Latina HealthTech Executive (20+ Yrs) Karen Martin Comparte Ceviche y Consejos con TECH23
we speak Spanglish and our goal is to get more Latinos to go from consumers to creators and help lead this tech industry on today's episode we have a very special guest a Latina Powerhouse a Latina in Tech and she's been breaking all types of barriers in the health Tech space so we're going to be talking about hospitals about medical about what technology is doing in that sector and if you're wondering which flag we're representing today we have a clue do you think we should go meet our guests now all right let's go more amigos tangoes amigos [Music] it's very limited play money yep it's almost like a strong lemonade there was a child next to a port of Pisco Puerto Rico and that's where it came from what makes you a Latina so I work in the healthcare I.T industry so Matt in that industry for for a long time I support a number of hospitals in the Houston area with a company called HCA great company I've been there for 19 years great journey lots of great opportunities but from a day to day you know my particular role which is a director of applications and really what that means is I focus on working with different vendors that have different Technologies and bring in those new technologies into our hospitals perfect so there's a lot of vendor relationships team relationships and business owner relationships that I have to manage through that also obviously things break right technology is not perfect so you have to know to roll roll with what comes and I focus a lot of just issue resolution and helping my team on different escalations and a lot of mentoring too so as a leader in in that in that industry just trying to figure out our next um our next Future Leaders within the company that want to continue their career in Tech having me with this same company for a long time um you know I've seen a lot of growth in the diversity of our teams and you know I'm just I'm blessed a culture of my company of HCA is very very much focused on us as employees our development and bringing you know just different types of perspectives so let's go back a little bit um what got you in the tech industry in the first place and from your point of view what did the industry look like so my journey you know into Tech was actually a little bit by accident right so I in school I went for a business degree I went to University of Kansas Jayhawks uh I love that they are very diverse college but I started with my business degree and then through that four-year journey of my undergrad um guess what the internet got created so it became a thing right it was in development but now it was really hey have you heard about the world why what you know so very very early on um I got just hooked I loved what it meant I loved the possibilities I think that we started seeing with technology and eventually landed in a job to to work with now my new minor because I ended up minoring in technology I decided that's what I wanted to do and that first job was I felt was a real connection with my culture so one of my one of the reasons why I got that job was I spoke Spanish so they were looking for bilingual techies that could come into the company and help develop their business so that's what I did and it was a smaller consulting company focused on finding sites across Latin America for oil companies to open new gas stations so finding sites for oil gas companies to open a gas stations Inland America in Latin America okay just driving down the street to find it or is there I mean because Google Maps wasn't a thing right so you couldn't see it what is that no there was a lot of market research um that had to be done in a lot of it required us to send resources to that market to that City resources as in uke I think maybe I'll come along and then I will hire people so you know as an example like I got to go to Honduras as one of my trips there loved it but I basically would get there I would have to hire individuals from Honduras that were contractors right to be able to work on scouting locations and getting us information okay and part of that was taking pictures or you know basically validating is that gas station in this corner this location and you know some other pieces of data so I got to do that as well and I think those are some of my more interesting stories that looking back is how did I do that but literally I would you know just be driving with this driver looking for a location and when I got there I would have to take pictures I would have to make you know kind of get a an idea of the site and sometimes I would get caught right so somebody's watching like what is she doing so I've been chased out of places more than one for me my first corporate job Americans I was the first one in my family to really start like traveling and going to Latin America um [Music] and I was like oh okay a like this is where a lot of this comes from I mean you can read it in a textbook is the person I was like okay and we know we're going down um I do remember clearly as I was young I wanted to come to the US to study to go to college and just look for a better future so I was blessed to have a good education where my parents always encouraged us and made us take English lessons that was a thing like we had to every Saturday you know so I I got the the option of coming to the US with a scholarship and that's how it started my my uh my studies here English because I've heard this story before people that come they had only ever seen American culture Through The Simpsons um was it like what you imagined and like what things were maybe completely different from what you saw in like TV or pop culture yeah no it was it was just completely different well as far as check this it was July right coming to the Midwest and of course in my head I have no idea about the weather right so in Peru it's winter so picture me coming off the plane with this long coat in the middle of the summer that was my arrival it was just so different but I think also I was blessed that I went to a town it was a college town so it was a smaller place you know it wasn't like arriving in this large city