How did you first learn about CarePort and what interested you in working for the company?
I was looking to solve important problems in healthcare. I had worked for EHRs before, and while documentation is a necessary evil, I had seen firsthand how it was burning out licensed practitioners – and I didn’t want to be a part of that problem anymore. I wanted to be part of something that was filling a different, necessary gap. I also wanted to work with a team of fun people, and I wanted to ship code regularly as a product manager. I wasn’t interested in working for a company that had a few major releases throughout the year; I was looking for a role where I could ship code at least once a week and where I was sitting right next to the engineering team. Product roles are on a spectrum of technicality, and I’m on the more technical side – that’s what I enjoy doing. CarePort hit all three of those acceptance criteria. When they extended an offer, that was that! I was in.
What are your day-to-day responsibilities at CarePort as Expert Product Manager?
Day-to-day responsibilities largely consist of guiding developers as they build meaningful and valuable features – either features that add technical value to our infrastructure or add value to our users’ experience. I also ensure that our developers work on the right things at the right time, and that they understand the requirements that I’ve outlined for them. It’s also my responsibility to get these features tested and shipped on time.
In order to do that, it takes a lot of subject matter expertise on what technical improvements are important and valuable. In order to do this component of my job takes endless conversations with stakeholders, customers and tech leads to prioritize our backlog and determine what gets shipped and when.
You’ve had a few different roles in healthcare. When did you develop an interest in this industry?
I studied biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University, and in my junior year I was studying prosthesis. There was a project where we were working on a prosthetic shin that connected to an external computer to give feedback on longevity, and I glommed on to the application component of it – and less so on the prosthetic component of it. It was so fun to work with the doctors and other subject matter experts at Vanderbilt Medical Center, and I have been hooked on healthcare ever since.
I’ve never had the guts to be a care practitioner myself, but I care a lot about improving healthcare – and being a product manager is how I’m able to accomplish that. I got my first product manager job with Homecare Homebase, who we work with now at CarePort, and I will likely be a product manager in healthcare until I retire. My job is simply continually interesting.
What do you like to do in your spare time outside of work?
Outside of work, I’m a ravenous reader. On average, I read a book every one to two weeks, and I’ve exceeded reading 40 books per year for five years now. My favorite genres are primarily fiction and science fiction, but I also enjoy some non-fiction and memoirs. I find comedian memoirs to be fascinating, especially because they usually read the book to you if you listen on audio – and they’re hilarious. My science fiction recommendation is “Dark Matter,” by Blake Crouch. “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah is my nonfiction recommendation; the book was fantastic and was a unique and approachable perspective on apartheid.
If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would buy?
The first things I would buy would definitely be a really good truck and an Airstream trailer, because I really miss the RV life. My husband and I took a 9,000-mile cross-country road trip, on the northern route, when we moved from San Francisco to Boston. We spent the first month in California driving slowly up the coast, and then cut our way east through Washington state. We then went to national parks – including Glacier and Grand Teton, among others – and even hit up a rodeo in Wyoming, which was really fun. In South Dakota, we went to the Badlands and got caught in a very scary storm. Fortunately everyone was okay, but it was terrifying! From there, we drove to the upper peninsula of Michigan, to the Adirondack Mountains, and all through Vermont and Maine until driving south to Boston.
What’s a funny story about yourself you’d like to share?
I get a huge kick out of wordplay and puns. On our cross-country road trip, I nearly got in a few car accidents because I had to pull over and take pictures of the businesses across the country that have the funniest puns in the name. A couple of the highlights are “License to Krill,” an aquarium supply store, and another was “Pho-King Crab,” a pho restaurant. I’m up to about 70 pictures, and we had a hashtag on Instagram where you can see all of them. I put that out there because if anyone knows of good, punny businesses – I am obsessed. I will accept pictures that other people take.
Would you like to work with Maggie? CarePort’s product team is hiring. Check out our open positions and apply today!
