Qatar to Orlando: Maryann Kawaksheh on Global Healthcare, AI & Leadership MGMA 890 subscribers

Episode Transcript
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Daniel Williams (00:03):
Hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams, senior
editor at MGMA. We're back foranother MGMA podcast live from
Orlando for our twenty twentyfive Leaders Conference. And I
have a special guest that I amso excited that we have on the
show today, Maryann Kowakse, whocame all the way from Qatar to

(00:24):
enjoy the show. So Maryann,welcome.

Maryann Kawaksheh (00:26):
Thank you. Thank you, Daniel.

Yeah. I was talking to our mutual friend,
Linda Carroll, previously at Ithe was thinking that Linda, who
came all the way from Alaska,might've traveled the farthest
distance.

No, beat everyone at I think

the you set the record with I did. So tell us
about that. All the way fromQatar, how did you even know
about MGMA? Bring us up to speedin

MGMA, that so I used to work in Alabama prior
to Qatar.

Okay.

And when we went to Qatar, I went to Qatar
to build, we have a hospitalthat we started from scratch, so
it's a Greenfield hospital. Itwas a great opportunity to go
and be involved in that. I'vebeen there for a year. I went
with the intention of stayingfor a year. I've been there.
This is my eighth year. So Ihave no intentions of leaving
until they tell me to leave. Sothe hospital is doing great. We

(01:19):
came to a point where we startedlooking for benchmarks because
we're expanding our compensationscheme and we wanted to see how
the best benchmarks, we neededbenchmarks is basically what we
needed. So I remembered we hadMGMA as we used it back in The
States so I tried to advocate toget it.
It's very expensive because wehave to get an organizational

(01:40):
membership because I was theonly one that was going to be
using it. But it was one of the,I think we're one of the two
international hospitals, I'm notsure. There's somebody out
there, there's one other countrythat has MGMA as well.

So

I kept on pushing for it and we finally
got the organizationalmembership. I think this is the
second or the third year. Soyeah, I've been, we've been
using it.

We've been

using it. It's very interesting.

I have so many questions I wanna First, ask you
you had me at Alabama becausenow I'm singing. I'm going from
Alabama I'm to thinking, becauseI came from Alabama with a banjo
on my knee, and I went out andmoved out to California.

Oh, okay.

That was culture shock. But Alabama to
Qatar,

similarities prior to that the culture shock,
I had a previous culture shock.I'm originally from New York. I
went from New York

to Alabama.

New York to Alabama. I needed a translator
from English to English when I

got there. You

did. After that, was Alabama to Qatar.

Okay. I have to ask, because I lived in Alabama
for I 15 was in Birmingham.Where were you?

I lived in Hoover. I worked at Children's
of Alabama.

That's amazing. What a small world. We went all
the way to Qatar to connect herein our Alabama connection.

So the reason I come here is because exactly
what you said. You spoke toLinda, who met me. It's the
networking. It is. It's anamazing opportunity.
So Linda's a pleasure as well. Ican call her out on here. I
know. I So she said, you have tomeet with Daniel. And I said,
who's Daniel?
Okay. So, yeah.

Yeah. Well, I just bumped into her at the
breakfast. You're gonna leavefor our breakfast right after
this interview. And she told me,you found the Qatar job on
LinkedIn or they headhunted youor Tell us about that story
because that soundedinteresting.

There's a lot of things in the background that
led me to search for a job andwhen I went on it was just the,
like indeed the normal, youknow, websites that have the
positions. And I just put out anapplication and then I
completely changed my mind aboutit. And then somebody called me
and they said, let's do aninterview. We really want to
talk to you. And I said, no, Idon't think so.

(03:49):
And then they called again. Andthat the second time I said,
okay, let me do an interview.

Okay.

And I did. And I said, I'll take a chance.
We'll go for a year.

And there we are. That is so incredible.
Well, here's an immediatequestion because I don't know
global health insurance oranything. I mean, translates?
Because you're coming fromQatar, a practice in Qatar.
You're here in The US, inOrlando at an MGMA event. Where
do the healthcare principlesprocesses a connection where you

(04:22):
can get something

It's out of this very interesting. One of
the sessions I attendedyesterday, they were talking
about expanding their ambulatorycare, which is exactly what I'm
doing, working on right now.

Okay.

It's exactly the same. The health care there
and here, it's exactly the same.We have national health
insurance, and we also have theprivate health insurance. And
the ambulatory care is the sameissue, getting people in, the
long wait times, the spaceconstrictions, it's the same
story. So it's very interestingto hear a different perspective
on what they're doing and how itcan relate to what I'm doing.

