Amplifying Women's Voices: A Call to Action (ft. Megan Antonelli)

Ed (00:00.962)
Hey, it's Ed here. Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices, one of my favorite topics. I think I say that all the time, Megan, but it really is true because I'm all about the topic we're gonna talk about today and I still have a lot to learn. So I have not arrived or anything like that. We wanna talk, it is Women Equality Day. Today is, we're recording on August 26, 2024 and it happens to be Women's Equality Day, right? It's the anniversary of right.

Megan Antonelli (00:27.287)
Yep, the day women got the right to vote. So, 105 years.

Ed (00:30.24)
Yeah. So.

Yeah, super important and we still deal with the glass ceiling. I know a lot of people might roll their eyes, but it's true. We still deal with it. I know it because I live with very strong women and they remind me all the time and I, and I know people say help me as well. Sort of help others and be more aware. So this is what we want to talk about. We're not afraid of tough topics. Anyways, Megan, I went way too far into it without saying hello. So Megan, welcome to.

Digital Voices.

Megan Antonelli (01:05.809)
Hi Ed, good to see you. It's great to be here.

Ed (01:08.674)
It's great having you your founder and CEO health impact You have you have your own podcast you do a lot of conferences. That's where I first met you over ten years ago Do doing conferences I got to be a part of some of your conferences over the years. I love them I love the style of the way that you do do them. I love the vibe and So I get to see firsthand your leadership in action and it's really cool But Megan all that set aside the most important question everyone wants to know the answer to

What songs are on your playlist?

Megan Antonelli (01:42.009)
wow. Well, great question. You know, I have a lot of music in my playlist. Music's a big part of my life. My dad was a musician growing up in New York, so I listen to all types. And I think a lot of the time, my playlist reflects the shows I've seen recently. So I saw Abby Posner, who's a bluegrass singer. She opened for the samples. So the samples have been on the rotation too a bit.

to date myself. And then I'm planning to go see Joni Mitchell at Joni Jam in October at the Hollywood Bowl. So she's coming up quite a bit too. lots of strong female voices sort of. You know, all kinds. So he was sort of mostly influenced by like the Beatles and sort of the British invasion, but he.

Ed (02:25.152)
Yeah, no, I love it. And what kind of music did your dad

Megan Antonelli (02:37.021)
know, living in New York, he played folk, he played at Folk City and CBGBs, and you know, he did a lot of composing for off -Broadway shows, so we got into avant -garde stuff that they don't really listen to, but I still enjoy hearing him play whatever he plays.

Ed (02:54.474)
So is that where you grew up? in the city city or on the outskirts of the city city city.

Megan Antonelli (02:59.585)
City City in Manhattan on the Upper East Side, yeah.

Ed (03:03.392)
Wow, and now you live in LA. So what's that like? So you've had this experience of working or living both sides. Like, what's your favorite?

Megan Antonelli (03:11.509)
Well, I'm a New Yorker for sure. So I love New York, but I like the pace now that I'm older of living here and I have always been perhaps regretfully so for my skin, a bit of a beach girl. So I do like Southern California.

Ed (03:28.544)
Yeah, and they're both both have awesome things to offer. So I think a lot of people would be jealous the fact that you have had that experience on both sides. What about life message and mantra? Are there sort of words that you live by that sort of guide who you are?

Megan Antonelli (03:45.527)
Well, you know, I think more than anything, time is precious. So fill it with purpose. think growing up in New York, you know, I always felt best busy and, you know, working in events and sitting in conference rooms, you know, can sometimes feel not so, you know, it can feel like a waste of time sometimes, you know, sometimes conferences can be boring. So when I started my own event business, I called it Purpose Events because I wanted

everything I worked on to sort of have a purpose and satisfy people's purpose too. And when we launched the event, we called it Health Impact, because I think purpose and impact kind of go hand in hand. you know, it's time is important and do what's, you know, kind of makes you feel good during the time.

