Hosted by Dan Collard with special guest Amelie Karam

On this week’s episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Dan Collard is joined by special guest Amelie Karam, a nationally renowned speaker and consultant focused on bridging generational gaps in the workforce. For the last nine years, Amelie has worked with organizations across a number of industries to teach them about the millennial perspective, debunk stereotypes of millennials, and help bridge generational gaps to support long-term growth and success.

Amelia shares her learnings and key takeaways on:

• What leaders and organizations can do to help younger generations feel a greater sense of belonging
• How organizations can stand out to millennial applicants during the recruiting process
• Why passion is a driving force for employee engagement and retention
• How employees of all ages can be better teammates in a multi-generational workforce

“I’ve spoken to many different industries and it always comes down to the same thing – it’s so important for us to get to know people for more than just their age and more than just their position at your organization.”

About Amelie Karam

After studying at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Richmond University in London, and finishing her degree in Performance and Film Studies from Loyola University in New Orleans, Amelie Karam recognized that people in her Gen Y age group, known as “Millennials,” view the world differently than do previous generations. The great divide between Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y piqued Amelie’s interest.

Amelie is passionate about bridging generational gaps. She speaks and consults both nationally and internationally about how organizations can better work together to attract and retain the Millennial generation to ultimately bridge generational gaps.

Through her Millennial perspective and rich research, along with her background in theatre, film, health, and wellness, Amelie brings an entertaining and informative voice to this important and highly sought-after topic of bridging generational gaps.

Hosted by Quint Studer and Dan Collard

On this special episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, your hosts Quint Studer and Dan Collard come together to discuss The Human Capital Ecosystem™, a platform and diagnostic tool created and deployed by Healthcare Plus Solutions Group to help healthcare organizations identify areas for improvement and implement personalized solutions.  

Quint and Dan discuss how the workplace has shifted as a result of the pandemic and how the “People Pillar” looks different today. Based on their learnings from the past two years, Quint and Dan designed The Human Capital Ecosystem™ to evaluate six key, interrelated components of organizations and assess the efficacy of current programs and processes.   

The six components addressed in the ecosystem are: 

1. Selection and Onboarding 
2. Supervisor Relationships 
3. Coworker Relationships 
4. Skill Building & Career Development 
5. Resources & Support 
6. Operational Efficiency 

The Human Capital Ecosystem™ assessment enables organizations to identify top priority areas for further coaching and investment. This gives leaders the focus and clarity needed to narrow their scope of work, focus on the most impactful elements, and yield improved results.  

Listen to the full episode to learn more about The Human Capital Ecosystem™ and discover how Healthcare Plus Solutions Group is helping organizations to address gaps and achieve and sustain high performance.  

Hosted by Dan Collard with special guest Fawn Lopez

On this episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Dan Collard is joined by special guest Fawn Lopez, Publisher Emeritus of Modern Healthcare Magazine. Fawn shares her background – from Vietnamese refugee to healthcare executive – and discusses the challenges she faced as a young woman entering a male-dominated industry.

As the publisher at Modern Healthcare, Fawn has worked to help advance women and people of color into the C-Suite and into board rooms. An extension of that work is Modern Healthcare’s Women Leaders in Healthcare Conference, which Fawn will host for the final time this August following her recent retirement. Since 2006, Modern Healthcare has also published the Top 25 Minority Executives list (now called Diversity Leaders in Healthcare). These two initiatives predated the widespread emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion that we see in healthcare today. Fawn shares she truly believes these programs have made a tangible impact, not only on the organization but also on the careers of remarkable women.

In this special interview, Fawn shares:

• How being a Vietnamese refugee impacted her life
• Why gratitude is one of her guiding principles
• The impact that entering a male-dominated industry had on her early career in healthcare
• How she has used her position at Modern Healthcare to become a guiding voice for women and people of color in leadership

“As I conclude this chapter of my career at Modern healthcare, my wish is for the future leaders to continue to encourage healthcare leaders and organizations to push for faster, more sustained efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion. We need to amplify the call for increased representation of women and minorities and address both conscious and unconscious biases diligently.” – Fawn Lopez

About:
Fawn Lopez is Publisher Emeritus of Modern Healthcare. Prior to her retirement on January 1, 2023, Fawn was publisher of the industry’s leading source of healthcare business and policy news, research, and information for healthcare executives since 2005.

Fawn dedicated her entire professional career to the publishing industry. Prior to joining Modern Healthcare, she held the position of National Sales Director for Crain’s Chicago Business. Before joining Crain’s Chicago Business, Fawn served as Advertising Director at the Kansas City Business Journal in Kansas City, Missouri.