that you know I knew nothing about um what was the name of the town it was Lawrence Kansas okay shout out Lawrence Kansas love it beautiful town in the middle of nowhere in Kansas and you would think it's flat oh no Hills beautiful you know little lakes and that college is a very diverse college so the amount of friends I made from all over Latin America was amazing as well as Americans and Europeans so I think that helped in my experience um but it was very different it was um I think the the closeness that we have as Latinos some networking events you shared experiences it's one of the I think one of the best feelings of being Latino yeah I've mentioned this in other podcasts but it's just I just love this quote in English I just love it because it's so true and over and over and over again we experience it in all types of Industry events and everything you're right I think that was to me the biggest adjustment right because you have to kind of learn how you deal with people in this culture is a little different I'm not gonna just go right in and give you a hug if I don't know you all right your first corporate job is done you're exploring Latin America that was more of a Consulting role so how did you get into the tech industry so after four years you know I knew I wanted to move to a larger City maybe with more opportunity because at that time that was in Oklahoma and it was way too cold can't do that so I moved to Dallas uh and it was for a job it was with another consulting company that did Internet Security at that time was a big thing uh it was just gonna develop and it was booming so I got you know lucky to be able to transfer to Syria wanted with that job and I was there for about six months in 2001 hit lots of you know economical issues in our country here uh and just things that happened so I got laid off so I spent the next few months just you know kind of reassessing what I wanted to do and the reality is the market just there wasn't a lot um so I ended up going to an employment agency back back then it was a big thing like you would not even they exist anymore okay so you go and then they tell you you go here today you go there tomorrow like they give you assignments by day sometimes so I did whatever right and one of those jobs get me out of hospital and it was a job to teach nurses how to use computer systems so basically teaching Outlook or Excel you know your basic basic products and this is a big deal at the time because this is like the very first time it's getting introduced to the country and all types of Industries yeah so yeah so using computers in general for documentation and especially in the healthcare space in our hospitals till this day it's still like a challenge they're still there's still gaps they're still yeah so back you know back in 2000 and what was this 2001 yeah it was it was a thing so uh I started there and I I loved just it's just a different atmosphere right so you're in a place where yes if it's a business you need to make money to sustain but it's really about helping others right patient care and treating patients is a whole other world so there was something that really connected with me and I will say um I was very blessed to meet someone that became my mentor after that right I got to know and basically he gave me an opportunity I think that sometimes we we don't value or don't focus on the ability that we have of entering Something New by just taking the chance and saying hey I can try right and if you're lucky enough to run into someone that can give you the opportunity things can happen right so and that's what happened to me I mean it was going from teaching those courses I was teaching to hey there's this project for a new software implementation can I learn about it maybe I can help a little bit and I had a loss at the time that was very open he was like yeah help out so that helped me make a name of myself in that you know in that group and when a new position opened up you had proven yourself I've heard of myself right correct the more I explore this company Tech 23 the more I get to learn from other Latino cultures um we don't all have the same background as much as sometimes you know the one Latino in the movie puts it like okay it's very different um but I think we do some of the scary this like okay well I'm in a new culture like I don't I I don't really know what to do so the we play it safe sometimes but the beauty of it is you have so much more to that to offer because you know how to do your job otherwise you wouldn't be there in the first place so you have the hard skills done but it's the soft skills that we've been developing like it's just it's a huge bonuses you would have gotten there eventually anyways but it's it's just like speed like on highway so I highly recommend everybody to if you if you see a garden you know working in your in your office open those doors because you could unlock a feature you know Powerhouse like her uh into your company and let's keep hearing the story [Music] is sweet potato and then obviously our Peruvian corn that is so so large and then there's canchita everywhere thank you so I've been incredibly lucky that pretty much my whole life is producer of the show that's behind the other side of the camera I've always seen these Latina poderosas like do amazing things there's Latinas younger than you watching in the audience like what is the words of motivation or story or maybe a story an overcoming story that you have to share with them so you know I think for me the hardest thing was the just that the cultural transition because I always felt I wasn't born here I speak a little funny right I have a little accent um and I think that probably early in my career just made me feel like oh I I probably can't speak about that right I can't speak up because what if they don't understand everything I'm saying or um so there's that that component but I think in general you know over time you you just gotta be confident about who you are what you have what you bring right and we don't always do a good job about celebrating our accomplishments and realizing no I you know I got the same degree I've got the same