Ed (04:33.708)
Yeah, no, I love that. And I love the tie into the name of your organization. So we know a little bit about you already, Megan, you like a little bit. You'd like some bluegrass. You're very eccentric. You like a lot of different types of music, some Joni Mitchell going on. And you grew up in the Upper East Side, Manhattan. So tell us a little bit more about your life. Your dad was a musician and what else? What sort of helped shape who you are today?

Megan Antonelli (04:59.859)
Yeah, I don't know. mean, growing up in New York shaped me, that's for sure. Just doing that in the 70s and 80s was significant. And I think my mom worked, my mom was a graphic designer, so she was artistic. They were both, you know, it was a music and an artist, sort of starving artist in New York. And as a result, I was into science and math and super analytical and super ambitious. And, you know, I went living on the Upper East Side, but

I went to an all -girls school where a lot of people had a lot of money. I didn't come from that same kind of money. So I think I grew up, that sort of lit a spark of ambition too. And so that definitely shaped me. And New York in the eighties was New York in the eighties. So there was a lot of ambition and a lot of thinking that as a woman we could kind of have it all and do it all. that was certainly how I came into.

my working career.

Ed (05:59.776)
Yeah, well, I think you still carry that with you very well. Was there like a decisive moment? What was the moment where you're in school or out of school and suddenly you're like, I want to be in healthcare.

Megan Antonelli (06:12.001)
Well, I think I was always into math and science and my mom was always saying, you should be a doctor. You should be a doctor. I'm not sure I ever really wanted to be a doctor, but it was drilled into my head. So I was pre -med in college. Healthcare was always my thing. And then I think as I was preparing for that, I was getting my master's in public health. was working doing research. was the research assistant for Parkinson's disease at Columbia. And I didn't really like working in a hospital.

I was like, this is an unpleasant place. don't, you know, and it, it made me want to work in healthcare, but to fix it both for the patients and the people that were working there. so around that time that I kind of realized it's probably isn't for me in terms of committing this much time to, being here. I got a job in healthcare and events. I was, actually produced conferences in like Medicare and Medicaid policy that did a lot of time in Washington and.

I just got the bug in terms of healthcare and policy and what could change it and fix it.

Ed (07:16.886)
Yeah. And then you've grown your business since then and, and, always adding, to that growth of your business. Now I know because we're also connected on Facebook and we talk that you are also a mother, a wife, and an entrepreneur, a CEO. And I know no one has the answer to the quote unquote balanced life, but what, what are some of the things that you do to try to integrate your.

Megan Antonelli (07:46.565)
goodness. Yeah, I mean, think it's, you know, it's interesting. I mean, I've worked from home for a long time, right? I think even when I was young, one of my first jobs, I got to work from home. so having that, keeping that balance and maintaining that balance has been something I've been able to do, but I'm also, you know, I like working. I like that, you know, sort of connection. So that's been, you know, I think for the most part, not as hard as it

as it could have been. I think when I had my first son, that idea of having it all, right, was very attractive, but realizing that that balance was difficult and that having it all wasn't exactly everything it was cracked up to be. So I kind of took a stance of sustainability to think the balance is much more about choosing what feeds into the other one.

And I think around that kind of purpose driven, owning my own business, being able to control my schedule and those types of things that that's kind of been able to to feed that balance and then that, you know, sort of the purpose and the satisfaction of that.

Ed (09:03.83)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit more than about health impact. Tell us a little bit of service someone's listening, and they don't know about it. Tell us about health impact and how it's evolved.

Megan Antonelli (09:15.179)
Yeah. So Health Impact is a community platform. hold two major conferences a year. In the beginning, we held them as regional forums. It was really born of meaningful use, implementation of EHRs, and helping health systems around the country do that better, for better or for worse. And now, selfishly, and a little bit because New York has always just been this great health care hub, we do most of our events in New York.

We had one last year in Houston. We kind of go where the market takes us in terms of that. And then since the pandemic, which, you know, we obviously couldn't do in -person events, we did a lot of virtual, a lot of digital. We've launched Health Impact Live, which is a virtual summit we hold every Thursday. I'm sorry, every third Thursday. And then the podcast, as you mentioned, Digital Health Talks. And that's been a great way to just stay in touch with people and get to know people.

