Every year, myriads of people start new businesses, shaping their ideas and finally implementing them. While some of them meet success, a large number of these businesses have failed to remain steady in the ever-growing market. With the increase in competition every now and then, determination, persistence, and constant innovation is the key to unlock the road that leads to success and “Never giving up” is the mantra that keeps you on that road, unwaveringly. Aimée Madden is one such inspiring leader who has built and is leading a business successfully with her strong-will and passion.
Aimée founded her innovative health-tech startup, CliniShift, in 2015 and currently, serves as its CEO & Founder. Since her university years, she has always been determined to work towards her passion. She is today described as one of the greatest entrepreneurs of Europe and has won several prestigious entrepreneurial and innovation awards.
Entering the Healthcare Domain
Aimée always searches for new experiences and therefore, the vivacious nature of healthcare makes it the perfect industry for her. “Healthcare is a type of industry that is so dynamic that there are always problems to fix and more the complex for me, the better,” she says.
Before conceptualizing and building an innovative SAAS platform- CliniShift, Aimée worked as the Managing Director at the Ireland and UK offices of a Dutch IT Healthcare company. Prior to that, she was the CEO at Whitfield Clinic for two years, a position she earned after working as the COO of the hospital. With extensive experience in the healthcare niche, she then incepted CliniShift to revitalize the care industry. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD in the Nursing School at Trinity College. Recently, she was awarded scholarship by the college to continue her research doctorate in the area of the impact of technology in improving efficiencies and patient outcomes in healthcare.
CliniShift- An Incredible Communication Bridge
Having worked as the CEO of a hospital, Aimée identified the challenge of filling in vacant staff shifts at short notice. Initially, she started a group text messaging service to address the same, but knew that it was unsustainable in the long run. Passionate about taking this idea further, she invented CliniShift- a SAAS platform which enables hospitals to update and improve inefficient manual processes for staff scheduling.
CliniShift is an e-resourcing software suite providing an information, communication platform which enables healthcare managers to reach out to their internal staff to ensure non-scheduled shifts are filled at short notice. It encompasses both, the CliniShift App, which is free to download by staff- both clinical and non-clinical, and the CliniShift Manager. The CliniShift App allows staff to publish their availability and accept shifts seamlessly and the CliniShift Manager sends out requests to suitable candidates instantly using the organization’s own cohort of staff.
Using the unique queuing system of CliniShift, healthcare providers can canvas staff in a conventional and seamless manner. Its algorithms produce powerful request queues based on staff members’ booking patterns and their engagement with the app. CliniShift not only provides an effective way to communicate with staff around shift management, but also a broadcast functionality that enables managers to send out short bulletins of information to groups of staff. CliniShift is a disruptive technology that was designed to challenge the current over reliance on outside agency staff. It aim to solve the global healthcare crisis in the smartest way possible.
Finding Motivation Within and Around
For Aimée, it has always been about asking the question- Is there a smarter, more cost effective, and easier way to carry out the process, be it on the patient treatment side or supporting administrative processes. Aimée believes that her significant contribution to this industry is her ability to understand the problems and find solutions that she can successfully take to market. She expresses, “What I always like to impart to my colleagues is always put the patient front and centre of every decision you make, they are the key stakeholder when it comes to healthcare.” Reflecting on her strengths and ideologies from time to time is a big source of inspiration for Aimée to keep moving forward.
Apart from her zeal towards healthcare, she drives inspiration from many enthusiastic and brilliant personas around her. Aimée’s father, Dr. Madden, is an extremely smart and talented man and has contributed tremendously to the healthcare segment. His passion for patient care has and continues to inspire Aimée. There are some female leaders in the health sector who she admires a lot. They have been great mentors to Aimée over the years. One of her mentors is Elaine Brennan in Northwell Health.
“I have been extremely fortunate. Not only to do what I love, which combines my passion for science and business, but I also work with, learn from, and find inspiration in an enormously talented and diverse group of colleagues and business leaders,” she asserts.
Recognizing Success
Leading CliniShift to where it is today and the positive results it is bringing to their clients in a short span of time has been a major professional and personal achievement for Aimée. Other most rewarding moments have been the one when CliniShift receives great feedbacks form its clients as customer satisfaction has been her first objective. Apart from this, CliniShift won three very high profile start up innovation national competitions back to back in January, April, and June. This, according to Aimée, has been the best achievement in terms of recognition for the company’s hard work and contribution to the industry. On a personal note, she always wanted to complete her PhD and being offered a scholarship from Trinity College was the first step towards fulfilling this lifelong dream for her.
Maintaining the Balance
Aimée believes that a very important factor to being a great leader is maintaining the work-life balance. “This is something that I feel very strongly about because if you don’t invest in yourself personally as a leader then your company and staff suffer or pay the price for that. They won’t get the best that you have to offer if you turn up to the office tired, stressed, and generally unhappy. It’s not the style of leadership that generates a positive working relationship or culture, not to mention the mistakes that can happen along the way,” Aimée says. She continues, “For me work life balance is one of the most important skills to learn early on in your career, one example of how I contribute to that is facilitating staff to work from home on Fridays.”