experience and I have all these other skills to bring just like any other male counterpart um and for me I think in Tech you know primarily being male dominant that has evolved I feel and changed and particularly in healthcare there's a lot of strong female leaders so I think for any Latina in particular that is right now you know trying to figure out what do I do with with my career or I want to take it to another place I just say be very work on being very confident about who you are and do not be afraid to take chances like we were talking about earlier so some of my my transitions professionally have been all about the relationships that I have built right so going back to our culture is also strength and I think we have that warmth and um that that closeness that at least for me I feel like that's one of my strengths it's very easy for me to make close relationships and strong relationships and maintain them and as I've you know been in my role prior roles it's been usually a tap on the shoulder hey you know would you like to try this I'm like of course so don't be afraid to try new things um even if it maybe perceived as oh that's just a lateral move or maybe sometimes you have to sacrifice and I've done this early in my career where maybe I took a job that that wasn't paying me as much but that I saw could take me to bigger places right and teach me new things so to me like there's not a difference right I mean Latina not Latina female male like it's just about your confidence and and you try and trying to trying new things and never take it for granted that you've got to keep involving and just don't stay stagnant especially in Tech because I mean right now the tech world yeah and I get it it's like phases and everything but right now the phase is AI it's like all you're hearing everywhere you know last year it was like web three this is happening and everything and everybody's okay I have to change yeah I have to learn something brand new and like everybody's talking about this so that means everybody's doing it I think now the more season I myself get into Tech too it's like phases and it's you know it's a Hot Topic today but it's not necessarily everybody that jumps into it so but it is good to kind of just know what it even is and that you can have a conversation that's right that you show like growth and develop and a maturity in the industry because you might see an opportunity right or an opportunity may come and you're like well I didn't really care to learn about it well now you're not prepared for this next summer yeah very rare well so yeah and that's why I like it particularly I'm the type of person that just lost change in constant variety how does that apply now to your current role like I know you're leading multiple teams um in the healthcare industry I mean one bad decision May mean somebody's life on the line I don't know I you know I'd like to kind of hear these things that you've learned now how do you apply in your daily work yeah so in my current role I have to work with a lot of different vendors a lot of different teams um and basically one of one of the areas that I focus on is bringing new technology to our hospitals so it's understanding what that technology is what does it mean is it going to fit with our current environment is it does it meet our expectations Etc um but there's a lot of variety in that part of my role I think over time I've learned to recognize I'm really good with change I'm comfortable with change I don't mind it and I think when I came really became aware of that was uh 2017-2018 where my company ACA Healthcare uh purchased a number of hospitals in Houston and we basically got an announcement hey we're buying six hospitals tomorrow and what does that mean to it right so okay we gotta bring them into our world um and we're literally it was a couple years if not more of only being focused on onboarding those hospitals to our processes and operations and also our technology that's interesting because the healthcare industry is such a regulated industry and things are very slow to change so that must have been an interesting couple of years yeah and I think uh you know our hospital system is one of the largest obviously here largest in the number of hospitals in the market but we had not grown in a while so that was a surprise for a lot of the individuals that had worked in this market for a long time I was still fairly new so I was like bring it so again I had you know a great boss he's my boss still today that gave me the opportunity to transition into being the lead for that transformation so um I was the the leader that worked with each of the new hospitals and connected with their Executives and kind of talk to them about what are we going to do and kind of connected all the teams right so I can change you know every day right for a few years and it was great and all of our teams have to embrace it and everybody just joined and learned a lot um I think the other parts that are important in my role today is building those strategic relationships with our customers so our customers are our Executives in the hospitals our Executives in our division office uh and we're you know just very much in touch and connected to understand what are their pain points what do they need how can I bring technology to help with their problems so back to our soft skills and you know the areas that are so important you gotta be comfortable you know having those conversations and developing a relationship so they can remember you when they're considering oh I want to buy this product right like oh I need to talk to Karen and team because they need to give me the know-how on the I.T side to make sure it's something that we should be buying okay I'm still teams [Laughter] I was talking about one of our goals is to make more Latinos instead of just being consumers of technology for every tech company out there Latino Market is a very important market for them but we're not big creators of it we're not necessarily a huge portion of the team leading the industry in text and that's what we're trying to do so you actually play a really important role in this uh in this field and