Shane’s 15-year journey took him through Temple Street Children’s Hospital and Wexford General Hospital, where he lived through two full (Athera) fingerprint system implementations, experiencing firsthand the transition from manual systems to digital traceability.

Both eventually felt they’d peaked in their clinical roles, but neither wanted to leave decontamination entirely. When the opportunity arose to join Athera’s customer success team, it felt like the perfect bridge where they could still contribute to patient safety, but from an entirely different angle.

“We can teach the tech. We can’t teach the experience.”

This lived experience translates into a genuine understanding of the clinical day-to-day.

“Part of the CSM role is kind of translating English into English,” Shane explains. “You get the technical language from the tech side, and the more practical, process-driven language from customers – and sometimes you just need to translate from one to the other.”

Support that ‘gets it’

“The smallest little thing can cause such a big issue. So is about us being able to translate that across to to the support team and say, look, it might sound small, but this is massive for them [the customer]. So can we prioritise it?”

Shane points to reporting as a prime example. During his time at Temple Street, he did extensive work on ISO 13485 compliance, generating detailed reports for audits. “I definitely feel I’ve been able to use that experience to help customers. Things like building business cases for new instruments, or creating the exact yearly reports their line manager needs. You feel good when the customer presents reports their manager wants, and you’ve helped them do that.”

The Priority Gap 

Shane notes: “It can be often hard for a person behind a service desk to understand that something that may seem trivial is actually very important. Any interruption to the flow, however minor it may seem, can have a huge effect on the day-to-day of a department.”

This understanding directly influences product development. “We get asked quite a lot from the team: what’s this like? Explain this part of the process to us. Why is this such a big issue?” Wayne says. “And then once we explain it, they realise, ‘Oh actually, yeah, this is quite a big thing.’ We’re involved with development of new products quite a lot—obviously, what do we want to see as users.”

“We’re bridging the gap that others often don’t consider”

“There’s been a few things that customers have fed back to me, which I experienced as a customer myself, that I’ve then been able to go back to the development team and say, ‘Look, this is something we need.’ We’ve got a couple of suggestions that are now currently in test in the latest version” explains Wayne.

Shane reflects on being among the first at Athera with direct user experience: “I was one of the first people to work with Fingerprint, as it was, and then Athera, who actually had used the software in a live setting. As much as what I learned from my previous job was able to help customers, it was also helpful to the team here. And obviously when Wayne came on board, it was great to have somebody else, because we could compare experiences.”

How Trust Forms Differently – Building Partnerships, not Client-Vendor Relationships

This depth of understanding changes the nature of the customer relationship: from vendor-client to a genuine partnership.

“The CSM’s function is to be as much Athera’s CSM, but you’re also the customer’s CSM—to kind of bridge that gap between the two.” Shane details.

Wayne describes a consistent pattern in how customers respond when they learn about his background: “I always introduce myself—my name is Wayne Davy, 17 years in decontamination. One customer actually shook my hand and said, ‘Well done for doing 17 years.’ Then she followed it up with, ‘But well done for getting out!’ They relax when they know you’ve got that experience.”

Shane describes trust as showing up differently: “That’s one of the marks of how you’re doing: if the customer trusts you enough to be the first person to ring when they have an inquiry. Not the help desk for technical requirements, but when they want to ask about the industry or reporting or something in general.”

It’s a different foundation for the relationship- professional credibility rather than relationship-building over time.

The Patient Safety Perspective

Perhaps the most significant difference Wayne and Shane describe is how patient safety shapes their perspective.

“When I started in sterile services, patient safety was drummed into you from the beginning,” Shane reflects. “It’s the ultimate aim. It can be easy to forget that if you’re behind the desk in a tech company.”

What This Reveals About Health Tech (and What Needs to Change)

Wayne and Shane’s experience highlights some interesting dynamics in how health technology gets developed and supported:

• The gap between technical severity and clinical impact isn’t always obvious
• Product development benefits from input from people who’ve actually used the systems under pressure
• There’s a translation challenge that goes both ways – clinical teams need technical concepts explained, and technical teams need clinical priorities explained
• Trust and credibility form differently when the person supporting you has done your job

As Wayne notes, when Athera recruited him: “They specifically looked for somebody within decontamination. They wanted someone with that experience. I was told, ‘We can teach you how to be a CSM, but we can’t teach that experience.'”