SCL Health Setting the Foundation with Early Wins
Episode 1646th December 2019 • This Week Health: Conference • This Week Health
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This transcription is provided by artificial intelligence. We believe in technology but understand that even the most intelligent robots can sometimes get speech recognition wrong.

 Welcome to this week, health Influence, where we discuss the influence of technology on health with the people who are making it happen. My name is Bill Russell, recovering healthcare, CIO, and creator of this week in health. It. A set of podcasts and videos dedicated to developing the next generation of health IT leaders.

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Today I'm excited to be joined by two of the IT leaders from SEL Health in, uh, Colorado. Craig Richards. Uh, good morning gentlemen. And. Hey, good morning, bill. Thank you. Good morning, bill. Thank you. So, Craig, people are familiar with you. You've, you've been around, uh, you've been on the show before, uh, but you've made a transition to, uh, to SCL.

Um, give us, give us an idea of the transition. So you, you came into a new organization, um, you know, what'd you find? What did you have to put in place? Uh, you know what, tell us about the, the journey to, uh, Colorado. Yeah, I think first Bill, uh, first and foremost, it, uh, it certainly is when you come into a new organization, it's very important not to come in with any preconceived notions or ideas of what you wanna put in place.

So, you know, my first 30 days was really kinda more what I would call a listening tour, where I went around and I spoke with about 40 different executives, different focus groups stuff, different parts of it, just to learn what the current state is and what the future expectations would look like. Did an assessment and then you start to execute.

So within 60 days, you really need to start to execute. And that was, uh, really the third month here. And what we did here in terms of going through it, was you need to identify what were the right seats to put on the bus. Then you gotta put the right people in those seats. So, uh, I separated 75%. Of the leadership team, uh, knowing that the aggressive and the acceleration of the work that needed to be done, um, for our, in our markets, um, required a whole new level of talent and leadership.

And so that's why today even, uh, is joined by, uh, my first, uh, member of the leadership team that joined me, Steven Michaels. Yeah. So Steven, you've made the, uh, you made the move. Uh, give us a little bit of your background and, uh, the, the transition, um, from, from where you were to, to SCL. Yeah. Uh, thank you, bill.

So, my background is a mix. I, I've had the, I. Fortune to work in various disciplines from, uh, big government. I actually started my career in the military. Uh, I've also worked in telecommunications industry and spent the last 10 years in healthcare. And so, and that's been a mix of both big pharma as well as, uh, healthcare delivery.

And, and like Craig, you know. When I come into an organization, um, all that experience and credibility that you build up with your previous organizations, you start off with a zero balance when you, you come into a new organization. So, um, you know, uh, my first 90 days here has been, uh, a lot of getting to know the people, uh, the organization and stuff like that.

And, um, you hopefully back will kind of guide us to success.

So Steven, are you conflicted? You have a Villanova over your right shoulder, you have Notre Dame over your, your, your left shoulder. Is that, is that your background or is that, is that kids or what is that? Well, that, that's my background actually. So, uh, I actually got my, uh, undergraduate degree from a university that you've probably never heard of, although I'm very proud to be a university Camel.

Uh. You know, we're the only university in the world with a fighting camel as a mascot. So, uh, so that's, that's the, the, the one piece in the center back here. Uh, I did some postgraduate work at, uh, both Notre Dame and Villanova, getting Six Sigma and executive leadership certification. And so I've got a friend of mine that kind of jokes.

He is like, he's like, you're, you've gotta be the only non-Catholic to go to both of those schools, you know? Uh, and I.

So, so Craig, you go into a new organization, you do the listening tour. Uh, we're seeing a lot of IT organizations, um, start to, let's just say bifurcate a little bit in, uh, around sort of a, an operational IT and a digital and it, and an innovation. It, um, what, what were, what was your thoughts as you went in and after you've done the listening tour of how you're gonna organize to, uh, not only serve the current needs today, but also advance.

Yeah. So, uh, in coming through and actually my, uh, my last, uh, member of my executive leadership team actually starts in a week. So that whole cast will be, uh, complete at that time. And when you look at the actual programming went through and we developed, uh, what I would say would be, um, a group of products in the group of platforms and that falls underneath, um, all of our programs.

So, uh, we put into place, uh, five platforms and those platforms are very geared around who are, um. Uh, partners are going to be in the future, and most of 'em have a very large sweep of services. Some overlap. So if you looked at it, you would see in our cloud space, for example, Google is our major partner.

They're a major technology company that, uh, we are gonna be partnering with in many different avenues of of work. We look at XRM or CRM, uh, we call it XRM because it includes all relationship management. Uh, we are a Salesforce partner. On the EMR and revenue cycle management side, we have Epic. On the ERP side, we're actually going through an evaluation at the moment, and by the end of October, we'll have both our, uh, platform selected as well as our implementation partner.

And the last of the five is our service management. So these are how we plan to interact with all of our associates. ServiceNow is that, and we implemented that in August of this past year. So a lot of movements around the platforms and, and really part of that is going to be to make sure we try to, um, eliminate the best of breed type concept and try to bring a lot of the one-off partnerships into the fold of our five major partners and platforms.

On top of that, then we have five product lines. And that's where I think we'll also see a kind of a, a circular influence around it. Is around application services. One is around data services, digital services, it, risk and technology services. So we have five major platforms, five major product lines, and that's how we're organizing all of our work for the.