can unlock some opportunities so if Karen's job is to kind of sit down and kind of hear the pitches of a bunch of different tech companies right a lot of startups and everything say we created this to solve this and then on your knowledge you decide whether it's a good fit or not and then you make your recommendations to the team to the executive board and you know it goes on from there so what I want to know is uh based on your point of view what message do you have for uh Latinos that are working in Tech and they say foreign in the health system that we need we need solutions for so that's a good question um in Houston in particular as I'm learning myself we have such an important place the medical center I mean it's there's a lot of opportunity and it keeps growing so I think for me if I'm looking up products one thing that I that I would say is any area is safe right like it could be a focus of nursing the nursing experience for nurses could be focused on the physician experience it could be devices that our patients use or it could be how to remote care of our patients so there's there's all of that which is always evolving but I think for me the most important thing is as a company if you're a founder and you're looking to create a product or a service you have to be very dynamic in what you offer it has to be able to iterate and change with regulations and with the technical infrastructure I mean the real is you know most of us use very specific platforms to run our systems you know from Microsoft to Amazon AWS to Google Cloud so that all changes and your product has to be able to change with it right that's one I think second is when you come in with a product and you want to pitch it you got to be able to fit it into that hospital environment and requirements and by that I mean for example in the security space the healthcare security space is very different than you know the the hotel industry Securities I mean there's other types of information yeah so there's a lot of regulations and you got to be able to know that and also be able to meet those expectations from the beginning So speaking for for myself and the company I work for we have a very uh formal security vetting process for every vendor so you got to be prepared as a founder and a new product owner you've got to go through that Journey all those check boxes to pass even the consideration space if you come out and say oh no so I think those are important things to know um I think obviously everything is mobile now so that's something that you know we focus on for any of our our areas of care is a mobile experience for the users so looking for the next good product yeah yeah and I will focus on two areas for for myself here uh cardiovascular and Orthopedics surgical those two areas are big right so one is the the profit margin you know I mean you know it's the business where you gotta do the bottom line but also there's just there's a lot of need in that space um and then as the generations right we're getting ready to see we're seeing it already um you know the the generations of people that are retiring and are actually network but there's just a lot more that has has grown in that's nice it makes sense and then um what are some of the most exciting technologies that we're going to start seeing soon in the hospital systems good question um I think for me what I what I'm seeing and this is something that we're we haven't really explored deeply in my in my company but remote care right so being able to tap into a patient at home so that remote patient monitor so you don't have to come into a clinic oh can you check my abc me right uh no you need to take a look they have with you and it's all connected into the cloud and I'm seeing the data on the other end as a position and diagnosing so that's a big space which makes sense the security of that information yeah that's right I get it that's right so I think there's definitely a lot in that space that we're still to tap uh including telemedicine and virtual nursing right or our our nurses can connect with patients virtually uh or again you can treat a patient as a physician from any location and being able to see the patients remotely so that's that's a must to say uh is it safe to say that kobit really like sped up that process of like remote Healthcare Okay no Okay if there's anything like a positive if you may one positive silver lightning yeah it's now it's hard to go back right the expectation of being able to just do things remotely uh for care and then for even teamwork I mean they're there right and we're more comfortable with that Healthcare is really interesting to look at the Latino market right just because of some of our cultural foods and I'm sure you guys have the research and data to see different demographics and different states and different behaviors of how you eat food and consume it and exercise um what have you seen in the Latino Community or is there a piece of technology out there that you think could really help us for example I just know one second it's just like a big deal whether it's type 1 or type two and I hear this all the time even in movies you don't really know what it is and I saw now that there's Hardware like a device that you can actually put on it connects to an app on your phone [Music] it's a really good way to see protect to kind of help you out and monitor that because you can start selecting different foods or behaviors any other products out there that you recommend for the Latino Community there are plenty of products out there a lot of them are more advanced some are like in the very beginning stages for different types of monitoring so cardiovascular I get back to that space right and monitoring your heart rhythms and your vitals what I was thinking though as you were bringing that up with a Latino Community I think two things we maybe our generation can help our parents and others with embracing that technology because it is a technology right so like I'm just picturing my dad if I if he has to start wearing a device is he gonna do it number one application so I think that just that part one for for the generation the age but also just