Kamyar Shah, CMO profile

Terry Price
CIO of
Pathlight Mood & Anxiety Center
Eating Recovery Center


Kamyar Shah, CMO Certificate

“Get Comfortable with Ambiguity, seek to master it”

Under the directive of Terry Price, CIO of Pathlight Mood & Anxiety Center and Eating Recovery Center (ERC), the centers oversee the nation's premier mental health care system for eating disorders, primary mood, anxiety, and trauma-related disorders. Pathlight specializes in treating mood and anxiety disorders, trauma-related disorders like PTSD, and co-occurring substance use disorders. ERC, on the other hand, focuses on treating anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, diabulimia, binge eating disorders; avoidant restricted food intake disorder (ARFID), and nonspecific eating disorders (OSFED).

Terry consciously hires employees who are empowered to own initiatives, resolve issues, and effect organizational change. Steve Jobs once said, "It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do."

Terry has built strong bonds with his former staff, and some have even followed him to other positions too. "I had three former workers go on to become chief information officers at other firms," adds Terry. There are currently five people who have worked with him in each of his previous three companies. The late-night phone call in which he asks an ex colleague to relocate and join him is a testament to his leadership style and managerial skills, is the enduring facet of his leadership style skills that he is very proud of. He's done this numerous times and supports his employees even if it means they leave to pursue professional advancement elsewhere. The next step in their lives is unknown, but he sees it as his mission to either prepare them for it or propel them on.

After COVID, Terry has to put in more work than he had planned to define and grow the company's culture. In his current toolkit, he checks in with remote employees to just converse with them instead of drilling them on issues and challenges and communicating with them remotely. He creates a culture of inclusiveness; ensuring technical departments realize they can lean on other disciplines to be successful and promoting open dialogue across department boundaries, which is important. He's found business success through forming true relationships with his employees. He makes sure that IT teams meet quarterly to build trust, rapport, and a unified mission where challenges are openly discussed and everyone is heard, promoting creativity and finding solution.

ERC and Pathlight also offers inpatient, residential, partial hospitalization (PHP), and intensive outpatient (IOP) levels of care in centers across the country, as well as virtual PHP and IOP (video) telehealth services. We provide the full continuum of care using evidence-based practices for all age groups and all genders, says Terry. Our patients range from children and adolescents to adults, including "Acute," which is our specialist 22-bed unit that provides the most intensive level of care to those patients who are in an imminent, dire, life-threatening situation.

We are actively developing our interoperability solution in Azure utilizing Microsoft’s Health Data Services to meet CURES Act requirements. We are committed to making this solution, which we are sure, will be transformational for our industry and improve patient outcomes.

The healthcare industry is struggling, and finding qualified workers is a major issue due to the COVID pandemic, this will increase demand for mental health and eating disorder treatment, as per Terry. COVID also led to employees needing mental health services themselves due to the stress it caused. As the country recovers from the pandemic, all of the organization's service areas will need more capacity. Thankfully, our clinical leadership is aware of this and working to ensure we are preparedt.

In Terry’s experience, leading a startup, it always takes longer and more money than anticipated to get where you need to go. If you fail—fail early.

ERC and Pathlight provide innovative, evidence-based treatment programs tailored for patients of all ages, genders, races, and ethnicities. Working closely with patients as well as their families, ERC and Pathlight’s multi-disciplinary treatment programs are designed to help illuminate their unique paths forward and provide a foundation for resilience and long-lasting mental wellness, as stated by Terry. IE


Company

Pathlight Mood & Anxiety Center
Eating Recovery Center

Management

Terry Price
CIO of
Pathlight Mood & Anxiety Center
Eating Recovery Center

Description

Eating Recovery Center (ERC) and Pathlight Mood & Anxiety Center (Pathlight) comprise the nation’s leading mental health care system dedicated to the treatment of eating disorders and primary mood, anxiety and trauma-related disorders.


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