Currently, Fawn actively serves as a board member of two privately held company, SourceOne Global Partners and GeoCann, where her expertise and insights contribute to their strategic direction and decision-making processes. In addition, she holds a position on the Dean’s advisory board for DePaul University-College of Communication. Fawn’s dedication to professional networks is evident through her memberships in Women of Impact: Leaders in Health and Healthcare, and The Health Alliance. She is also a fellow of The Institute of Medicine of Chicago.

Fawn has a passion for fostering and driving diversity, equity, and inclusion, not only in her organization, but also throughout the healthcare industry. Moreover, she embraces her role as a champion and an advocate for advancing health equity for all.

Hosted by Quint Studer with special guest Matthew Bates

On this week’s episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Quint Studer is joined by special guest Matthew Bates. Matthew Bates is a Managing Director with Kaufman Hall and leads their physician enterprise service line. His expertise includes envisioning and executing transformations in healthcare around the physician enterprise, ambulatory healthcare delivery, healthcare economics and data & analytics.

Quint and Matthew discuss the financial pressures facing healthcare industry leaders today and discuss strategic solutions to create alignment and improve margins. To be successful in the current environment, Matthew Bates says leaders must focus on three key things:

1. Evolving physician alignment, relationships, and engagement
2. Adjusting care delivery models to maximize the impact of advanced practice providers
3. Rethinking the front door to the health system and how to engage patients outside of the emergency department

Listen to the full episode for further insights on how Matthew and his team at Kaufman Hall are guiding healthcare leaders to success today.

About Matthew Bates

Matthew Bates is a Managing Director with Kaufman Hall and leads their physician enterprise service line. Matthew has 30+ years of healthcare experience working with physicians and C-suite leaders in the US and beyond. His expertise includes envisioning and executing transformations in healthcare around the physician enterprise, ambulatory healthcare delivery, healthcare economics and data & analytics.

Matthew is a frequent author and speaker on the topics of the US healthcare economy, the future of healthcare and the evolving physician enterprise. He is the lead author of Kaufman Hall’s Physician Flash Report and numerous other thought leadership pieces. He is also the co-author of the book, Leading Medical Group Transformation.

Prior to joining Kaufman Hall, Mr. Bates was a Managing Director at Deloitte in their Strategy and Operations practice and launched their Healthcare AI & Data Strategy offerings. Before that, he was a Managing Director at Huron Consulting and a Senior Leader with Studer Group.

Mr. Bates holds a Masters of Public Health (MPH) degree from the University of Denver and a Bachelor’s in Health Care Management from the Metropolitan State University of Denver. He also serves on the curriculum committee for the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME).

Matthew is married to his primary care provider with whom he is raising twins in Montana. His son is into freestyle skiing and his daughter is a rodeo barrel racer. And when Matthew finds a quiet moment to slip away, you will find him standing in a cold mountain stream fly fishing.

Hosted by Quint Studer with special guest Carlton Ulmer

On this episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Quint Studer is joined by special guest Carlton Ulmer. Carlton is a former healthcare leader, hospital CEO, and President with more than 26 years of experience in the industry. In January 2023, Carlton and Quint co-founded Build a Brain, Build a Life, Build a Community – a company that helps educate parents and caregivers about the crucial role they play in helping to develop a child’s brain and the importance of talk and interaction to fuel healthy brain development in the first three years of a child’s life.

In healthcare, we have a tendency to overcomplicate programs. Carlton shares that one of the things he loves about working in early brain development is the simplicity of it. 85% of a baby’s brain is being built in the first three years and words are the food it needs to develop. We have the opportunity in hospitals to provide educational resources to new mothers and fathers who happen to be the first teachers of their newborn and explain the role they play in brain development.

Tune in today to learn about the role you play in building brains and how you can offer resources within your own organization or community.

About Carlton Ulmer

Carlton has been a healthcare leader for more than 26 years across five states with a track record of creating a positive culture and a commitment to excellence always.

In 2022, Carlton founded N-Evolve, a firm who connects people, companies and ideas to transform outcomes through innovation, mentoring and best practices.

Carlton is VP of Healthcare at CogAbility, where they build Ai-powered digital employees (also known as CogBots) to empower leading government, education, and healthcare organizations – and the people they serve. CogBots automate low-value and error-prone tasks to free up staff to focus on what matters mosts: serving human life.