culturally because in English and it's not in Spanish right I think we play a big role on you know kind of closing that Gap so that our parents can Embrace more of that because it is it's cheaper right when we're looking at paying for the cost of going to a visit just having that cheaper for us it's cheaper for the providers um so it's definitely something that needs to grow more and we need to help with that all right like would he actually and use it because maybe that that's an opportunity right why we need more Latinos in healthcare because as we see the demographics like here in Texas here in Harris County in Houston and in the country Latinos are becoming a bigger and bigger portion of it so that means that if these devices these companies you start to actually want their products implemented you need to make sure there's some Latinos on your team that can understand your dad and be like okay well look first of all it has to be a Spanish feature that's right because um and maybe just other cultural references that make it it's like more adaptable it's like hey you can't make this Mega giant patch for kids you have to make sure that it's somewhere where like it's hidden or no different cultural references but that comes from having people that understand that Community very very well uh if people that grew up in that community so you understand the intimate nuances of it and you need to involve that into your the production of the company I think that's that's kind of like my train of thoughts I think a couple of things to remember as a company if you're entering and want to Target in our Latino Community we still need a little bit of that hand holding right so if you think it's just gonna be hey I ship you the device and good luck no like you gotta take that into account that there's a little bit of that difference where you need a little more connection and you know just that Personal Touch with some of those services and products there might be even some similarities with like online banking like my my mom and dad they still like paying their bills like just going physically like they like going over there okay online so um I'm sure you guys know that in Peru like a part of the culture to is guinea pigs so yes [Music] so you've got the coast you got the mountains you got the jungles right so in that comes the variety so as we try today Coast from the mountains we have kui and I've had it many times my kids have three boys beautiful boys and we just went to Peru they tried it and they loved it and you've tried it too yeah Jerky like beef jerky almost that consistency if they they cook it like that that's one way or you can just have it fry but it's it comes I mean all the way from the income culture and you know kind of the type of food that they will eat would be good and then a lot of people will cook it also underground so we have this tradition where we dig a hole in the ground and you put your food right you you have some foil whatever and then you cover it and you know you put a coal and you heat it and that's how you that's how you eat yeah and that very much happening today do you know if it's illegal you know what I don't know that's a good question my my kids used to have one so I don't think I could ever cook one they would kill me when [Music] how has the indigenous community and their culture like mixed up with some of the more modern like fancy food from Peru yeah so I think that you know the base and the foundation of our food it comes from a lot of those main core ingredients that are the Incas eight potatoes corn like we're trying right now the purple corn right there's I mean hundreds of types of potatoes literally so actually when I went we did a little tour and they showed us all the different ties I mean shapes colors you know sizes that's amazing so that's that's big in our in our Cuisine certainly that the the flavors of the potatoes play the other part that not a lot of people know and maybe you kind of got a hint with one of our previous presidents fujimori who was Japanese Ascension so we have large groups of Japanese Chinese as well as African-Americans so our really our culture is very much a blend of all of those and you see that also in the food um from a from a Chinese perspective we have instead of Chinese food we call it chifa so chifa is a combination of Peruvian flavors with our Chinese flavors it's not your traditional Chinese food it has that additional seasoning and just you know the blend but I also wanted to say we just found out Central is a restaurant in Lima they won number one restaurant out of the top 50 restaurants in the world wow um [Music] so a lot of the so like the Incas you know they will obviously do their own medical procedures right and surgeries um and this is one of those traditional knives it represents uh the god of the sound okay if a medical procedure do you mean sacrifice or no uh like when I went to Peru like a couple years ago [Applause] [Music] so getting a you know nice alpaca sweater you know they're not cheap they're super soft beautiful yeah alpaca is very like protective think about these the people that wear this type of clothing yeah they're up in the Andes mountains with hundreds of dollars of expensive gear or thousands of dollars what other stuff like is Peru celebrated enough in the U.S since one of the seventh Wonder in fact the Transformers movie if you guys don't know I didn't know was filmed in Machu picture during the pandemic so there's scenes in that movie if you haven't seen it yet that are there and because it was close to your epidemic perfect timing they were able to book it interesting so you'll get to see a little bit but yes certainly for that and then the food like those are the things that that people know about her which are true but also I think as you look at Latin America Peru is one of the countries that is actually excelling in startups in Tech like it's it's happening right um we have a lot to offer and it is just you know knowing about it I don't know enough about it I'm learning about it and I'm glad to see it there is 100 types of potatoes that you talked about round two [Music]
2023-07-31 11:52
