TheBridge profile: Sophia Chang
Name: Sophia Chang
Current city: San Francisco, CA
Current job: Chief Clinical Informatics Officer at Clover Health; practicing internal medicine physician and UCSF faculty at San Francisco General Hospital
Past job: Chief Clinical Innovation Officer at CareMore Health Plan, focusing on using technology to scale direct care for high-cost Medicare members and translate the model to Medicaid
Q. Favorite spot for a coffee meeting? My own kitchen table! I find it much more personal and meaningful.
Q. Describe how a skill you learned in a previous job helped you in your current job. My first real job was the Director of AIDS Health Services in charge of the San Francisco Department of Public Health's HIV program during the peak of the epidemic—clearly a very emotional issue, and I had to work collaboratively with a large group of people with varying perspectives. I learned to understand where each person was coming from and what was important to them as a way to build common ground through empathy.
Q. Job advice in three words? Be authentically curious. By that I mean be yourself, always be learning, and don't ever try to fit yourself into an uncomfortable mold.
Q. How are you (or your company, org, nonprofit) currently bridging the gap between innovation and regulation? Clover is a very innovative company in a highly regulated environment, so we try to lean into that and have constant conversations with regulators across involved agencies to let them know what we're doing. It's a different approach than other startups that intend to disrupt everything. The common ground is that we all want to ensure Medicare beneficiaries are receiving the best possible care and having better health outcomes.
Q. What can innovators learn from policymakers? It's hard to truly draw the line and direction of who is teaching when both innovators and policymakers are in constant conversation. Our team works directly with highly experienced policymakers who help translate the real-world challenges into solutions, from financing to service delivery. Given the constraints of policies and regulations, we as innovators are forced to be creative in achieving our goals to improve the health of American seniors.
Q. What can policymakers learn from innovators? It is a pivotal time in healthcare right now, with regulators trying to understand how technology develops new tools and how they can be brought to bear on the lives of Medicare Advantage members. In the end, we share common goals with regulators…but we can probably help them learn to move a little faster!
Q. Favorite book/podcast/long-form article you recommend? Each morning, I listen to the New York Times' The Daily podcast. If I have more time to listen, I like Freakonomics because it makes me learn about completely different domains outside of healthcare.
Q. Most underrated virtue in an employee? A combination of resilience and perseverance. Particularly in startup environments, we value quick, rapid cycle sprints, expecting things will fail and change along the way. To make significant change and really be successful, you need all those sprints to follow a trajectory in a certain direction, with serial efforts building upon one another.
Q. Favorite app? Clover Assistant, our point-of-care platform that makes targeted recommendations to primary care physicians. It enables them to efficiently provide the best care that they can without having to hunt through records for the latest information. I honestly spend more time on it and think about it more than any other app, especially as a practicing physician!
Q. Best advice you’ve received? An early mentor of mine urged me to maintain my clinical practice for as long as possible. Being a practicing physician is a privilege. You have the opportunity to be a part of individual lives and have a role in helping them to live and, at times, die meaningfully. It is a constantly learning and humbling experience.
Q. How do you unwind after work? I love to cook and entertain friends and family. I find that all the multitasking concentration required while I'm cooking takes my mind off of other things and helps me be in the moment.
Q. What's one piece of advice you are still trying to master? I tend to get very excited about things and sometimes I have to remind myself just to breathe!
Q. How often do you work from home? Probably one day a week, but Clover's remote work culture lets me maintain my clinical practice and allows firm-wide running conversations that I really value. The open and easy communication is what makes my work-life engaging.
Sophia’s previous experience also includes: Vice President of Programs at the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), Vice President and Medical Director of Population Health Solutions at Accretive Health, Director of the Veterans Health Administration's Center for Quality Management in Public Health, Medical Director of the San Francisco Health Plan (a Medicaid managed care plan), and Director of AIDS Health Services for the San Francisco Department of Public Health; Also served on the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, which oversees Healthy Families (the state's Children's Health Insurance Program) and California's Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan
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