Dave Wessinger is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of PointClickCare, one of the largest cloud-based healthcare platforms in North America. He co-founded PointClickCare with his brother Mike, pioneering healthcare’s digital transformation and driving improved outcomes for seniors and care teams through technology. Driven by a passion for technology and an entrepreneurial spirit, Dave grew PointClickCare from start-up to a recognized market leader. In an interview, he speaks on an array of topics. Excerpts:

Founding of PointClickCare

Dave said that over 25 years ago, he along with his team strived hard to tackle the siloed nature of healthcare in the senior health care industry. This challenge spanned the continuum, impacting vulnerable patient populations as well as providers. “Our goal in starting PointClickCare was to provide technology that disrupts the status quo for the betterment of healthcare; thus, transform the healthcare ecosystem through the creation of a connected care network, powered by real-time, clinical insights, with a commitment to value, outcomes, and innovation.”

Post-pandemic – challenges galore

“If the pandemic has taught us anything, the race to digitize our end market is not over, including interoperability (remove the friction to adopt the technology) and connected care transitions (plug right into the broader healthcare ecosystem). If you want to really solve the problem, you need to solve it across the continuum and provide value in all aspects of care.”

Dave adds that they are seeing an increasing nursing and healthcare workforce staffing crisis – an outstanding issue for a long time but made worse by the pandemic – and growing gaps in health equity, all while enduring a recovering economy; so, the greatest need for providers is to deliver value and operate in an adaptive model – the move towards value-based care. This would help companies not only to survive, but also thrive.

PointClickCare’s digitalization initiatives

PointClickCare’s objective is to operationalize a national care network that connects the entire healthcare ecosystem, across the care continuum. “In doing so, we are providing informed and connected care, ultimately removing friction between systems and improving the patient experience through innovation and data sharing. Our single platform is comprised of a suite of fully integrated applications, enabling meaningful collaboration and access to real‐time insights at every stage of the patient healthcare journey.” With PointClickCare’s platform, customers can gain early access to the information they need to make more informed admission decisions, and real-time visibility into their entire operations insights for proactive care to ensure safety and the upmost patient care and experience.

Leadership traits

Dave says that he has always been a champion of change along with being a constant and transparent communicator. He is also fueled by passion and commitment to achieving PointClickCare’s vision – these two main traits have contributed to both his personal and professional success at PointClickCare. “I would say my unwavering passion, grit, bullish attitude, having tunnel vision towards the goal of transforming healthcare and being fearless in pursuit of this mission has also largely contributed to my personal and professional success. We also strongly believe that innovation is fostered through diverse mindsets, which is why we continue to focus on hiring great people and leading with a people-first mindset, providing the support needed for our teams to quickly adapt and remain engaged.”

Adopting a growth mindset

As a leader, overcoming the fear of failure in the business world is crucial in order to foster innovation. As a founder, the early days were full of learning and pivoting. This entrepreneur notes that for example, amid being eager to kickstart the business, they also outsourced the host of their software, which cost them dearly for the impact it had on the company for the next 20 years. “Leaders should adopt a growth mindset, which means viewing failure as an opportunity to learn and improve. Instead of seeing failures as personal flaws or setbacks, see them as steppingstones toward progress. Understand that failure is a natural part of the learning process and an essential aspect of achieving long-term success.”

PointClickCare – The way ahead

“The shift to value-based care continues to accelerate each year, especially as clinicians are increasingly taking on more risk; in fact, according to a recent McKinsey and Company study, the number of patients treated within the value-based care landscape could roughly double in the next five years. “We have also seen the CMS introduce new value-based care programs this year, including ACO REACH, which to be successful, requires complex interactions with multiple care settings and data aggregations.” PointClickCare’s recent acquisitions and partnerships will better enable senior care providers to take on more risk and enable better outcomes for high-needs populations as the market continues to shift to value-based care models. “This will ultimately provide better overall care planning and management, allowing us to progress towards our collective goal of helping providers better predict risk, close care gaps, and improve patient outcomes.”