In advance of the annual AHRA meeting taking place July 9-12 in Anaheim, Calif., HealthCare Business News caught up with the association’s president, Jason Newmark.

HCB News: What inspired you to get into the health care field?
Jason Newmark: Growing up in my family, I remember feeling as though it was simply, “go be a lawyer, go be a doctor.” It felt as though most of the parents I knew were in one of these fields and I don’t remember ever thinking about doing anything else. In college, I took all the classes and courses required to consider medical school, but these courses were too black and white and rigid for me. I’m a person that likes bouncing around, likes talking, challenging the norm, so I looked for options to change from the ”hard” sciences to opportunities to play to my more social and personal strengths. I had a great mentor in college that suggested I look into a degree in health care administration. I took his advice and went from there.

HCB News: Why did you join the AHRA and why did you get involved at the level you’ve risen to?
JN: I’m not a radiology tech, nor do I have any training as one. After earning my master’s in Health Administration, and then completing a one-year administrative fellowship at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, I transitioned into the world of health care management consulting. In 2003, the firm I worked for had a client that needed an interim director in a radiology department. We met with the client and they brought us on to focus on a few key operational improvement initiatives (scheduling/access/service levels and report turnaround times).

Admittedly, I was 100 percent outside my comfort zone trying to learn the technical aspects of radiology, but I was very comfortable with overall project management and interacting with staff, providers, and especially, senior management. I spent the first few weeks working side by side with staff and gaining a much better understanding of what the issues and opportunities were with general workflows. I was able to be a strong translator and advocate for what the radiology department needed, from more technical speak to financial and executive summary presentations and recommendations.

At that time, I was probably traveling about 120 days a year. I had just gotten married and that travel wasn’t the lifestyle we wanted. This client made me an offer to stay on board as an operational manager. They then hired a director (David Sack) to come in to fill that interim role that the firm had been hired to support. David was the best mentor and challenged me to be a better leader and better person overall. Within our first few weeks he then told me that I would be joining him on a trip to an AHRA meeting to learn more about radiology.

Attending with him was like walking the streets with the mayor! He seemed to know everyone at a personal level, attendees and vendors. I loved being with him and seeing how proud he was of the imaging field and what the AHRA could offer.

I loved that I could ask questions and not be embarrassed about what I did not know about the more technical side of imaging. I went in headfirst. From there, my relationship with the AHRA just grew. The first meeting I presented at, I discussed how to understand and develop your operating and capital budgets. There were over 100 people in attendance, standing room only. I had never presented to a group that large and it was a little nerve-racking presenting to radiology professionals. However, I quickly realized that I did have a lot to share coming from a different background. From presenting, it turned into writing articles, introducing speakers, more presentations and more volunteering. After a few years, these efforts led me to be asked to be on the annual design team, helping to plan and support our annual meetings and then to being elected to the board of directors, and then most recently, to being elected as the president.

AHRA is a very open and welcoming organization, and if you raise your hand to help and simply dive in, it will reward you with tremendous experiences and opportunities to grow.

HCB News: What initiatives are you championing as president?
JN: The primary goal for my presidential year has been to maintain momentum from the prior year. We have built tremendous momentum: over 5,500 members, new vendor relationships, strong financial stability and many new programs and services for members.

My second focus was to continue to enhance how we function as a board. Most of us are in very operational roles in our day-to-day lives, but the association has paid staff and established committees to implement strategies and do the real work of the association. So, while there’s a tendency for the board members to want to dive in, we need to focus on governing and strategy. And by strategy, I mean our core three focus points: enhancing offerings and value to our members; promoting the benefits of the association to employers to encourage them to invest in their staff becoming and staying actively involved with the AHRA; and strengthening AHRA’s presence with key industry stakeholders and policymakers and earning a seat at the table in discussions about imaging.

Finally, my personal goal for this year is to encourage our members to earn the right to lead. I want to inspire them to commit to being better leaders. As I said in my opening address at last year’s annual meeting, referencing William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies,” I want to see all members take their moment to hold the conch shell and blow it as loud as they can! Take a moment of leadership and share stories and ideas, blog, write articles, engage on our social media forums, attend meetings and be an active and engaged member! In order for AHRA to be the best association we can be, we need this from our members.

HCB News: What are the biggest challenges facing your members today?
JN: It’s the need for imaging administrators to promote our work and ensure that people understand the value of what we do. Now, more than ever, you can receive radiology services almost anywhere, and we need to make sure that people don’t take us for granted. We need to be actively involved in the patient care continuum. We can do this through enhanced data analytics and by providing exceptional levels of service.

