Exclusive Trusted Magazine Q&A with Mahyar Kargaran, Co-Founder @Golden Edge Medical Trading
How could you describe your career path in a few words?
Engineering Student → HAVAC engineer → foreign commercial expert(in HAVAC )→ foreign commercial expert( in medical equipment )→ commercial manager (in medical equipment ) → COO (launching start-up in telehealth )
Telehealth has emerged as a blessing for healthcare professionals amidst a global pandemic. It has allowed doctors to connect with patients through a digital platform and improved patient outcomes through digitally customized care plans.
What was your most challenging experience and it has changed your mindset?
Each and every entrepreneur always faces challenges and I am not an exception in this regard; however, one of the most daunting Challenges I had to tackle was in the beginning of 2020, telehealth was still very much a novelty, thereby encouraging people to have it a try was a demanding job. I considered it as turning point in my business since the situation made me find out new way to promote the product, using different apps and social media, for example, which made a significant contribution to extend the circle of friends and provided the opportunity to introduce the product quite well. Moreover, the thirst for convenient care, coupled with the potential for lower out-of-pocket costs ,which is always a major challenge for every business, is creating the perfect environment for consumer telehealth utilization and access to flourish . As healthcare providers confront a future of hybrid virtual and in-person care, we must consider the benefits telehealth brings to the consumer, as well as the key challenges we’ll have to overcome to assure a good consumer experience. Access for patients, efficiency of care delivery, professional impacts, and relational dimensions of care are the other challenges with which we had to deal.
What’s the most important key success factor for you based on your experience?
From my perspective key success factors for deploying telehealth are:
Check that there is cultural readiness towards telemedicine;
Identify a compelling need;
Put together the resources needed for deployment and sustainability;
Address the needs of the primary client(s);
Prepare and implement a business plan;
Put the patient at the center of the service;
Ensure that the IT and eHealth infrastructures needed are in place;
Ensure that the technology is user-friendly;
Monitor the service;
What would be the major pitfall that may undermine the success of a leader?
As far as my experience is concerned, following mistakes prevent a leader to achieve success.
Failing to recognize and appreciate others. It turns out recognition and appreciation, or rather the lack thereof, are playing a major role to make employees feel valued and stimulate them to work harder and more focused.
Micromanaging employees rather than helping them develop the job of a leader is to lay out the direction, to define the “WHAT,” and then to let their teams determine the “HOW.”
When leaders specify the “HOW” they limit creativity and potential and, most importantly, commitment.
Ignoring the importance of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is something I feel everyone should work on, not just leaders. It goes hand in hand with communication skills, which is one of the most important areas for leaders to develop. Failing to do so, can be a recipe for disaster and in many cases lead to failure.