And I love it because talking to people and connecting people is what I like to do. So yeah, that's been super fun and that's where we kind of are right now.

Ed (10:21.324)
So I know it's going to be hard to answer this question because I'm going to limit you to one or two cool experiences, but certainly over all those conferences or maybe some of the podcasts, there's been one or two like super cool things that just jump out at you that you remember. Can you share one or two of those?

Megan Antonelli (10:40.823)
Well, I mean, I have to say one of my favorite sessions was the session that you and Chris and John Holonka did. It was before the pandemic, but we were amplifying your story as a patient, Chris's story, John's knowing his wife's story. And we actually were able to do that virtually. We were in the Google offices. were at HIMS Europe. I'm sure you remember.

But that was a cool just sort of intersection of both great minds, great stories, and technology. And doing that probably enabled us to pivot as quickly, because that was 2019 June, I think. So pivot as quickly as we did to virtual, having seen how that could work. But in general, think my favorite

part of this is that people come to me and say, I got my job because I met this person here, or I met my husband there, or I met, my life changed because of attending one of your events. And so that's really always, that's the best part.

Ed (11:50.464)
Yeah. I remembered it vividly. I was there in person while the other two were, yeah, they were gallivanting somewhere around the world at another conference. And I had just found out I had a cancer diagnosis and Chris was dealing with his cancer diagnosis. And then eventually the two of us would come together and write a book based on some of that experiences. So yeah, I remember that super well. Yeah. And I love the conferences. I've been to several and I highly recommend them. So let's get into the

women in healthcare tech leadership and kind of a softball question just to get going. Is there still a glass ceiling and have you been personally impacted?

Megan Antonelli (12:32.823)
Well, you know, I mean, it is, crazy to think it's, you know, a hundred and some years, 105 years since women were given the right to vote. And is there a glass ceiling? I think, yeah, I think there is, you know, I think when I look at Fortune 500, you know, boardrooms, you know, there's not, you know, you're not seeing that many women, right? And it's the same in hospitals. So even though a really large percentage of the workforce for hospitals, for healthcare are women.

there's not as many hospital CEOs. I I think the number hovers around 30%. And I think that number even reflects it's 30 % of smaller hospitals. When you look at the larger hospitals, it's even fewer. And I mean, that's a little bit better than Fortune 500 companies, which hovers around 10%. So, you know, at the same time, the number of women are graduating from medical school is, you know, increasing and almost equal, if not equal.

I think in the last few years. the number of, you and I guess it's not all CEOs, not all CEOs are MDs, right? So if you're looking at that, you know, but there's 42 % parity around MBAs and that sort of thing. And then for nurses, you know, 70 % of the nursing degrees go to women and it's been that way since 2009. So to continue to see a lack of parity when at the senior level, at the C -suite,

when you have them graduating from schools, to me means it's there.

Ed (14:05.866)
Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty vivid. And we were talking about this offline where, know, if you think about, we're just going to use podcasts as example. When you think about in healthcare, when you look at who were the, least the early adopters, early launchers of podcasts and social quote unquote social media, you know, it was, it was pretty male dominant. And I think it still is that way. Although many such as yourself have now

come in, but like when when I think you're the one that gave me the statistic when you look at the top 10 podcasts or top 15 podcasts overall in every genre, only one of them is a woman and the topic is on sex. So it's like we still we still have a long way to go all of society, but for sure healthcare, right?

Megan Antonelli (14:55.851)
Yeah, which is interesting. I mean, when you think about podcasts, I mean, and, you know, and it goes to speaking on conferences too, but there's a lot about, you know, just women's voices and why, you know, why don't we like listening to women's voices? Cause our moms used to nag us. Like what is the, I mean, think about our favorite narrators. I mean, I think of David Attenborough and Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones. I don't think of a woman, unfortunately.

Ed (15:24.001)
Yeah.