And most recently in January of 2023, Carlton co-founded with Quint Studer – Build a Brain, Build a Life, Build a Community — a company that helps educate parents and caregivers about the crucial role they play in helping to develop their child’s brain and the importance of talk and interaction to fuel healthy brain development in the first three years of a child’s life.

Contact Information:
Stephanie@BuildABrainNow.com
Stephanie cell: 706-936-1579

Carlton@BuildABrainNow.com
Carlton cell: 850-387-3846

Info@BuildABrainNow.com

Hosted by Quint Studer with special guest April Hansen

On this episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, Quint Studer is joined by special guest April Hansen. April Hansen, MSN, RN is a nurse by background and currently serves as the Group President of Workforce Solutions with Aya Healthcare. No matter the role, April says her primary love and passion sits with improving the human experience and improving healthcare.

April shares that there is an exciting hunger and interest today in rethinking how healthcare is delivered and how leaders are guiding those changes through data insights. One innovative model she’s seeing health systems take great interest in is virtual nursing. Leaders are re-evaluating processes and determining the division of labor that can be handled virtually versus what is required to be done hands-on. With this data, organizations will be able to then perfect and optimize workflows and back them with technology to make a great impact on the patient and caregiver experience.

Quint and April discuss:

• How healthcare leaders should leverage data as they consider innovative care delivery models
• Ways to reduce nurse workloads and improve caregiver satisfaction
• How Aya Healthcare is filling talent gaps to help health systems maintain service line operations and meet the needs of their community

About April Hansen

As Aya Healthcare’s Group President of Workforce Solutions, April Hansen, MSN, RN, is responsible for strategic business development, workforce solutions program operations, recruitment augmentation and clinical services support. Hansen has led her team through exponential growth with new client expansion and several organizational acquisitions, increasing the distribution channels for Aya’s 45000+ clinicians. A strong proponent of lifelong learning, April created the Aya Scholars Program, the industry’s first clinical ladder and professional recognition model for travel nurses, to ensure their continued career growth.

Passionate for improving the clinician experience and solving workforce challenges, Hansen spearheaded an industry-first qualitative market research project examining the lived experiences of core staff, veteran travel nurses and new travel nurses during the pandemic and understanding how that lived experience influences nurses’ career choices. The research, “Mind the Gap: Repairing the US Healthcare Workforce” and its findings have been featured by Healthcare Dive, Axios and SIA and have been presented at numerous hospital and healthcare associations, including Wisconsin Organization of Nurse Leaders where Hansen served as the keynote speaker.

April is a nurse and an entrepreneur. She successfully co-founded a clinical management technology to ease the administrative burden of healthcare student clinical placements in 2012 and achieved a successful exit when the technology was acquired in 2016. In addition, she co-founded a mobile application for nursing engagement and achieved support through a nationally ranked start-up accelerator in partnership with Microsoft in 2017.

Hosted by Quint Studer with special guest Blaine Douglas

On this episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Quint Studer is joined by Blaine Douglas, Managing Principal of Vizient overseeing indirect spend (or purchasing services). Blaine manages a team of 220 people who work to help Vizient’s provider members put processes in place and drive value. Quint and Blaine discuss how Vizient has driven its impressive workplace culture and created positive employee engagement results across the organization.

Vizient provides services that impact quality across the healthcare industry, but employees don’t necessarily see the direct impact they have on patient outcomes. Blaine believes that the key to improved engagement is tying the work his team members do to the company’s mission of improving patient care and serving member hospitals.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about:

• How to leverage employee engagement survey results
• Why having a “family atmosphere” is crucial to employee attraction, retention, and engagement
• How a hiring process can ensure bringing in talent that will flourish in your workplace culture

About Blaine Douglas

Blaine Douglas brings over 30 years of experience in the health care industry. His areas of expertise and professional skills include health care operations with a focus on operational efficiencies and expense control. Blaine leads the nonclinical consulting practice, including purchased services, supply chain, construction and facilities, and capital and equipment planning consulting service areas. Since joining Vizient, he has led many multimillion-dollar improvement projects totaling over $250 million in savings, including a $30 million financial improvement in 12 months at a large Southeastern academic medical center—surpassing a three-year savings guarantee in the first 13 months, exceeding the $12.5 million target by over 200% and improving a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award-winning health system’s supply chain savings by more than $16 million.

Prior to joining Vizient, Blaine spent 18 years in health system operations as a COO of a health system and CEO of a Level I trauma center. As CEO, Blaine led a dramatic hospital financial turnaround while also improving patient, employee and physician satisfaction, as well as overall hospital quality.

