Christine V. Emery wants to disrupt what it means to age, from how we view the concept to how we incorporate it into staying fit and healthy daily.

The daughter of a U.S. Foreign Service officer, Emery was born in Laos and grew up in five countries, gaining passion and exposure for international affairs. Combining that love with her admiration for non-profit work, she has worked to instill positive changes worldwide in variety of positions, from director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies to her most recent stint as vice-president for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

HCB News sat down with Emery to discuss her new role as executive director for the AAMI Foundation, what her plans are for the non-profit, what assets she will bring to it and the HTM community, and how she plans to reach her goal at AAMI.

HCB News: I understand that much of your experience has been in non-profit. What interested you in pursuing a career in this area?
Christine Emery: I think some of that is by virtue of not entering a career with a grand plan. I’ve been in Washington, D.C for a long time. There are a lot of non-profits there. My first work was with some non-profit organizations that were focused on international affairs which has always been an interest of mine. It was one of those situations where one thing led to another. I understand how non-profits work. The management of a non-profit and the successful strategic planning for a non-profit, for most people, has been different than for a for-profit. Part of why I’ve been interested in working with them is to bring a different perspective of how the most successful non-profits are run more like for-profits.


HCB News: In the press release, you state that this is your first foray in healthcare, and that you are looking to disrupt the status quo of the current aging experience. Can you elaborate on what that means and how healthcare is the best industry to achieve that goal?
CE: Disrupting aging is something I’ve had in the back of my mind for the last few years. The personal journey of wellness and healthy aging is an issue of concern that I’ve noticed in many parts of the world in all the years of my traveling. In seeing how different cultures address it and how different individuals think about their own health as well as the roles of government and family, I haven’t seen or heard much of anything new for taking care of yourself and those you love as you move onwards from your ‘50s and ‘60s and hopefully for a long time.

For disruption, I just kept thinking that there’s got to be some way to engage in the national and global conversations about what it means to stay healthy, what is needed to stay healthy. What I mean by the status quo of aging is sort of a sense of helplessness, a sense of faith. I just found it sad, disheartening and frustrating when I heard conversations like that around the world.

Did I think I needed to get into healthcare to disrupt this? No, I didn’t necessarily thing that. As I looked for the next opportunity that would perhaps allow me to do that, I began reading about non-profits and organizations similar to AARP, but smaller or doing something different, sometimes on the domestic front and sometimes on the global scale.


HCB News: What interested you about working for the AAMI foundation?
CE: I was introduced to AAMI and had an opportunity to look at what they were working on. I was particularly interested in the technology aspect of it because I’m noticing that the use of technology in business as well as in healthcare has increased perhaps in some countries even more so than here, such as through the use of smartphones or using small, inexpensive devices that hook to computers for health communication.

Some bells just sort of went off and I thought, ‘Okay, this may be a good opportunity of beginning my disruption.’ Looking at what AAMI is doing, they’re using this as an inflection point to strengthen the role of the foundation and to establish hallmark programs and be better known for what it has been doing for 50+ years. It wants to be better known around the world.

In that sense, I feel I’m bringing my understanding of what’s going on in the world and satisfying that little thing that was needling around inside of me saying, “I need to get into this somehow. There has got to be some way to change this ‘that’s just the way life is’ sort of attitude toward aging and wellness.


HCB News: AAMI as an organization is dedicated to promoting the rights and education of health technology managers for effective production, assessment and uses of medical devices. How do you see yourself contributing to the support of HTMs?
CE: The foundation conducts some of the research that forms the work AAMI does. It’s also focused on disseminating the information and working with stakeholders that you could visualize in a concentric circle from the patient all the way to the outer sphere beyond government that includes the entire healthcare community environment.

The foundation crosses those different layers of stakeholders and engages all of them. With HTMs in particular, we’re looking for how to inform more people outside of the HTM community of the value of what an HTM does and engage those that are HTMs. Specifically, I know that one of my big tasks that I look forward to working on is being able to provide more scholarships for those that want to enter the field and awards for those that have done well in the field and to provide grants for those who want to conduct research in that field. We already do some, but I want to do more of that. There is a dwindling number of people in field and an increasing number of positions and needs for people in the field.

HCB News: What will your responsibilities be as executive director, and how would you say your experiences have prepared you for this role?
CE: Some of my responsibilities are sort of pre-determined by the role in terms of running the foundation, making sure that it is serving the public good, and that it is financially sound. What I see as the more fun part is enhancing the value of the foundation and focusing on that branding, on the hallmark of what it is that the foundation does and what it is that AAMI as the foundation does. How do we complement their work and further it as well as engage more stakeholders around the world? AAMI focuses primarily on those standards and building consensus worldwide around those standards. Part of my role is to increase the number of stakeholders that are engaged in those conversations around the world.

It’s because I don’t come from the healthcare industry that perhaps I bring a sense of urgency from the outside. I feel like I’m someone who understands the deep impact of the work happening here. I also feel, however, that there are not enough people outside the industry that are feeling this impact.

With a lifelong background of working across cultures and with many years of success in finding new streams of revenue for organizations and bringing strategic management to organizations, from that perspective, from that perspective, whether it’s healthcare or not, the AAMI Foundation needs the expertise that I’m bringing and there are plenty of subject mattersexperts here for those areas that I need to understand better.


HCB News: I know you’re just getting your feet wet but what goals or changes do you have in mind for enhancing the foundation’s mission?
CE: Having been here just one week and going next week to Long Beach where I will have the opportunity to spend one day with the board members of AAMI and one day with the board members of the AAMI Foundation and then a few days immersed in the larger conference and expo, I will come back from that with a much clearer sense of where some of the gaps are and what my first strategic steps will be over the next six months.

I want to enhance the value of the foundation. I am focused, as is the president of AAMI and the rest of my colleagues, on the whole HTM profession. I will be spending time talking to stakeholders in that field and looking for ways to attract more people into the field and to play a role in not highlighting but in showing that there’s a place for career growth and leadership in the field.