Keith MacDonald / Impact Advisors
Excellence in Healthcare
Keith MacDonald says he is, among other things, a matchmaker of sorts. Ask him about his proudest accomplishments over the last 12 months and he'll say "successfully migrating from practice delivery to a regional client relationship manager, leveraging the many great client relationships I've had over the 30-plus years of my career," he says. "I've really enjoyed helping colleagues make connections that advance their own work and careers, whether recommending long-time colleagues for roles I know they'd be great at, to matching client needs with the unique skills and styles of my consulting colleagues."
Witnessing their satisfaction from a favorite career job or a successful consulting engagement can be more rewarding than the work he's done himself, he says.
MacDonald is Vice President, Client Relations—Northeast at Impact Advisors and has almost 30 years of healthcare experience including strategic planning; vendor evaluation and selection; workflow improvement/redesign; implementation project planning and management; operations management; and market research.
What motivates MacDonald to excel? "Seeing the satisfaction on a client's face after a job well-done—and if it's taken a team of colleagues to get there (which is almost always the case), getting the chance to reflect on and celebrate that together, he says. "There's nothing like the rewards of achieving a shared mission or purpose with a truly engaged and transparent client partner."
MacDonald possesses both broad and deep clinical information systems experience and has tracked and reported on IT trends, operational best practices and vendor capabilities. Keith's operational leadership in the academic faculty and large, multi-specialty physician group practice settings enables him to fully understand the necessary requirements, impacts and implementation best practices for IT in those settings. He also leads the firm's IT Strategic Planning service offering.
He says it may sound trite, but it's really the people he enjoys the most about his consulting career. " I can't imagine when I finally decide to wind down my career how I'll be able to replace in my day-to-day life the many dynamic, energetic, and rewarding interactions I have with both colleagues and clients."
In terms of winning a Top 25 Consultants award, MacDonald says "it really feels like the culmination of my 30-plus years of operations management, consulting and client relationships—each role building on the last," he says. "I have been so very fortunate—by chance or by fate—to have had longevity at three very prestigious organizations and all along the way I've been humbled and touched by the colleagues I've had the honor to meet and work with."
Q&A: What's been the biggest factor to your success?
MacDonald: "Listening carefully and putting myself in the shoes of my colleagues and clients—discerning the true background of a dicey situation, understanding a client's or colleague's concerns, and coming up with a plan or solution to address the real issue, which isn't always what's explicitly stated or obvious. I'd also have to say aligning myself with talented, motivated colleagues. I've been very fortunate to have had long-term tenure at two highly-regarded consulting firms with very talented consultants, each one smarter and more humble than the next."
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