Megan Antonelli (15:24.897)
So there's definitely, there's history to it. There's history to male voices being seen as the authoritative experts, right? And I'm sure there's science behind it as well, although I don't know it probably as well as I should. there's a certain degree to that. But then I think of the male podcasts that are most popular and I wonder how anyone can listen to them. So there's that, but that's just my opinion.

Ed (15:51.362)
So I hear you. So what we're going to, we're going to push a little deeper here. So, and just being super transparent, although I'm sure there's some negative feedback, but I'm just telling you my experience. So I have done some conferences and, and worked on some conferences and what I found historically, and I think it's slowly changing. And maybe we'll talk about some of those reasons.

But I would throw a wide net out there and I'd be like, let's just say I'm working on a panel. I'm like, need four people for a panel. And I would purposefully try to go 50 50. Like I'm going to invite a set number of women and set number of men. And I had, and this is not just a one -off, but it happened a few times where it was, it was primarily men that responded. Yes. And the women not so much. And so it was a little frustrating for me because, because I wanted that parody. wanted that.

equity, that equality, it was hard. And I talked to someone else who does a lot of events and they were talking about the same struggle. Have you seen that and what is it changing and what can we do? I really want to get practical too. It's like, what do we do?

Megan Antonelli (17:04.343)
Yeah, Yeah, I mannoles, womanals, I mean, it's my favorite, my favorite topic, but, you know, and it's funny, the first time I think that I got called out for a manhole, it was one of our health impacts in Houston. And it was, you know, a picture got put on Twitter and, and it got picked up, you know, outside of the healthcare IT circle, it was, it was blasted for it. But I've always been conscious of it. I mean, I started producing conferences in 1999 and

Back then, I cared about it. I went to an all -girl high school. went to Vassar. I was very, very aware of trying to make sure that there were women on every panel and that my faculty had parity to it. But it was really hard. And women are not an easy yes when it comes to speaking. And men are. For various reasons, men...

often say yes much with greater ease to topics they know much less about. mean, women want to be prepared and they want to know that it's going to benefit them in very quantifiable ways, whereas men really, I think men enjoy it. And so there's a lot of reasons to that. I mean, I think you can go back to, I think in like 1999, a book came out, I forget the author, but it was around how the burden of

Ed (18:07.414)
You

Megan Antonelli (18:31.895)
you know, household burden, childcare, you know, laundry, all that fell more heavily on women, which of course, you know, it was no, you know, that was no shock to anyone. But I think as we look at how women can, you know, spend more time, do more things with, for work, they're gonna choose the things that are a hundred percent their jobs. And speaking at conferences aren't always that, you know, those are a lot more about maybe furthering your career or maybe

know, getting out learning, competitive intelligence, those types of things, as opposed to kind of direct checking the box on this is what I need to do to get my job done.

Ed (19:14.112)
Yeah. And you know, maybe there's a, I don't know, a male bravado male ego also that wants to be heard. So I probably have fallen into that or fall into that bucket. And so they're like, I'll speak, like you said, sometimes we don't be even a topic that the person is familiar with, but they're more apt to, to, to raise their hand, you know, because they want that attention or what have you.

Megan Antonelli (19:24.375)
For sure.

Yeah.

Megan Antonelli (19:43.795)
Yeah. Yeah, no, I don't think, I mean, women ultimately don't enjoy speaking at conferences as much as men do for whatever reason, whether that's the travel, the time, or just that, you know, that element of getting, getting on a stage and that being your happy place, you know, for a lot of men, it is their happy place, which is great. But it does, I think, you know, a lot, a lot of important business things do happen at conferences. So that, you know,

Ed (19:43.906)
So yeah, those are

Megan Antonelli (20:13.757)
not being able to take the time for whatever reason definitely could have something to do with what we talked about before in terms of the C -suite and who's there.

Ed (20:23.596)
Do you think it's changing over time now with subsequent successive generations where we're sort of, because I think there's, God, I hope it's true. There's more awareness and we're doing more to create environments to give everyone that equal opportunity. Do you think that with the younger generations coming up through the ranks that it's gonna, it's a different, it's more inclusive?

