Lindsey Ronnenberg Advances Growth and Efficiency in the Healthcare Innovation Space

Lindsey Ronnenberg is the senior director of global quality products and services at Omnicell, a company providing innovative pharmacy and medication management solutions for healthcare professionals and health systems.

Since 1992, Omnicell has been committed to transforming the pharmacy care delivery model to dramatically improve outcomes and lower costs. Through a vision to replace manual, Omnicell supports more efficient ways to manage medications across care settings.

Omnicell's Primary Executive Office is in Fort Worth, TX and many key operational activities are based out of Cranberry Twp, PA.

Healthcare facilities worldwide use Omnicell automation and analytics solutions to help increase operational efficiency, reduce medication errors, deliver actionable intelligence, and improve patient safety. Institutional and retail pharmacies across North America and the United Kingdom leverage Omnicell's innovative medication adherence and population health solutions to improve patient engagement and adherence to prescriptions, helping to reduce costly hospital readmissions. Omnicell's award-winning solutions are used in over 5,000 hospitals throughout the world and in over 40,000 institutional and retail pharmacies.

"I can't imagine working in another industry. I've had so much satisfaction in seeing that my job has a real purpose and positive impact on people when they're at their most vulnerable. It's something that really becomes a part of who you are as a person," said Ronnenberg, who has worked for Omnicell's Cranberry Township location since 2016. "Omnicell is a customer-centric company focused on driving real outcomes. We have listeners and creative thinkers. It's important to have both and to be committed to the mission and being persistent in making things better for the patient and the caregivers."

Before Omnicell, Ronnenberg worked in South Carolina at Trumpf Medical a Hill-Rom Company as a QA/RA manager and quality, regulatory and North American Technical Service Manager; Berchtold Corporation as the southwest technical service and project manager and quality assurance engineer and supervisors; and at Federal Mogul – Sealing Systems as a manufacturing engineer.

She holds a master's degree in business administration with an international business concentration from University of South Carolina Moore School of Business and a bachelor of science education in industrial operations and engineering from the University of Michigan College of Engineering.

With a goal of providing higher quality patient care, Ronnenberg said it makes sense for technology to do what it does best. At Omnicell, president, owner and CEO owner Randall Lipps mission is a personal one. He founded Omnicell in 1992 after observing how inefficiently medical supplies were managed when his daughter was hospitalized at birth. Inspired by his work in airline industry operations and logistics, he sought to enable better management of supplies and medications to improve patient care. As a mother of three, Ronnenberg said Omnicell's mission is personal to her as well.

"As someone who has, for many years, worked in the medical industry and in safety risk management, you know that there's errors and adverse events happen," Ronnenberg said. "At the end of the day, I really, truly believe that automation and technology can do some things better and provide better outcomes."

Great ideas are key to innovation. However, Ronnenberg said a great idea can fall victim to lack of understanding of quality system regulation, right-sizing processes, safety compliance, risk management, and strategic steps to engage and partner with other businesses that can impact and elevate a product's performance.

"The operational piece is really a deterrent for a lot of innovators, as well as how to partner with other businesses that can have an impact the performance of their product or device," Ronnenberg said.

This is where she, as well as others at the Regional Autonomous Patient Safety initiative launch event see the importance of a third party, like JHF, providing opportunity to provide a level learning or to create a partnership with universities to provide curriculum about the steps from idea to placement to pipeline.

When it comes to innovation, Ronnenberg said it is key to understand that growth is incremental.

"The level of comfort that people have with technology grows over time," she said. "We like to compare it to autonomous cars. They're safe, but some people are uncomfortable with them. People cause car accidents every day, and it's a risk we accept daily to get to and from tasks and do things that aren't even as essential as health care. We have to approach autonomous technology in health care in stages, with a step-by-step approach, and be open to the risks and benefits."

To create an innovation hub in Pittsburgh, Ronnenberg gave a nod to the ability to engage the universities in Pittsburgh combined with companies like Omnicell that are working, robotic technology, and individual ingenuity in Pittsburgh.

"We have the talent and interest here, we just need help getting started and operationalizing ideas, helping innovators understand the hospital landscape, regulatory requirements, and pathways to get training on things like this," she said.

"There's always opportunities for people to realize their ideas. But most importantly, we need to understand what customers need – and that customer is the frontline healthcare worker."