Lantana Annual Retreat: Full Speed Forward

Retreat Group Photo

The Lantana team all in one place.

Each year, Lantana holds a retreat where we get together face to face for a full week. We each work in our own home office, so these gatherings take on more than the usual significance. Job number one for the week: hang out, spend time together, get to know the person on the other end of the phone, email, web session. This year we had 25 employees, innumerable spouses/significant others and a record 16 kids, along with a teen age kid wrangler. The children ranged from two babes in arms to a cohort of early-teen girls who at times resembled a slender caterpillar with 8 legs and arms. North Carolina accommodated us with spectacular weather, 70’s and 80’s every day.

George & Dale listen during one or our many working groups

George & Dale listen during one or our many working groups

It wasn’t all hanging out and partying – although that may be the most enduring memory for many of us. This year we started out with a review of the company vision statement, pared down to the following: “We want to see health information available across the spectrum of care, supporting safe, effective, affordable healthcare that improves well-being, public health, quality of care, and research.”

From there, we spent a day and a half reviewing our goals, strategy, and tactics to realize this vision. We found, to our satisfaction, that our long-time company motto1, “have fun, make money, improve the industry” works just fine to articulate our goals.

Have Fun

Having fun creates an environment that attracts and retains the best and the brightest benefitting Lantana and our clients. From this foundation, we can support each other, explore new solutions, nurture a good work/life balance, and encourage professional & personal growth. 

Make Money

An essential component of enjoying work is knowing that the value we provide to clients will sustain our growing Lantana family. Sharpening and refining our understanding of our service lines and products led to several productive discussions the role of standards and evolution of standards and how they support our vision and goals. Look for more on end to end quality reporting in this space over the next several weeks as we publish some thoughts on our conversations on these topics.

Improve the Industry

Lantana volunteers several hundred hours each year with key industry organizations including HL7, WEDI, and Health Story. Considering this as a key company goal helps us frame and prioritize this investment. We launched a company-wide discussion of FHIR, its relationship to CDA and the future of interoperability. Again, look for more here as we use this space to share our thoughts with you all.



1.This was lifted directly from the Seybold of the eponymous Report, founded by Company, publisher John W. Seybold, the father of computer typesetting, which is a direct antecedent of the electronic publishing technology you are using right now. We are not sure where Epic Systems got their (very similar) motto from.