Chicago, IL - Metro AreaÂ
Onsite & Remote (Onshore/Offshore)
Full time, Contract & Part timeÂ
Office - (727) 386-6815
Email - merrell.robert.j@gmail.com
Results-Driven Product Executive | 25+ Years of Expertise in Healthcare SaaS & Services
A forward-thinking product executive specializing in healthcare SaaS and services, with a strong track record in driving innovation and delivering market-leading solutions that elevate user engagement and improve patient outcomes. Skilled at leading cross-functional teams to develop, launch, and scale products that align with both business objectives and regulatory requirements. Highly adept in strategic planning, market analysis, and fostering key stakeholder relationships to create impactful, compliant, and sustainable solutions. Recognized for a results-oriented approach and dedication to advancing healthcare through data-driven, user-centered product development.
AI & Data Innovation
Optimized patient matching tools using AI, achieving 95% accuracy and enhancing Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) by improving reimbursement rates by 20%, amounting to $125M in just six months.
Data Governance
Scaled data governance processes, implementing streamlined visualizations to manage data effectively, unlocking advanced insights for data-driven decisions.
Consumer-Centric Health Solutions
Developed clinical applications focused on health engagement, leading to increased user interaction and measurable improvements in patient quality of life.
Strategic Leadership
Led the launch of innovative healthcare SaaS products, increasing market share by 30% and generating an additional $10 million in revenue while achieving 100% customer retention.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Facilitated seamless integration across product development, sales, and marketing teams, reducing time-to-market by 65% and saving $70,000 per customer implementation.
Market Insight
Extensive knowledge of healthcare regulations and industry dynamics, strategically driving product enhancements that maintain compliance and competitiveness.
Team Leadership
Built high-performing, cross-functional product teams, enhancing productivity by 30% through a culture of innovation, accountability, and strategic focus.
Customer-Centric Product Development
Integrated user-centered design and feedback mechanisms, boosting user engagement by 78% and reducing customer support requests by 25%.
Director of Product Management (Life Sciences, Health Systems & Integrations)
2024 - CurrentÂ
Lucem Health - Raleigh, NC - Link
Ai, ML & LLM Powered Solutions - Enabling Health Systems and Life Sciences to better identify at risk patients.
Product Advisory is a consulting services company focused on early stage Product Management needs. Primarily focused on Fractional Product Management services.
Highlighted Roles:
Pain Navigator - Fractional CPO
C The Signs - Fractional CPO
Nex Power - Technology & Innovation Advisor
A-Bec Electric - Technology & Innovation Advisor
Fractional CPO - Advisor / Consultant - Product Strategy, Research & Sales Growth
2021 - 2024 (4 years)
Pain Navigator - Chicago, IL
Pain Navigator is a digital therapy platform that supports patients with acute and chronic pain. The app is a self guided set of daily tasks to assist patients with managing their pain.
Defined the go to market strategy for initial product launch for web, android and apple apps.
Facilitated market research in understanding market fit and additional product enhancements.
Worked with sales to educate and enable them for an effective sales pitch based on current product offering and future offerings. Built enterprise pricing model to reduce sales time with a profitable packaging while keeping it simple for the enterprise.
Fractional CPO - Advisor / Consultant - Product Strategy, Research & Sales Growth
2023 - 2023 (6 months)
C the Signs - Boston, MA & London, UK - Link
C the Signs originally launched in the UK to help identify early detection of cancer by Primary care physicians.
Director of Product Management (Head of Billing, Catalog, Ordering, and Integrations)
2023 - 2024 (1 year)Â
Invitae - San Francisco, CA - Link
Acquired by Labcorp - Invitae is a genetic testing lab that provides comprehensive hereditary cancer and exome testing to enable patients to make an educated decision on their health care decisions.
Key Areas Of Focus: Personalized Catalog, EMR - 3rd party Integrations, Unified Ordering and Internal Apps/Billing optimizations.
Impacted 20% in additional reimbursement $200M in recognized revenue through billing efficiencies, EMR Automation, AI/ML tooling, and test order optimizations.
