Amazon Web Services’ Phoebe Yang on Bringing Digital Transformation to Health System Boards

Phoebe Yang holds one of the most instrumental roles at the
intersection of tech and healthcare. As general manager for
healthcare at Amazon Web Services, she leads a team focused on
making healthcare better by enabling organizations to increase
the pace of innovation, unlock the potential of health data, and
develop more personalized approaches to therapeutic development
and care.

Phoebe also has a long history advising health systems at the
board level. She previously sat on the board of Providence-St.
Joseph Health and two ACO boards while in the C-suite at
Ascension; and she is currently a member of the board at
CommonSpirit Health, where she helps guide the $35 billion health
system that has more than 700 care sites and 150,000 employees
across 21 states. Phoebe also served as Chief Strategy Officer
for Population Health at Ascension.

Over the course of three decades, Phoebe’s career has spanned
multiple industries and sectors from law and government – where
she served two presidential administrations in technology and
international diplomacy – to media, healthcare and technology.
All that experience has driven her to a place where digital
transformation in healthcare has become a central focus of her
career.

In this episode of Healthcare is Hard, Phoebe talks to Keith
Figlioli about board dynamics in healthcare, while also sharing
insight into her role at Amazon Web Services and her advice about
how health systems should collaborate with tech companies. The
topics they discuss include:



Reshaping health system boards. Not long ago, board
seats were largely occupied by health system insiders and other
regional business owners in the communities an institution
served. But now, a whole new set of competencies and
perspectives is required, and among them, technology experience
is a must have. Phoebe explains how it’s the board’s job to
“look around corners,” anticipate every scenario and ensure the
organization is thinking strategically in order to ensure near,
mid and long term success. Without technology expertise at the
board level, she says health systems will be disadvantaged in
their efforts to engage patients and consumers as everyone’s
digital lives expand.


Two-way doors driving decisions. Phoebe believes the
most mis-understood calculation in healthcare involves the
notion of risk. She points out that everything in healthcare
has traditionally been seen as a binary calculation of life and
death, and shares an alternative strategy used by leaders at
Amazon Web Services. She says they often look at whether
decisions are a one-way door – one you can’t walk back through
– or a two-way door. She says most decisions, even in
healthcare, are two-way doors where you don’t need 100% of the
information in order to make a decision. Acting on the
information you have is better than being paralyzed and
inactive. If something doesn’t work out, you pivot and adapt.


Dealing with outside disruptors. From her role inside
one of the biggest tech companies, Phoebe has sage advice for
health systems. She says to remember that you are in the prime
position and have spent decades building trusted relationships
with your patients and communities. Remember that the biggest
asset in healthcare is trust and think about how to use the
trust you’ve built to better serve your customers. Most
importantly, don’t obsess over what everyone else is doing
because they would love to be in your position. What you should
obsess over is your customers: it’s how Amazon Web Services
operates and Phoebe says how health systems should too.



To hear Phoebe and Keith talk about these topics and more, listen
to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.