Megan Antonelli (20:50.763)
Yeah, well, I mean, I think two things. One is you are seeing that the parody of graduates of, you know, sort of MBA students and, and, you know, physicians come up. So, so as that comes up, you have that. But in addition, I think that, you know, with Instagram and Snapchat and Tik Tok and everything else, people are more face forward, if you will, in this generation. So they're comfort level to speaking. And I see it in younger women.

coming to the stage now, that they are both more willing and also more polished frankly than I ever was.

Ed (21:29.74)
Yeah. Yeah. It's super interesting. What, what are one or two things? Cause that again, just, I keep wanting to be practical for, for everyone. What are one or two things that men or women, we can be specific to either, or just general can do to help sort of break this glassy league. Let me ask it this way. Megan, speaking to a man in the audience, what, would you say first to men? Like what can we do to, you know, bring about.

more inclusivity.

Megan Antonelli (22:01.207)
You know, one, think, you know, it's listen to your mothers, your wives and your daughters. Make it, you know, make it your purpose to listen to them and then to elevate and amplify those voices, right? I mean, I think that comfort level of listening to them is then what will allow and empower men to then amplify them. You know, help with the laundry too, maybe.

Ed (22:28.908)
Yeah. Wait, really? No, just kidding.

Megan Antonelli (22:33.619)
Not really.

Ed (22:36.769)
No, I didn't.

Megan Antonelli (22:36.951)
But yeah, will help amplify your voices in your home, at school, in the community and at work. I I think that's one of my favorite parts about Digital Health Talks is that it is an easy way for me to talk to female founders, talk to female CIOs. They say yes more than they say yes to travel. You know, when I say come to New York, the podcast is easy.

And my hope and my goal is that by doing that, then they'll come because then they get to know me and they have fun and then the travel's worth it, right? But, you know, bringing them on the show and getting them out there and having them here, having people hear the great things they have to say.

Ed (23:16.982)
Yeah, one of the things that I would do routinely when I was a CIO and I would have, you know, men and women, obviously in leadership, and I would bring in speakers, other female CIOs from around the country that people knew of and had respect for and come in and talk. And we tackle some of these topics as well. Interestingly, and again, we're not shy of controversy here.

Interestingly what surprised me and it was two CIO leaders and specifically that mentioned this and they so when I asked them the question What can us men in this room do for our our sisters? How do we help again? I love your phrase ology elevate and amplify all the voices give everyone opportunity. They said it wasn't so much the men But it was the other women and

So she challenged, both of them challenged the women in the room to really help one another. Have you seen something similar in your experience?

Megan Antonelli (24:17.247)
Mm hmm. Yeah, I think so. mean, and I think that that's, you know, that this goes back to when you around the mantra, I always, you know, I always have this thing that says, you know, there's room on the shelf for Coke and Pepsi, and Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi and vitamin water and everything. It's like this belief of scarcity, like if I get in, you know, if I get in someone else's way, there's no room for me, you know, and the fact is, is that

there's enough room at the table for everyone and treating each other like that and amplifying people through that, that it's not a competition ultimately. But I think that certainly among women sometimes it is and that that is certainly something you see for sure. So, it's there, but again, it is a little bit of how do we all...

Raise that tide.

Ed (25:17.58)
Yeah. And I, and a challenge that I put out to any leader, but we're, you know, we're, we're focusing a little bit right now on male leaders is no matter what your role is, if you're a direct manager, director, if you have people leading to you, need to help foster this environment that, that you help raise everyone up and give people opportunity that didn't have the same opportunity that you may have had being a male. cause now we're going back years, right? We're going back generations. So we need to be very proactive and direct. And so.

I was always sure that like we always had mentoring programs I have or leadership and we'd always go really deep and help people and all people to to get past that past that may have existed so that they would all have this opportunity to elevate. I'm kind of generic there but I think you know what I'm saying like you know we would very be very intentional don't that's what I'm trying to say don't just say

put out a program and it magically happens. No, you have to be very intentional and get very involved to make this happen. Because it's a big generational shift that we're helping to influence.

