Sam Chebib, President & CEO of Nightingale Informatix Corporation, has led the Company to be one of the fastest growing technology companies in Canada and Canada's leading provider of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and Practice Management solutions.
Three things on Mr. Chebib's mind about being the leader in this highly competitive market:
1. Understand your sandbox and strategy: It is crucial to stay laser-focused on your target market and strategy. At Nightingale, we are focused on providing physicians in Canada and the United States with an exceptional electronic medical record (EMR) and Practice Management solution. We are continuously looking for ways to evolve and stay on top of product innovation in order to ensure that our products stay relevant for physicians and their needs. There has been a lot of controversy emerge in the last year or two related to physician adoption of EMR in Canada. As one of the country's leading providers, we feel that it is our responsibility to remain focused on providing products and services that meet the needs of our customers, some of whom are not particularly technologically savvy. We have incorporated speech recognition, handwriting recognition, and other tools to make it easier for physicians to input patient records and thus a more attractive proposition to adopt EMR. Ensuring our customers' successful transition is another key area of focus. We dedicate significant resources in order to provide comprehensive training on the EMR before physicians go-live in their practices. As part of our commitment to providing 'fanatic' customer support, we also provide opportunities for ongoing training so that physicians and their staff may continuously develop their knowledge of the application. Our relationship with physicians is a partnership – we support them at every stage of their transition and in turn we actively listen to their feedback and, among other things, respond through innovative product enhancements.
2. Build a smart team: Surrounding yourself with passionate, smart people who share your core values and empowering them to do their jobs is paramount to success, particularly when you are competing in an industry where the landscape is evolving at a rapid rate. Your team must be dedicated to providing 100% of their energy to their role, but as an employer you must also provide a positive and open environment in order to gain this kind of loyalty. Part of empowering your team is to provide a clear statement of values and at Nightingale, we live by our five Core Values: Uncompromising Integrity; Empowerment & Accountability; Strive for 100% Quality; Total Customer Focus; and Innovation, Innovation, Innovation. When we are bringing people onto our team, we evaluate how they will measure up against these values. By empowering our people to do their jobs, using the Core Values as their benchmark, we have built an exceptional team of highly motivated, dedicated, and passionate people who all contribute significantly to Nightingale's success.
3. 3. Measure your progress consistently: You must always have reliable metrics that can tell you in 30 seconds or less where you stand and where you are heading. Your KPIs have to tell you what's around the corner, not just what has historically happened. Revenue & Cash are important, but they are historic data points. You need to have data that will help you predict where you are going. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. Our data revolves around our customer satisfaction index as well as a number of financial measures. We very actively communicate our Promise to provide 'fanatic customer support' to both existing customers and potential new customers, and so I make sure that I am personally involved in communicating this philosophy, externally as well as internally. Making the transition to an EMR solution can be a daunting task for many physicians. Our commitment to providing total customer focus increases their success rate and also makes the process much more positive. We are dedicated to providing our physicians with the highest quality products and services and our daily mission is to achieve 100% customer satisfaction. It is the responsibility of every individual on our team, including myself.
Special to The Globe and Mail