Last year, I told you all about my aversion to New Year’s resolutions and personal preference for an annual bucket list of goals and experiences. Instead of viewing the New Year as a chore of self-discipline, I challenged myself to see it as a fresh chance to try new things. You’ll be proud to hear that in 2019, I knocked nearly every item off my list (I didn’t see the Milky Way because it stormed the nights I went camping, but that almost counts, right?). I traveled abroad, wrote and performed comedy, and finally joined the rest of the world in seeing a James Bond movie. I worked my way down my list, living each week with a sense of purpose, and ending each month with a sense of accomplishment.
Living intentionally isn’t reserved for nights and weekends, however; my team at PRC has done the same with our own set of goals. Exactly one year ago, we promised you that we’d spend the next 365 days looking for and celebrating the things that make healthcare different. With diligent, careful energy, we made lists and checked boxes, methodically releasing podcasts and publishing national nursing reports and distributing a national consumer study. We hosted two client education summits, pioneered a real time data reporting app, and birthed a whole new website, complete with client-exclusive premium content. Plus, we learned that we are a company with less-than-discerning taste in cola. Together, we celebrated our accomplishments and pushed each other to “differently” a little harder as we pursued our shared visions for what healthcare market research could become.
Now we stand on the edge of another New Year, arguably a bigger New Year as we kick off our generation’s own roaring 20s. Time for different goals, fresh notebooks, and new lists—time to look forward. The thing with making these annual lists is that they start out as a list of outcomes and then evolve into a book of ideas that snowball into a culture of innovation. What started as the simple goal of “publish a monthly podcast” grew into an endless search—not just from the podcast team, but across the organization—for the next great storyteller in healthcare. With the success of the podcast came a fondness for finding individualism among those whom language tends to clump together: nurses, physicians, medical staff, hospital leaders. We all became just a little bit obsessed with finding that person, that quiet voice in the back of the room no one else seemed to call on.
As we amplified those voices in 2019, we’re now resolving to find new ways to help new voices share how they see the ever-evolving healthcare differently. If there’s one thing everyone in this industry can agree on, it’s that “more of the same” or “very good” just won’t cut it, motivating us to make these lists with an eye towards excellence. In 2020, PRC celebrates our 40th year of excellence, and with that comes a lot of reflection on who we represent and where we want to go. While we can’t predict the future, we know we want to stand with those voices, from patients to physicians to CMOs of both marketing and medicine; we want to hear you and we want others to hear you as well. Thank you for joining us on this adventure into the next decade, the next 40 years, the next era of healthcare. We’re overwhelmingly excited for the future and can’t wait to share that excitement with every one of you. Happy New Year!