Megan Antonelli (26:28.119)
It is. I think that public speaking in and of itself is one of those things that you sort of take for granted, that anyone who sort of has become successful or can maybe even manage a room of 30 to 40, that that skill transfers to 300 to 3000. And that's not true. It doesn't. anxiety is real. how people manage that.

and helping people to manage that and having programs in place. to some degree, it's a mental health thing as much as it's a confidence thing. And so where the workplace lies in sort of not wanting to blur those lines, it's still, that's how you can create programs to then lift people up who might have those insecurities and not want to get on the stage, but need to because their voices do need to be heard.

Ed (27:23.586)
Yeah, I think the bottom line from this discussion, Megan, is that we have to be very as leaders, have to be very intentional. And we have we are responsible to make this happen. We can't kick back and, you know, blame someone else or it's not an HR issue. And I see I don't see this as HR. It's a leadership issue. And so you as a leader, need to go and be proactive. Wow, we could talk about that quite a bit. But but we definitely dropped a few different

techniques that people can adopt in order to elevate and amplify. I wanna just sort of close out with asking you about how do you recharge yourself, recharge your batteries and remain fresh? Because again, you have all these roles going on in life. You're this great leader and I think someone that many people and women aspire to be like. So, but how do you like stay fresh?

Megan Antonelli (28:17.455)
Well, I don't know about that, but thanks. mean, I like working a lot. I probably, I don't like sitting, you know, in the quiet of my own voice. I don't like my own voice. I don't want to sit in the quiet of it, but, and I recharge by being around people. So that's probably a good, you know, a lucky thing around my work part. And checking things off my list is probably what relaxes me the most. So sometimes I have to put sit in the hot tub on the list.

You know, and that way when I'm in the hot tub checking that off the list and writing another list, I'm relaxing. But that's, you know, that's kind of it. I mean, I love sitting on the beach, sitting in the hot tub, you know, anywhere I, you know, running in the sunshine is basically that's it, you know.

Ed (29:03.458)
that I love it. But I think the important thing that you are recognizing, you have to be proactive and make it happen, even if that requires putting it on your calendar. Wow, we covered a lot growing up in New York City, Upper East Side, Bluegrass and Joni Mitchell at the Hollywood Bowl. That's cool that she'll be playing there. And it's just the way that you grew up and influences and then all about health impact and what a value add that is for health care and technology and leadership.

We spoke mostly about women in healthcare and probably dropped three to five different techniques that people could use to elevate and amplify. And bottom line is it's our responsibility, everyone that's listening, it's our responsibility to help continue to break that glass ceiling. And then the importance of just refreshing yourself and staying vibrant. So Megan, we covered a lot of ground. Did we miss something or anything you wanna double down on? I give you the last word.

Megan Antonelli (29:59.681)
Hmm, well, I don't know. I timing wise, you know, I coming off of last week and I know politics is not, you know, a safe space always, but I think the there were some amazing speeches last week at the DNC convention. So from Kamala to Michelle Gretchen Whitmer, Gabby Giffords, you know, they were so inspiring. So as you think about.

getting comfortable with women's voices. Those are some really inspiring speeches to listen to. And if you listen to them and you don't like what you're hearing, then it's important to kind of ask yourself why, because that's where we're at. There's some amazing women out there and you just got to listen to what they have to say.

Ed (30:36.044)
Yeah.

Ed (30:42.432)
Yeah, no, love it. Completely agree. I've got to listen to all the voices and this has been tremendous. I learned a lot. think it helped me quite a bit. Megan, I appreciate you being part of Digital Voices.

Megan Antonelli (30:56.865)
Thanks so much, Ed. It's always a pleasure. Can't wait to have you back on Digital Health Talks and to see you soon.

Ed (31:02.432)
Yeah, so that wraps up digital voices. I know you have lot of different options to listen to, and we're thankful that you're with us.