David Grandy’s career path has many twists and turns—a result, he said, of knowing how to recognize a great opportunity and then capitalizing on it.

For instance, after deciding to go to medical school, he took a year off to intern with a healthcare system. There, he noticed a lack of young leaders at the table and decided that rather than pursue a medical career and come up through the clinical side to get to the leadership table, he wanted to go there first.

He spent more than 10 years holding multiple leadership positions at former Alegent Health (Omaha, Neb.) before his career took a few more turns, first with management consulting firm The Lifeworks Healthcare Group (Omaha) and then Orthopaedic Advantage (Omaha), before he “became fascinated with design.”

In 2008, he joined HDR (Omaha) where he focuses on integrating human-centered design and strategy to help healthcare organizations, such as Kaiser Permanente and The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center at Nebraska Medicine, evolve their businesses. He was named the HCD 10 Rising Star for his work in 2014.

So what’s the most popular client request that he hears (and how does it relate to Netflix)? And why does he want to eliminate the exam chair? Listen to this Healthcare Design podcast to hear Grandy answer these questions as well as share his thoughts on using the built environment to influence patients’ perception of the healthcare experience.

For more HCD 10 podcasts, read “Getting Up Close And Personal With The HCD 10.”