Built the Epic Aura bi-directional integration and other partnerships; defining go to market strategy for organizational growth.
Evolved a Genetic Counseling centric order flow to be point of care provider enablement impacting growth within health systems in the first 6 months by 15% and growing.
Led cross-functional teams through all phases of product development, from ideation to release, ensuring timely and budget-compliant delivery.
Conducted comprehensive market analysis and competitive research to identify opportunities for innovation and differentiation.
Fostered strong relationships with key stakeholders, including clinicians, to gather insights and validate product concepts.
Implemented data-driven decision-making processes, leveraging user feedback and analytics to inform product improvements and feature prioritization.
Director of Product Management & Development (Head of Product)
2018 - 2023 (5 years)
Vynca / VyncaCare - Palo Alto, CA - Link
Vynca is a SaaS based Advance Care Planning and Healthcare Services Organization focused in Palliative Care.
Designed and implemented patient engagement solutions for Advance Care Planning that delivered 73% digital completion rate.
Built out self-service SaaS solution to reduce implementation time by ~2 months.
Continuous product enhancements to increase document capture, streamlined user, patient, and community workflows.
Built and Maintained Security and Compliance across SaaS and Services business units.
Active participant of quarterly onsite board meetings and member of Executive Leadership Team
Designed, implemented and maintained ongoing security and compliance with Security Officer and Legal Counsel. (SOC I, SOC 2 and HIPAA Compliant)
Director of Data Analytics Product Management & Development (Head of Product)
2015 - 2018 (3 years 5 months)
American Hospital Association (AHA) - Chicago, IL - Link
Working in a for profit subsidiary called Health Forum that services hospitals, education and commercial communities in data, analytics and product solutions. While Reporting into the COO.
$200M Association with 500 employees responsible for the data licensing rights and product portfolio.
Reduced overall expenses by 94% savings within the first 6 months while building out an integrated platform for streamlined workflow and optimization of costs.
Designed and implemented an enterprise data warehouse solution for internal/commercial use, and enterprise user provisioning solutions for 350,000 users across the association.
Managed relationships with internal stakeholders across 15 other organizations through effective communication and leadership to service the enterprise for data/analytics solutions.
Migrated 60 year old publication AHA Guide (hospital directory) online in less than 4 months and delivered to over 12,000 hospital CEO’s and executives as a responsive search directory with maps/ visualizations.
Migrated AHA Hospital Statistics publication (#1 source of hospital information in the US) into an online responsive design solution for members and public.
Built a fully responsive reporting solution for user needs to quickly generate ad hoc reports via raw data or data visualization.
Part of the Executive Leadership team that drove the organizational growth and strategy.
Projects:
Data Warehouse solution researched and implemented for internal and external usage.
Data suite creating an integrated user experience and optimized development costs.
User provisioning solution, Security and SSO with 4 layer administration/access rights.
Full Product Suite transitioned to AWS Cloud (overall reduction of 90% in costs).
Integrated API (Graph QL) to support Server-less application framework and aligned with client needs.
Transitioned from Qlik to Tableau server to support internal and external BI solutions.
Director of Product Management & Development
2012 - 2015 (3 years)
Aetna - Healthagen - Hartford, CT - Link
Practice iQ, a Healthagen-Aetna business, an innovative start-up organization aimed at assisting independent health care providers/ACO's in their transition from fee for service to fee for value payment and operations. This includes the deployment of technology, clinical staff and additional people based services (marketing, contracting, operations, governance, etc.) teams to assist customers in securing and maximizing performance-based arrangements. Practice iQ is a payer agnostic solution and supports the provider customer for all payers and all lines of business.
$63B company with over 47,000 employees incubated Practice iQ to integrate physicians into Accountable Care Organizations through technology and consulting services as they transition to a value based care model.
