athenista Spotlight
The April Spotlight features two hard-working athenistas who focus their attention on our partnerships with state level medical societies and other athenahealth PartnerWise Affinity program participants. A big thanks to Laurie Saltonstall and Caitlin Wolf for taking the time to participate in this interview!
athenaPulse: Can you describe your job at athenahealth?
Laurie Saltonstall: Building and developing business partnerships with respected healthcare entities is the core focus of my role at athenahealth with the goal to build awareness of athena as the leader in physician billing and practice management services with the constituents of these organizations. Caitlin and I work closely together, along with many others in sales and marketing, to keep our medical society partners, IPA organizations, consulting and MSO organizations and other business partners abreast of the state of things at athenahealth, the performance improvements we bring to physicians and to develop and achieve promotional programs that will help build awareness and interest in athenahealth with physicians across the country.
Caitlin Wolf: I work with Laurie to help her maintain the relationship she has developed with partners and friends of athenahealth. We know that our relationships depend on keeping everyone up to speed with what is going on at athena in terms of changes to our solutions, market conditions, corporate development, and much more. I leverage what our great marketing team creates and share it with partners, particularly our 15 state medical societies, so that they are informed, but also so that they can keep their client, prospect and member practices in the know as well.
aP: Can you tell us more about athenahealth’s PartnerWise Affinity Program?
CW: The PartnerWise Affinity Program is the program which allows us to maintain an information-sharing and marketing relationship with our partners. We use the word partner to describe our relationships with Medical Societies, enterprise organizations, Consultants, Independent Resellers, MSO’s, RHIO’s and Value-Added Resellers. We have a variety of partners who see value in athenahealth and want to share it with their audiences. The PartnerWise Affinity Program helps us to get these partners the information they need. One example of how we do this is through our PartnerWise Email Alert, which much like the Pulse is sent on a monthly basis to everyone in the partner distribution list. It’s a concise email with the latest marketing programs, marketing collateral and information about athenahealth.
aP: How do you manage all of the different Partners of athenahealth?
LS: We stay in constant contact with the partners and with each other – the goal is to push them to keep us “top of mind” to promote athenahealth to their members, friends and customers. The phone and e-mail are our best friends. We also travel to meet with our business partners frequently. Recent road trips include NY, CA, NC, IL, CT, FL and MD.
aP: Any fun stories from these trips that you’d like to share?
CW: Aside from our crazy trip to California, I think one of my favorite stories is from the day that Laurie and I arrived separately at the Raleigh, NC airport wearing the exact same outfit. We both had on brown suits with light blue/aqua shirts–an interesting choice to begin with! We’ve actually attributed the incident to the telepathy we’ve been honing in.
aP: Since it seems like you both travel for work a lot; do you have any upcoming vacation plans that you’re looking forward to?
CW: I love going anywhere that takes me to the beach or the mountains, but I’m particularly looking forward to getting back to Barcelona to visit my brother–hopefully by early fall.
LS: I love to travel and am very lucky to have just returned from a cruise to the Caribbean. Other than that, just day trips to the beach and a few days up in Maine this summer.
aP: What do you enjoy to do outside of work?
CW: I moved back to Boston to be close to family, friends and the mountains/ocean of New England. Activities outside of work generally involve a combination of the three–but also reading, soccer, skiing, running and currently swimming rank among the most common hobbies I enjoy.
LS: I am one of the many remote athenistas and live and work out of my home in St. Marys, GA, a small town on the coast of GA just north of Jacksonville, FL. We moved here from the northeast about 4 years ago to be closer to family as well as to take advantage of the warm weather. When not trying to stay on top of the goings-on of my two teenage daughters, I enjoy biking, swimming, boating, walking the beach, and gardening.
aP: Prior to athenahealth, what are your past job experiences?
CW: Leaving Notre Dame with degrees in Political Science and French, I was D.C- bound and worked for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice before changing paths and working for a marketing agency in Virginia. It was from there that I made my transition back to Boston and luckily found athenahealth.
LS: Seems like I have been affiliated with the healthcare industry all my life. My father was a hospital president and I held many different summer jobs at the hospital throughout high-school and college. Since then, I worked at several healthcare IT companies - Siemens and GE, formerly IDX Systems Corporation - in many different roles. And when I have had the time, I volunteered at my daughter’s schools, which was great fun.
aP: If you were given 1 million dollars each what would you do with it?
CW: I’d spend about a quarter of that on my dream–to travel all over the world. I’d stop for longer periods of time in a few locations to focus on learning additional languages and really take in the culture. I’d like to think I’d then be more responsible with the rest of the money to make good investments, go back to school and of course think of others aside from myself. There’s a lot you can do with a million dollars. Any volunteers ready to donate?
LS: After dancing a little jig, I would have to rein myself in and be a bit practical since I have two daughters on the verge of college. I would start with setting aside enough for college and a rainy day and then probably build a pool in the backyard to take full advantage of the southern warm days and nights. Additionally, since we live on the coast, I would definitely invest in a larger boat for day or weekend trips up and down the coast. And I would also save some for more distant travel.
Thank you Laurie and Caitlin for this great insight into athenahealth’s PartnerWise Affinity program and for sharing a little bit about your life outside of work!
Stay tuned for next month’s athenista Spotlight.
