“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
This quote from Aristotle has been hanging around the Avantas office since we were founded. It means a lot to us, and is a driver of our core values.
One of those values is “Learner.” This can mean a lot of things, from working on advanced degrees to keeping current on the latest healthcare news and trends to cross-training with other groups inside the company.
Jenny Korth, who serves as a senior consultant as well as our director of project management and support, is one of the Avantas team members who lives the “Learner” attribute. She recently earned her master’s degree in healthcare administration, and in August she earned the designation of Fellow in the American College of Medical Practice Executives (ACMPE).
ACMPE is the certification entity of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), and is the highest level of distinction one can earn in the medical practice management profession. Fellowship in ACMPE’s industry-leading program demonstrates mastery and expertise in the profession of medical practice management.
To achieve Fellowship, Jenny first earned the Certified Medical Practice Executive (CMPE) designation by passing rigorous essay and objective examinations that assess knowledge of the broad scope of medical practice management, as outlined in the Body of Knowledge for Medical Practice Management. This includes business operations, financial management, human resources management, information management, organizational governance, patient care systems, quality management and risk management. In addition, Jenny completed more than 50 continuing education credit hours to achieve CMPE status. To earn Fellowship, she submitted a lengthy paper titled, Industry Changes Necessitating a Change in Medical Practice Staffing Models: An exploratory study.
Through this work, and the experience she has gained in implementing Avantas strategies and tools in more than 100 client sites, Jenny has established herself as one of the industry’s leading experts on the topics of staffing models, workforce analytics, and manager training.
But Jenny is not alone in her drive to become one of healthcare’s emerging thought leaders. The very nature of Avantas pushes team members to expand their knowledge, learn how to think differently, expand on accepted notions and processes, and challenge the mentality of “this is the way it’s always been done.”
As an industry, healthcare is often slow to react, and more frequently tentative to innovate. But our clients are different. They want to push the envelope, and that only encourages the natural curiosity of the people we bring on board. We learn from our clients and they learn from us. Together we are creating new ways of managing the healthcare workforce to create better staffing outcomes, a better patient experience, and greater job satisfaction for caregivers.
Congratulations to Jenny on her recent accomplishments. And thank you to our clients who continually push us to keep learning – to keep “healthcare working smarter.”