We recently connected with Chuck Schneider and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chuck, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Healthcare is complex. Nurses and physicians are burned out. One contributor to this is the electronic health record (EHR). This is the software system that clinicians use to capture patients’ health records. The problem is that the EHR consumes a clinician a lot of time. According to the American Medical Association, for every one hour a physician spends with a patient, the physician must spend two hours at a computer. Our mission is to make healthcare efficient.
I was at a hospital early in my career, and the hospital was adopting an EHR that I helped build. A physician walked up to a computer to use the system and got so frustrated that he threw the computer mouse at me as he yelled. Luckily, it was in the days of corded mice, and the mouse flew about 18 inches and then hit the desk. He stormed off. From that moment, I realized that software can be helpful but can also negatively influence a person’s job.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was one of the original architects who built Cerner’s EHR (electronic medical record). I worked there for 26 years and saw many changes as the healthcare industry evolved, became digitized, and became more complex. I’m a software engineer by background, and my career has led me to be an executive who has managed software around the world.
I spent 15 years in the medication process space. I built the world’s largest ordering system until Amazon finally overtook us on volume. However, our system’s orders were for patients, from medications to laboratory to surgeries to chemotherapy protocols.
I have 11 patents in the EHR medication space.
I oversaw the development of mobile applications, testing strategy, and test automation.
I left Cerner in 2021 and started my healthcare tech company, Redpoint Summit, with a mission to make healthcare more efficient.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

When I worked for a large healthcare tech company, many competing priorities existed. Corporate politics and personal agendas. I was responsible from a software development perspective for many central areas. I had a limited number of people in my organization. It was hard to determine what we should do next and which things we should put on hold. I always decided based on “what is best for the product”. This kept me out of the politics of who internally would benefit or which client’s needs should be dealt with. There were many spirited conversations in the heat of the moment, but over time, people realized that I would base my decisions on doing the right thing for the product. As my network of people in the industry grew, my rational reputation followed. I treated people with respect even when I told them their project would not be worked on now but would be worked on at some point in the future.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I’m an avid business book reader. The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker was pivotal in my approach to managing. Peter talked about creating a “Commanders Intent” and ensuring your team is aware of the overall goal, but it is up to them to execute the plan and interpret the details. Many management issues I’ve come to find out is a lack of communication. Remembering this lesson helps remind me my team can’t do their job unless I communicate the overall strategy.
“Good in a room” is also an excellent book. It talks about how to have conversations with senior leaders in many situations. It talks about respecting everyone from your table server while out to eat at a business dinner to don’t make assumptions about who the decision maker may be when talking to a group.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.redpointsummit.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuck-schneider/