We’re also battling with declining reimbursement and that has led to tremendous pressure around productivity. It’s a struggle for finding that sweet spot while providing the best customer service and best work environment for our staff. We need to constantly focus on improving workflows, assessing and optimizing tools and IT capabilities, and maintaining open lines of communication to/from our front-line staff.



The final challenge ties back to one of my early focus points. It’s about leadership. More and more, our members have to wear a lot of hats. They have to be almost a psychologist, an HR advocate, a financial genius, a regulatory expert, while at the same time, drive exceptional service to our patients and referrers. And this is exactly why AHRA is in existence – to be the indispensable source of leadership support and development for imaging leaders.

HCB News: What are the biggest opportunities?
JN: Increase the role you play in your organization. Be exceptional at what you do – as a support staff, a technologist or as an administrator. If you want to be a leader, you need to have a broader-based scope and commit to continual learning and accountability for developing your skills.

I also believe that there is great opportunity for imaging leaders to expand their scope of responsibilities and influence across other diagnostic service lines. Providers don’t really care if something is scanned under a microscope, or if we use imaging technologies. They just want help diagnosing symptoms and developing sound care plans.

For members, the opportunities are here to get involved. AHRA offers a tremendous amount of resources. Our website and on-line forums are incredibly active. There’s always someone posting a question with four or five responses quickly following. There are opportunities to share stories, attend meetings or host local meetings.

HCB News: Did the introduction of the ACA impact your members and is there any concern about its repeal?
JN: I think it raised a lot of awareness about the realities of health care. It pushed value back to the top of the conversation.

Additionally, as more and more payors move to these value-based models, the impact to imaging has been people questioning if and when they really need imaging. Utilization management is the wave of the present and future.

Radiologists have also been impacted. In many cases, radiologists are still paid on a fee-for-service model, so on the surface, their financial incentives are not necessarily aligned with promoting less utilization of services. As a result, many organizations and radiology groups are assessing ways to better align shared incentives and collaborate more closely on utilization management efforts. We are seeing radiologists become employees of organizations and/or are seeing new and innovative contractual language and arrangements around value. Overall, I feel that the ACA has really forced the discussion around radiologist and imaging provider relationships. I think this is a good outcome.

Right now, I am not sure what the impact of new regulations will be on imaging. We’re waiting to see.

HCB News: How is your field doing with keeping up with demand to fill job openings?
JN: One thing I’ve seen on a local level is that many radiology programs are struggling. Specifically, it is becoming harder and harder to find imaging providers to partner with to provide students hands-on training. For smaller hospitals, it’s difficult for them to have a disruption of students as they are trying to meet service level and financial/productivity demands.

Are we keeping up with demand? I’m not sure. I have heard that there are shortages of jobs, as well as shortages of experienced technologists. For example, at my organization, we continue to struggle with recruiting experienced ultrasound techs. We find many new grads, but what we really need at our Level I Trauma Center is experienced techs to help train new grads and maintain our high level of service to the community.

What I am also seeing more of these days is a large opportunity and demand to cross-train technologists. Some employers are working to help employees become certified, and others are helping to take someone that’s already here and expand their skill sets. I think a lot of it is driven by the employer as they are pressured to meet productivity targets. But this also greatly benefits staff that are able to become multi-dexterous and able to work in many different settings, making them more marketable.

HCB News: Any news in the field in general you’d like to share?
JN: I’m excited about how much progress our Regulatory Affairs Committee has made in raising the awareness of AHRA to other industry stakeholders and policymakers. It’s very exciting when we are asked to take a seat at the table and share the opinions and perspectives of our members.

HCB News: Has the association teamed with any other associations?
JN: We’ve worked hard to enhance our relationship with the ACR (American College of Radiology), most specifically, through collaboration on regulatory affairs topics. We have realized great traction in this area.

The RBMA (Radiology Business Management Association) is another association that we’re exploring strategies to more closely align with.



Overall, our board is also continuing to assess ways to enhance our overall organizational liaison efforts.

HCB News: How do you feel the imaging management field will change in the next 10 years?
JN: The biggest topic I continue to hear about is AI. I feel that this area will dramatically change the imaging landscape by offering a tremendous amount of data analytics improvements and predictive analytics. It will also help us see things we’ve never seen before and will force many in the imaging and overall health care field to have to be retrained. They will be seeing and assessing images and data in a whole new way. It will be extremely important that imaging administrators and radiologists stay involved and out in front of these new technologists in order to ensure that their own value and expertise (human touch value) are not lost.

Lastly, I feel that successful imaging management in the future will continue to be dependent on the leadership skills of those in the field. We need leaders to drive engagement of staff that will then drive exceptional service levels that will then help drive and ensure value in diagnostic information. Leaders will need to commit to continual learning and wear many hats. Leaders will need to push all of us to innovate and be the best we can be.