Blaine has a bachelor’s degree in fire safety engineering technology from Oklahoma State University, a master’s degree in health care administration from Oklahoma State University, and a Doctor of Health Administration degree from Central Michigan University.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. If you know or have followed Quint Studer, you know that mental health is an incredibly important topic to him because it’s personal to him. Quint is open and vulnerable about his own challenges and struggles and actively works to reduce the stigma of mental health in the workplace for the benefit of all.

On this episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, we’re doing things a bit differently. Tune in as Nicole Webb Bodie interviews Quint Studer to learn more about his journey through depression and alcoholism. Quint discusses the resources that helped him achieve 41 years of sobriety, the stigma that he has experienced in the workplace, and why honesty and transparency are so important to him.

Listen to the full episode for insights on:

• How vulnerability creates a culture of safety within an organization
• How leaders can help reduce the stigma of mental health in the workplace
• The resources available for people who want to seek assistance
• And much more!

Explore mental health and well-being resources from Healthcare Plus Solutions Group:

• Well-Being Tool Kit
• Well-Being Handbook (hard copy)
• Well-Being Handbook (eBook)

Hosted by Dan Collard with special guest Natasha Lee

On this week’s episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, Dan Collard is joined by special guest Natasha Lee to discuss her innovative approach to leadership and service in both her organization and community. Natasha is the Co-Founder and CEO of Floyd Lee Locums, a concierge healthcare staffing firm for physicians and advanced practice providers.

Floyd Lee Locums’ organizational goal is to connect clinicians to purposeful work in order to impact lives and Natasha believes that weaving this purpose into every facet of the company has been the key to their early success. In order to build a culture that embraces that purpose, Natasha has focused on connecting to employees on a more personal level. Today, Floyd Lee Locums has 85 employees and Natasha interviews every employee herself before hiring, not so much to assess their ability but to get to know them as people and learn their heart. This also allows her to understand what motivates her employees and create a more engaging environment for them at work.

Additionally, Natasha believes that having connection to your community is key to making a positive impact. Last year, Floyd Lee Locums led a program for 300 days of community service in 300 days with their employees. This work helped connect the company’s idea of service to the healthcare community with service in their own community.

About Natasha Lee

As CEO, Natasha Lee passionately upholds the core values of Floyd Lee Locums, whose primary focus is to revolutionize the healthcare staffing industry by connecting clinicians to purposeful work. A staffing industry veteran since 2001, she has extensive experience starting and growing new businesses, penetrating new markets, and recognizing and developing talent. Her authentic commitment to the industry informs the organization’s key promise of serving those who serve others.

Natasha is passionate about creating a company culture where all employees, partners, and clients feel valued and heard. Her impact and that commitment extends to our organization’s DEI&B efforts, corporate volunteerism program (We Serve), and our internal employee benefits program (We Sustain).

Hosted by Quint Studer with special guest Tim Broderick

On this week’s episode of The Healthcare Plus Podcast, host Quint Studer is joined by special guest Tim Broderick to analyze healthcare data and share insights on why patient experience scores aren’t improving. Tim Broderick has served as the data and analytics lead for Modern Healthcare Magazine since 2018.

In the last 5 years, there has been very little change in HCAHPS scores across the country. HCAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems) is the first national, standardized survey of patients’ perspectives of hospital care and was first implemented in 2006. The survey captures the patient’s experience of communication with doctors and nurses, responsiveness of hospital staff, communication about medicines, and other indicators of overall experience.

While many assume that COVID-19 is the cause of these stagnant HCAHPS results, Tim Broderick says the data points elsewhere. Tim and Quint take a deeper look at why patient experience scores aren’t improving and where healthcare organizations have the greatest opportunities to impact them.

Listen to full episode for insights on:

• The difference in patient experience scores in acute care hospitals vs. critical access hospitals
• Why the resources we’re putting into patient experience aren’t getting the intended results
• The impact of survey fatigue and declining response rates on HCAHPS surveys
• The areas where doctors and nurses could have the greatest impact on patient experience scores

Click here to explore Modern Healthcare’s reimagined data center.

About Tim Broderick

Tim Broderick is an award-winning data journalist with Modern Healthcare magazine. His data analysis and visualizations of healthcare data fuel Modern Healthcare’s new data center at modernhealthcare.com/data-center

He joined the magazine in 2018 after working more 30 years for daily newspapers in and around Chicago. He and his family live on the Northwest Side of the city but root for the baseball team on the Southside.