Krishnan Bhagavath, who oversees Moxe’s engineering and development team, wants to build and empower a team of disruptors.
“We want to make data accessible and affordable. We constantly ask and will continue to ask: What can we do in this space to disrupt the status quo?” he says.
Krishnan leads a growing team that has the power to make a major contribution to the way healthcare data is used to positively impact how healthcare is delivered in the US. We sat down with him to talk about his vision for Moxe’s engineering team and what he seeks as he expands his team.
Q: How would you describe your team’s mission?
A: Our team has a threefold mission that drives how we approach our work. Our goal is to engineer and develop solutions that effectively support and influence:
1) Increasing quality of care
2) Reducing gaps in care
3) Eliminating administrative waste
These are big goals that we are constantly talking about and driving towards. We want to be disruptors who think outside of the box to determine how we can deliver data in transformative ways that make healthcare better for all of us.
Q: How do you envision your team delivering on that threefold mission?
A: Our intent is to apply commodity hardware at scale to deliver meaningful observations using clinical, social, financial, and other data sources. We believe we can use data to stitch together a complete and more holistic story about someone’s health to better inform and optimize care.
We also want to use data to reduce friction between payers and providers so these vital stakeholders can more easily collaborate. For example, how can we use data to make suggestions about what to look for before a claim is denied? We’ve seen big data successfully harnessed and made usable in other areas; we want to do that in healthcare. Importantly, we also want to make that data affordable.
When I worked in the ad space, we used big data to figure out what people were likely to buy so we could deliver the most relevant ads. It’s exciting to think about what will happen if we use big data to help providers deliver higher quality care and to empower individuals to make choices that improve their health.
Q: What’s something that excites you about working at Moxe?
A: We are at an exciting point in Moxe’s history. Moxe started as a data conduit company. Now, we are driving towards data contextualization. We not only want to make health data actionable, but also user friendly and compelling. We know we need to deliver data in places providers, health plans, and others in the healthcare ecosystem can use it in meaningful ways.
We think about how big data can be used to achieve that threefold mission. What kind of machine learning and data science capabilities can we bring to providers? How can we empower individuals to better manage their health? How can we deliver payers the kind of data they need and reduce the back-and-forth between health systems and payers? We think creatively about how we can use big data to serve all stakeholders in healthcare (patients, providers, health plans), and that’s exciting.
Notably, we invest heavily in our engineering team and innovation. We have an active hackathon at Moxe; our team members get to spend 20 percent of their time working on whatever they want (with a purpose, of course). If you have an interest in a particular technology and want to become proficient in it so you can build capabilities that bring value to the company and our customers, we encourage it. If you have a concept you’d like to explore, our leadership team is supportive. Every senior leader, in fact, is required to sponsor one hackathon per quarter. We value giving people time and resources to create, explore, and solve problems at Moxe.
Q: What traits you are looking for as you grow your team?
A: I am looking for thought leaders who can help us fundamentally advance how we look at data in healthcare. We want to attract the best talent out there to join our team of bold innovators and strategic problem solvers.
I am seeking people who have experience and proven success with big data technology, others who have a deep understanding of how technology can be used to drive behavior, and those who bring clinical data expertise.
We are in a unique position because it’s not all about science; there’s an art to data as well. We are figuring out how we use data in meaningful ways. Moxe is a place where pure technologists, healthcare scientists, and data scientists work alongside each other and seek to disrupt for the common good.
Q: How would you describe your leadership style and the kind of atmosphere you try to cultivate on your team?
A: I would say that I’m a servant leader who is extremely focused on outcomes. I give people autonomy, but also hold them accountable.
I seek to cultivate an environment of active innovation. I have an open-door policy, and I encourage other leaders to have the same. When you’re asking for innovation, you need to recognize that it can come from anyone, at any level. We can’t be a bunch of professors at work; we need to be open to learning from each other.
Moxe leadership is committed to building a collaborative, accepting, open culture that solves big problems, thinks creatively, and delivers results that matter. We will double our team this year, and we have a clear vision for how we’ll achieve that. We don’t want to outsource; we want to invest in and build an internal team of disruptors committed to making healthcare smarter and more affordable.
I also believe there is fun to be had in the work; I want my team to enjoy what they do and who they work with. I want us to be comfortable failing fast, learning fast, and then moving on. I believe failure is essential to ultimately succeed and achieve those game-changing wins.
Q: Is there anything else you’d want someone who is considering applying to join your team to know?
A: If you want to break into the industry, there are four essential questions to ask about any team you’re considering:
Does the organization value individuals who challenge the status quo?
Will you be collaborating with the right leaders, within the right construct, to solve the problem that they want to solve?
Does the leadership team have the patience and relevant industry experience to help you develop and let you thrive?
Are the leaders ready to learn from the team?
I’ll close on this note: We really cut the red tape here for people to innovate. If you’re interested in innovation in healthcare, Moxe is the place.
Krishnan Bhagavath is Moxe’s SVP of Engineering. He oversees software development, quality assurance, and data processing, ensuring the development and implementation of efficient operations, innovative solutions, and cost-effective systems to meet Moxe’s—and our customers’—current and future needs. Krishnan brings 30 years of technology experience to Moxe, including roles at HealthEdge, Pointillist Yahoo, SAP, Hyperion, Brio Technology, Oracle, and Portal Software.
Interested in exploring whether you and Moxe may be a good match? Check out Moxe’s Careers page.