Judi Pulig – Yorktel

The workplace of the future—and for progressive companies, the future is now—is one with no barriers among colleagues. It’s a physical or virtual office of synergy and a free flow of ideas. A place where you walk up to a kiosk, sign in on a tablet and take the open desk or huddle room of your choice, and your data is instantly loaded, enabling you to communicate with colleagues in person or remotely.

Speaking from her office at Yorktel, Judi Pulig attests to the efficiency of such an operation that enables her and her colleagues to complete in minutes, procedures that used to take hours.

Far from such a modus operandi being a company secret, it’s a service and technology that Yorktel customizes for its many clients in the public and private sector, enhancing most any type of operation with video conferencing and streaming, cloud solutions and an array of managed high-tech services that cut costs, save time and sire the creativity so necessary for companies and institutions to thrive.

“The ability to collaborate is huge for any organization,” reminds Pulig, who has served as Yorktel’s CFO since 2011, and implements the company’s specialties by fulfilling her own responsibilities, including  strategic planning, accounting, forecasting, budget management and supporting the rest of the brass.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business-to-business operation or in the Fortune 500. You can’t waste time by relying on old procedures. And no surprises come when you’re in the know.”

They know efficiency

Based in Eatontown, New Jersey, Yorktel has offices and data centers nationwide and globally, employing 350 and taking in revenues of $140 million.

Its long client list, including Fortune companies and a host of federal agencies—among them the departments of Agriculture, Treasury and Justice, as well as all branches of the armed forces—Yorktel had the foresight to take its technological expertise to the fast-changing field of healthcare in 2013.

What soon comprised 20 percent of Yorktel’s business has only increased exponentially, Pulig says, maybe even becoming the lion’s share of its work, as the company expands its partnerships with an array of hospitals and other healthcare providers, and in the process,  filling a need that competitors didn’t initially anticipate.

“The growth potential here is enormous,” she says. “Videoconferencing has so many applications in healthcare. We anticipate 2018 to be our best year for healthcare, and this year (2017) has been very good.”

As Pulig explains, there are two main areas here where Yorktel has plunged right in:

1. Telehealth: The use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical healthcare, patient and professional health-related education, public health and health administration.
2. Telemedicine: The remote delivery of healthcare services via telecommunications or digital infrastructures.

Changes spell opportunity

As to the factors that further the need for Yorktel’s know-how, Pulig explains that changes in insurance policies have put a greater burden on healthcare providers to prove the quality of their services before Medicare and private insurers can determine the payment.

For instance, a physician may personally meet with a patient and need a follow-up that can be accomplished with a video session. That additional step could lead to a higher reimbursement.

Then there’s the factor of many patients, particularly in rural areas, lacking convenient access to a physicians or clinics, but being able to have questions answered remotely or even given mental-health counseling via videoconferencing at a pharmacy or other place. With many small hospitals and urgent-care clinics at risk of closing or reducing their hours, the need for such services is only likely to grow.

Whatever the need, Pulig says Yorktel is committed to staying ahead of the industry curve, this past fall rolling out its Univago Healthcare Edition. The first and only all-inclusive telemedicine video services platform that can deliver the versatility, reliability and security so necessary to affecting widespread telemedicine adoption, it sounds like a game-changer when described by Peter McLain, Yorktel’s senior vice president of healthcare.

“The video technology at the core of telemedicine needs to work 24/7/365,” he says. “It should fade into the background as clinicians focus on delivering patient care.”

The Univago system can indeed be just as inconspicuous as it is a potential life-saver, Pulig says. Should a bed-ridden patient in a community hospital need a big-city specialist, such expertise can be harnessed remotely. It’s among the many new exciting changes in healthcare, and one that Pulig can help sustain as a woman who, in her 18 years at Yorktel, has done much more than just oversee finance. She expects the people under her wings to do likewise.

On the money

A 1993 graduate of Georgian Court College, with a degree in accounting, Pulig sees her profession subject to the same fast-changing pace as any other line of work, be it medical care, high-technology, the federal bureaucracy or any of the other lines that Yorktel serves.

Once she might have been looked upon as a bean counter, and certainly that’s among her responsibilities. But the days are long gone when an accountant could be siloed in her office, given green eyeshades and told to pore over spreadsheets. As head of finance, Pulig sometimes is in the position of hiring an accountant, and when that need arises, she looks for more than just financial acumen.

A few years ago, 118 applicants made pitches for two entry-level openings, and by and large she wasn’t impressed with the majority of the prospects although she did find a couple good fits. Even a junior accountant must be as strategy-oriented as numbers-oriented, she says, and be able to navigate a financial landscape that also puts a premium on technical and communications aptitude.

“Be willing, while you’re in school, to develop your communication skills,” she advises. “Being able to articulate and share ideas clearly and openly is the value you bring to the finance department.”

The many tools at Yorktel are certain to boost that professional growth.