Managed, designed and implemented business model leveraging internal resources (Aetna Analytics, Healthagen, Active Health Management, iTriage, HDMS, bSwift, and Medicity solutions) and external partnerships (Zirmed, Walgreens, CVS and Nuance) for successful product services. • Transitioned 100% US (New York) based development team offshore 100% to increase product features and reduce overall expenses by 60%.
Built strong client relations by working closely with key clients to ensure customer engagement. Provided executive/sales support to key clients through site visits and constant communication to ensure high retention rates.
Manager of Technology & Product Development
2011 - 2012 (2 years)
Accretive Health - Chicago, IL - Link
Managed 200+ employed physicians and 400 external Hospital clients in receiving clinical recommendations through a streamlined cloud application decreasing the risk for denials and improper billing through 4 different product lines.
Successfully built out the business line from 20 clients to 400 clients (380% growth) in less than 1.5 years as 3 additional products were built out to support the clients additional needs to increase revenue by $15M.
Led all aspects of the product development and product management for the Physician Advisory Services division while navigating a growing culture organizationally wide.
Managed the merger of offshore and onshore development teams through an agile development process producing high quality products to the clients.
Extended Care Information Network (ECIN) merged with Allscripts in 2008 grew client base 350 hospitals to 800+ from 2008-2010 increased revenue from $38M to $120M
Designed, built and launched discharge planning, utilization management, outpatient care management, clinical documentation integrity, quality management and risk management SaaS solutions to Healthcare providers for both post-acute and acute settings.
Grossed over $2M in the first year of release & $460K in the first two quarters for Clinical Documentation Integrity automated software solution in recurring annual revenue from new clients.
Facilitated successful strategic business partnership agreements with 3M, Executive Health Resources, and Canopy (later acquired by Allscripts) to maintain 98% retention over 6 years.
Facilitated growth partnerships growing 150 new healthcare system partnerships with Ingenix Optum360, McKesson-Interqual & Milliman.
Currently known as Allscripts Care Management a discharge planning, utilization management, outpatient care management, clinical documentation integrity, quality management and risk management SaaS web based application intended to simplify and consolidate workflow for hospitals and post-acute care facilities.
Undergraduate sociology and computer Instructor of onsite and online course work.
Founder / Principal
2000 - 2007 (7 years)
MCCS - Chicago, IL
Computer Consulting Services, EHR integration services, Healthcare reporting services and Analytics
Masters in Information Systems Management
Specializations - Project Management, Information Security, Data Management and Administration
2002 - 2004
Keller Graduate School of Management - Chicago, IL - Link
Bachelors of Science in Sociology
Minors - Child and Family Services, Family and Financial Counseling
Certified in Therapy and Counseling
1996 - 2000
Iowa State University - Ames, IA - Link
Pragmatic Marketing Certified Level VI
Certification - # 00135380Â
Product Management, Product Marketing, Foundations, Focus, Design, Build, Market & LaunchÂ
2016 - 2018 - Pragmatic Institute - Chicago, IL - Link
Atlassian, Jira and Confluence
Salesforce
Chat GPT
HubSpot
Google Suite
Microsoft Office
Amazon Web Services
Microsoft Azure
Gitlab
AHA!
Monday
Smartsheet
Google Analytics
Amplitude
SharePoint
Product Board
Figma
LuicidChart
Draw.io
Quickbooks
Shopify
React
Material UI
Pendo
Wordpress
Google Sites
Google Search Console
WIX
Tableau
Microsoft Power BI / SSRS
Google Analytics / Looker
Qlik
SAP Crystal Reports
Snowflake
Amazon QuickSight
D3.js
Google Cloud Platform
Google Big Query
Azure Synapse Analyitcs
Epic, Epic Aura, & My Chart
Cerner
Allscripts
Athena Health
Practice Fusion
Veradigm
Elation Health
Point Click Care
Care Quality
Common Well Health Alliance
Epic Care Everywhere
Bamboo Health / Patient Ping
Mirth Connect
FHIR - HL7
OMOP Common Data Model
HL7 v2 & CDA
Drata
SOC 1 & SOC 2
ISO
HIPAA