COVID for a year. And right now, we’re all about vaccinations, there’s a light at the end of this tunnel, and we want to get ourselves to that point.

Carl J. Cox 6:02

So how are you? How are you going about supporting the vaccinations? Where are you doing it? Where’s your current focus of getting that done?

Ann Jarris 6:10

Yeah, this has been quite an education. And, you know, we’ve never, we’ve never done this before, a pandemic response is something that is only been theoretical. So this has been a great education of learning how to navigate the governmental systems, the procurement systems, the documentation systems, it’s really an enormous logistical challenge, which is something that I’ve found very interesting and a great challenge to try to surmount. So we’re currently registered vaccine providers in both Washington and Alaska. We’re obviously constrained by lack of vaccines by geographical limitations on where you can transport vaccines, and then by eligibility, who’s allowed to get it. So we’ve been working, you know, really, since December to try and get access to vaccine and get as many people vaccinated as possible.

Carl J. Cox 6:57

So let’s talk about that. That part that I don’t think is discussed. It’s, I’m gonna put an analogy, a lot of time, there’s enough food in the world to feed everybody. But we can’t get it to everybody. Right. So it sounds like there’s a bit of the same issue here with vaccinations. I mean, obviously, there isn’t enough yet. So that’s one issue. But you talked about something that’s not typically considered is actually being able to transport it and get it to somewhere explained, explain to listeners what those real challenges are.

[continue to next page]