Everything we do at Omedix stems from our approach to business and to life. We want to feel proud of the work we do, the value we create, and the business we represent. Our day-to-day decisions are guided by the following values:
1. Do the right thing.
We are always honest with ourselves and our clients. We always make the decision that we’ll feel good about at night when our heads hit the pillow. We are an upstanding company with trustworthy, moral people and whenever challenged with a tricky situation, we will make the choice we’ll be proud to tell others about later on.
Real-Life Example: In 2006, we acquired a number of older medical practice websites that we did not build but for which we now provided hosting and customer service. One of these clients wanted to upgrade their site and began discussions with us. In the meantime, one of their staff members had independently developed a temporary website and switched their domain name to point to it. The result was that, although we received no cancellation notice, we were no longer providing any service to this client. Once we discovered the situation, we proactively contacted them, suspended their billing, and offered to resume service when they were ready.
2. Excellence always.
Everything we do should reflect our commitment to quality and to excellence, period.
Real-Life Example: When we designed the insurance module of the patient portal, it took 4 man-weeks to design an appropriate data model and implement all the permutations of how a user could add insurance. We could have done a lesser job in less time, but now we’re proud that every time a patient enters their insurance we’ve comprehensively thought through the absolute easiest way to do it.
3. Don’t accept conventional thinking.
Sometimes conventional wisdom is so conventional we don’t even realize it’s a specific way of thinking. When we tackle design challenges and engineering challenges, first identify the problem, then come up with our own solution. Just because it bucks the conventional wisdom doesn’t mean we’re on the wrong track. In fact, in healthcare, it usually means the opposite!
Real-Life Example: When a patient creates an account in the patient portal, we need to know a lot of information about them before they can do anything, right? Why not solve the real problem — we need to get them a username and password — with the minimum-possible number of fields and let them get to what they want to do — make an appointment — quicker. When they are going through their appointment request, then we’ll ask the rest of the information we need.
4. Put the user first.
Our designs usually look great on our fancy office computers, but what about Grandma who accesses it on her Compaq Pentium II with 512MB of RAM? We use Chrome and Firefox, but do things look good in IE7 or IE8? Always put the user first. If something looks good to you but is inconvenient for the user, find a way to make it work for the user. Always always put the user first.
Real-Life Example: Pretty much every day.
5. Make smart use of our time. Lead a balanced life.
Our careers are not the only thing that matters in life. We each have families, side projects, hobbies, friends, and living to do. So when we are working we need to make as efficient use as possible of our time. We do not look favorably on working excessive hours. Instead, we value high impact and productivity during the hours that we do work. We are constantly looking for ways to work smarter and leverage our skills, relationships, and infrastructure to be more productive.
Real-Life Disclaimer: Launching major releases of software tends to be all-consuming. We reserve the right to work late hours periodically as long we recognize it is the exception, not the rule.
6. Let’s have some fun!
Life is short, so don’t forget to have some fun and enjoy the journey as much as the destination!
Real-Life Example: We discovered, researched, and ultimately purchased IdeaPaint more for the novelty than anything else. And then we used it to draw pictures of zombies.