Achieving any level of success requires taking risks, or at least taking on challenges to overcome them. As such they come to be a crucial part of our lives. Taking chances and risks can be scary, but they result in the most rewarding experiences of our lives.
Jonathan Ogurchak is also familiar with this feeling. After first looking at architecture as a career path, he got into pharmacy by chance, took a risk upon himself to deliver a service, and embarked on a journey to improve the profession.
Exeleon Magazine looks into this dynamic leader’s professional journey.
Discovering Pharmacy
Jonathan Ogurchak briefly remembers his family friend owning an independent pharmacy, wherein he used to work as a cashier during his school years. At the time, Jonathan was no way near in his mind to join pharmacy. Instead, his mind was wired towards the creative side seeking a career in the engineering and architecture field. However, that interest vanished as he shadowed the area under a senior project. In his subconscious mind, he realized that he was not fit for that particular field.
And just in a single working night, Jonathan’s mind went to research pharmacy more closely and fell deeply into its concepts to make a career in it. “Honestly, I fell into the pharmacy by chance,” shares Jonathan.
Transforming the Industry
Since taking his first step in pharmacy, Jonathan Ogurchak has walked a lot in the industry. He has been involved in pharmacy operations throughout his entire career. At the same time, he has also seen how technology is beneficial to improve efficiencies. His extensive experience in the industry has also led him to spot gaps daily efficiencies of companies. He shares, “While many solutions companies are technically-savvy, they lack the day-to-day understanding of how to integrate into a workflow of an organization.”
That’s why Jonathan came up with STACK, a curated software platform designed to help organizations keep up with efficiencies through first-hand knowledge of what pharmacies truly need. Since its establishment, the platform’s capabilities only increased and expanded into professional associations, higher education, certification programs – basically in numerous areas that require some form of curated efficiency.
Jonathan also tells an exciting story behind naming the platform STACK. In one of his previous jobs, he held responsibilities for on-site audit and accreditation survey preparation. “We’d print out papers that we knew would be requested, and ‘stack’ them on our desk to prepare to hand them over for review.” However, as the surveys were conducted on papers, they would slowly outgrow themselves, becoming irrelevant to sharing up-to-date knowledge. On the contrary, digital solutions provided the correct version of every business asset in a digital ‘stack’ that allows for real-time data sharing in multiple locations.
The Right Model
According to Jonathan, long-term contracts are pretty much common with health care software which leads to clients being left dissatisfied. Hence, he has put in a short-term model which forces Jonathan and STACK to stay up to date with the clients and industry and innovate constantly. The innovation part translates to the team taking feedback and putting it right into the next development cycle to improve the platform. “We continually push ourselves to do better by our customers – and challenge ourselves to never be in the position to lose customers along the way,” elaborates Jonathan.
And since the company is in its early stages, most decisions come across Jonathan’s desk on a daily basis, including technical direction of the products to new partnerships and opportunities to social media posts and marketing. However, the company is growing rapidly by taking new employees for a new product line and Jonathan has taken the responsibility of organizational development to have appropriate policies and procedures to help the business grow.
Biggest Learnings
The professional journey of Jonathan has been a sequential one, from graduation from pharmacy school, changing his mind about where he wanted to practice, falling into the industry by chance to building innovative solutions, joining a startup pharmacy, and co-owning it, to taking risks by selling his equity and taking a chance on his idea to improve the profession.
Not to mention, Jonathan started the company in the pandemic, which isn’t for the faint of heart. However, he pays gratitude to the hardship that the pandemic brought as it only strengthened his will to innovate and diversify into new areas.
In all of his journey, Jonathan’s biggest learning has been his transition from clinician to vendor/salesperson. This transition brought forth the difference in front of Jonathan between consulting a patient and convincing someone to buy the product.
A Growing Future
As a dynamic leader, Jonathan believes that leadership means leading by action and not by the title. In his dictionary, leadership also means rolling up sleeves and doing the work, advocating for the team’s personal and professional growth; and having fun while doing so. This approach has served Jonathan throughout his career where he continued to learn and refine to the best possible leader he can be.
And for the future, Jonathan will continue to do the same while learning and growing more to improve his strengths to be an overall vendor. Although he has already expanded from the initial pharmacy market into professional associations, he is excited to see how the company grows in those complicated areas. The firm is also geared up to launch solutions in the medical higher education space starting in 2022 and is also launching its first credentialing partner in January.
Outside of the STACK platform as a product, Jonathan is using the patented framework to build other meaningful technologies for healthcare. Next year will witness the company launching new products redefining how healthcare can effectively use the technology rather than utilizing the best options present at hand.
On a personal level, Jonathan Ogurchak is excited to continue expanding his presence in education, working on new coursework, writing, and programs to expand his role as a subject matter expert in the healthcare industry.
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