Non-Clinical Healthcare Jobs – How to Make the Pivot with OT and FemTech Strategist Kaylee Johnson
Inside: Clinician to non-clinical healthcare jobs – Kaylee Johnson shares how she pivoted from OT to health tech & femtech—plus practical steps for your own second act.
Healthcare workers considering non-clinical healthcare jobs – this week is all about you on When Mommy Grows Up!
In this episode, we sit down with Kaylee Johnson, a former Career Clarity Program member and inspiring success story, who has built a fulfilling career inside and outside of the clinic and is writing the next chapter of her career on her own terms.
Meet Kaylee: Curiosity, Care, and a Bold Pivot
Kaylee Johnson is a mom of two who is 16 years into her healthcare career. She has walked a winding, courageous path, including neuro-occupational therapy, program development, women’s health entrepreneurship, AI-enabled health tech, and femtech operations!
After leaving the clinical side of healthcare, Kaylee embarked on her “second act,” focusing her career in roles anchored in a vision of economic mobility and health equity.
What sparked the change for her? Life!
- Postpartum reality check: Returning at 3 months to the clinic, Kaylee found herself lifting heavy patients while her own body was still recovering. This got her thinking, “Who’s caring for caregivers?”
- Pandemic + relocation: A cross-country move sparked new ideas for Kaylee. She noticed gaps in women’s health access in a rural community, so she started a practice to bridge them.
- Layoff ripple effects: After her husband’s tech layoff, the prospect of 40 clinic hours plus documentation in a windowless room crystallized a decision: pivot for good.
How Kaylee Made the Leap into Non-Clinical Healthcare Jobs (And You Can, Too)
Get a Guide
When Kaylee opened up her own clinical practice, she worked with a business coach, so it felt natural for her to seek out a coach to help her navigate a career change. Enter the Career Clarity Program and Career Clarity Accelerator!
Through 1:1 and group coaching, Kaylee was able to make a change within 6 months, compared to the 18+ months she saw it take other clinicians to make the change to non-clinical healthcare jobs. Coaching helped her compress the timeline by creating structure, accountability, and a targeted strategy.
Deep Clarity Work
For Kaylee, introspection was key as she considered a career move, and it’s exactly where we start in the Career Clarity Program. It’s easy to see what we’re running from, but it’s imperative to understand what you’re running toward. That makes a huge difference!
Through coaching exercises, Kaylee worked to better understand her values, life design, strengths, constraints, and energy drivers.
“You can’t be clear externally if you’re not clear internally.”
Targeted Research
To better understand where her skills and interests aligned, Kaylee conducted targeted research to understand healthcare from all angles.
As a healthcare professional, or someone interested in the sector, you likely know the “clinical side” (doctors, nurses, OTs/PTs) of healthcare, but behind every patient encounter is a massive ecosystem, including:
- Health tech & AI: documentation tools, ambient scribing, clinical workflow platforms
- Pharma & medical devices: research, safety, trials, education, commercialization
- Value-based care: outcomes, quality, and cost are driving new roles and models
- Operations & enablement: process improvement, L&D, stakeholder coordination, data
Kaylee found that when moving from clinical to non-clinical healthcare jobs, the key is translation, naming what you already do in the language of business. More on that below!
Networking
Kaylee took the networking lessons in the Career Clarity Program to heart as she dove deeper into her job search and began talking to people. Like I say in coaching, think “lowest hanging fruit” first. Who is the easiest person for you to connect with, related to what you want to do? Then go from there.
Kaylee started close to home (1–2 steps away from her current world), then expanded. With each conversation, she refined her story and questions. She also joined niche communities (like Humans in Healthcare) to expand her trust, meet supportive professionals who understand her professional world, and access new opportunities.
Interested in more about how to make networking work? Keep reading!
Translate Your Clinical Skills Into Business Language
Whether it’s for networking, interviewing, or applications, it’s important for clinical healthcare workers to know how to translate their work into business language for non-clinical healthcare jobs.
Kaylee learned through coaching, researching, and networking that so much of what she did as a clinician related directly to other work. If you’re a healthcare professional, you’ve likely done the following activities. Here’s how they translate into business language.
- Quality & process improvement → Operations, Process Excellence, Program Management
- Patient caseload coordination → Account Management, Customer Success, Stakeholder Engagement
- Education & in-service training → Learning & Development, Sales Enablement, Clinical Education
- Evidence-based practice & chart review → Analytics, Outcomes, Research Operations
- Resource ordering & scheduling → Operations, Vendor Management, Project Coordination
- Presenting at conferences → Thought Leadership, GTM Enablement, Field Education
“It’s a language transition. You are either making money for the org, or saving it. Clinicians do both.”
Networking That Doesn’t Feel Icky
Two of Kaylee’s non-clinical roles came from networking conversations. Networking really works!
But it’s important to remember that networking is not simply asking others for a job. Instead, it’s an exercise in building authentic relationships over time and leading with curiosity to learn about your target roles, industries, and companies.
When asked about her tips for networking based on her experience in the job market, Kaylee shared:
- Lead with curiosity, not perfection. You don’t need to be the expert in their world to ask good questions.
- Ask authentic questions about their challenges. The more you know about the challenges a company faces, the easier it is to see how your skill sets could help.
- Start with warm connections before you reach for founders or VPs.
- Share micro-proof: a short story showing how you improved outcomes, solved a process gap, or educated stakeholders.
- Close with one clear next step (“Who else would you recommend I learn from?”).
Kaylee’s Next Chapter in FemTech
Where is Kaylee headed next? She will be taking on a new Clinical and Business Operations role at a FemTech company, leveraging 15 years of clinical depth and her operator’s mindset to reach more women at scale. When women feel good in their bodies, that wellbeing ripples across families, workplaces, and communities.
Follow along with her career journey on LinkedIn and Substack.
Want support crafting your own second act?
Join the Career Clarity Program or apply for the Career Clarity Accelerator. Let’s translate your skills, map your options, and move toward work that fits your life and your values.