(04:53):
So I think that's what I benefitout of these conferences is that
I heard what they did. I said,okay, I did that as well. But
then I asked a few morequestions where, what are they,
you know, what type ofbenchmarking they're using and
things like that. And it's thesame story in a different
location. Really, it justtranslates just like that.

Well, tell us, is there something strikingly
different from one country tothe next in healthcare, the way
it's presented, the way patientsare met?

Strikingly different. So they have a
national health, so it's agovernment subsidized program.
So I work at a tertiary hospitalfor women and children.

So

we have, in our hospital for, I'll take
pediatrics as an example, Wehave the sole service providers.
So we have the specialists thatare not available anywhere else.
So children come to us and theycome and they pay a, just a
copay $30.50 riyals, which isequivalent of $10 or something
like that. It's a small amountof money. It's just like
government, like Medicaid,similar to that.

(05:55):
They pay the amount and they seethe specialist that we have. If
they decided to go elsewhere,they would have to use their
private insurance. So thecompanies also provide us
private insurance. But we arethe sole service for the country
of all the pediatrics. So wehave specialists that come from
all around the world.
We have world renownedphysicians. We have, like our
pediatric urologists, theycreated services, they created

(06:20):
opportunities for children thatdidn't exist. We did separated
congenital twins. They have alot of specialty, specialty
surgeries that are taking placein Qatar. I know a lot of people
don't think about it, butthey're really innovative, very
innovative.

That is so cool. Yeah. So we're on the last
day here at the LeadersConference.

Yes.

What's a thing or two that stood out to you? I
know that networking, thoseconnections, what else? What's
been going on that you really,that really resonated with you?

So the one thing I'm looking at, I really
enjoy looking at the AI right

now. Okay.

Everybody's talking about AI. Yeah, are.
There's at least probably fiveof sessions I attended had to do
with AI. How to leverage AI forwhat you're doing, but they also
focused on the human part of it.So AI is intended to do things
that are mundane tasks, thingslike that.

Right.

But what they focused on at this conference is
that you have to free yourselfup to do the human things,
connecting with your team, beingable to do the things that you
don't have time to do whenyou're doing your job. I think
that was a really interestingperspective on it. Yeah.

I love that. Yeah. One more question then.
Detail for us, because I'm justtrying to imagine, I just flew
to Spain earlier this summer,and that was somewhat of an
ordeal. But I want, what was thelogistics like to travel from
Qatar to Orlando?
Where did you start? And I knowwhere you wound up. You wound up

(07:53):
here in Orlando.

So from Qatar, had a direct flight to
Miami. That was about fifteen.Yeah. Hours. Fifteen hours.
And then a forty minute fromMiami to

Yeah, that was nothing. So fifteen hours.
What's your go to when you're ona plane for fifteen hours? Do
you read a book? Do you watch amovie?
What are you doing on

I a plane

for took 15 a

flight that was at one a. M. So my go to was
eight hours of sleep. So it wasnice. I had a good flight.

Did you wake up and it was yesterday or the day?
How does that go? I woke up

and it was, you know what, don't know.

You lived Sunday twice. You had the same
So day

when you're coming to The States, you gain
some time and when you leave,you lose

some Okay. When are you heading back to Qatar?

I will be taking a few more days. I'm
heading to New York.

Okay.

And then I'll be heading to Qatar.

Is that where you grew up in I New so.
Fantastic. Yeah. What else? Saidthat was the last question, but
anything else you wanna sharewith us?
Anybody who might be listeninglike, Hey, if I came all the way
for Qatar, you can come

It's from definitely worth it. It's worth
the networking, as I said, Youlearn a lot of things even
though you think you knoweverything.

Right.

But honestly, need training. They need
continuous updates and thingslike that that we lack. And
understand it helps you tounderstand your leadership style
so you can go back and lead yourteam appropriately.

All right. Well Mary Anne, thank you for coming
all the way from Qatar. This isjust amazing. Just glad to have
you here.

One thing interestingly enough, I know you
have to go but these all thevendors that I've spoken to, and
when they asked me, where areyou from? And I say, Qatar,
they, where? So I think we haveto educate people where Qatar
is. Nobody knows how's it

the World Cup? You think that kind of

put it on

the map for me? Then there was the debate, is it
Qatar? Is it Qatar?

But either way, everybody says it before.
They do. So interesting. Yeah.

Okay. Well, it's great having you

here. Pleasure. Was nice meeting you.

You too. Well, everyone, this is Daniel
Williams, senior editor at MGMAmeeting with Mary Anne all the
way from Qatar. So thank you somuch for being MGMA podcast
listeners.

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