So, Craig, I'm gonna come back to you in a minute to talk about budget because you rattled off a bunch of platforms and I just happen to know from my former budget that those are expensive platforms. So, but Steven, I wanna, I wanna go to you. You're, you're new into the organization, uh, as in the CTO role.

How much of your time is spent on, uh, on today on.

Getting the, the infrastructure solid, the security platform solid. And then how much of your time is spent on future thinking and, and, uh, future endeavors. Well, so kind of being in my first 90 days, that balance is a little skewed, uh, just because, uh, it's a lot of learning and, and and so forth. And so I do spend a little more time today, uh, in the weeds with our platforms than, uh, what I will be doing in the future just to be effective in my role.

I think for my role.

Missions and values, and that's really getting to know the leadership across the organization and understand, uh, what their priorities are and how their teams are interacting with our technology. I can tell you that even doing that sometimes will require me to get into the weeds because. You know, I was just at one of our hospital locations last week and just kind of looking at how specifically at the, at the end of that value stream, when someone is actually touching the technology and putting it into action, uh, how that can be different than how we may envision it further up the line.

And so really I think for me to be effective to the organization, it's.

My goal, uh, for the rest of that, so kind of running the day to day is that we, uh, institute enough of a resiliency design and plan around that to where that's just kind of the, the, um, that that's us tying our shoestrings and making sure that they're good and tight before we start playing. You know, that that stuff should just happen and should, should work and shouldn't be a distraction, but it a challenge CT out it pretty to get bogged down if things are.

Yeah, the CTO role is interesting to me because you have to go, you have to be able to go very deep, and then you also have to keep an eye on the horizon. Uh, and, and you and Craig together will keep an eye on the horizon to say, you know, what is, what's going on in the world of automation? What's going on in the, you know, robotic process automation in, in other areas that you guys, you know, are.

So Craig, so Craig, I come back to you on, on, uh, budgeting. I know when I came in, uh, to the health system, I, I, I, uh, took over at, um, one of the initial things I had to do was to, uh, educate the, the leadership. On what was gonna be required to deliver. It's funny, 'cause you look at the job description for the CIO and they're all so aspirational, , you read it and you're just like, wow, this is one of the most forward-leaning companies.

And then you get in there and you're like, okay, if you believe this, then it's gonna, it's gonna require this kind of investment, this kind of thing. Uh, you know, how, how do you, uh, how do you approach those? That first year in terms of budget and educating and, and, um, and really setting the right foundation for the future.

Well, the timing is actually perfect because for most, most healthcare systems, including ours, the budget season is actually right now. So we're right in the midst of it. So outside of learning a new process, one of the things that we'll say when we, you know, came in and started to review some of the current work or some of the past decisions that were made.

We've already, in the past several months, past three and a half months have generated over 4 million, uh, to the bottom line in a positive state by rightsizing our agreements, uh, displacing, uh, one-off, uh, vendors consolidating, uh, our portfolio of services that we're offering. So we've already, I think, have some credibility that we've built, uh, that we are looking at these.

I think you said the key word is investment. The things that we are putting in do have to have a return coming back. So initially, you know, it was talked about that you know, that these are gonna be some large expenses, uh, that we are bringing to the table. And yes, they're not cheap. However, if you have the, uh, a strong buy-in from the corporate areas, from the clinical, uh, provider areas, and you put the right due diligence around your business case, these are actually investments that have a return coming back to the organization.

So in terms of selling it, they sell themselves. Change management. You know, we're in a, in an organization or really the organization in an industry that is going through a tremendous amount of change management. And that is something that, in my opinion. We need to start getting used to, and that needs to be part of our daily flow and our daily work.

And the c-suite up here, uh, I think strongly believes and, and most of them are pretty much in their roles, uh, just in the last several years from very, uh, large, uh, high performing organizations. So we got a, got really the top talent and, uh, Steven and I, the rest of the team are very, uh, privileged to be working with this set of people and are, we're very well aligned in terms of how we want to move the organization forward.

Wanna a leader in this digital transformation for the industry and how we wanna provide, uh, the best services to achieve our mission for our ministry, our patients. So you guys, uh, you, you threw out a bunch of, uh, great topics to jump off on. So, you know, the Google partnership. So we heard from, I, I, I've joked on the show that we, we should now have signing day where big announcement and somebody puts on the Google jersey or the Amazon Jersey or Microsoft.

And, uh, so Chris Ross put on the, uh, put, put on the Google jersey, uh, for Mayo, 10 year ai. Partnership. Partnership and, uh, talked about how the, uh, Google engineers are gonna be working side by side with, uh, the Mayo, uh, clinicians. And, uh, I think his quote from the Health 2.0 conference last week was ai.

This AI thing is real. Um. So, you know, you guys have a, a pretty strong Google partnership talk E Either or both of you Talk through a little bit about what you guys are doing with them and, and what it looks like. Yeah, I'll start off first and let Steven fill in, uh, a lot of the blanks. So the relationship with Google is, uh, is a continuing, maturing relationship.

So we've made. A large investment. We partnered together to do some of the basic type services, so things like G Suite to replace Microsoft Office. Uh, we're in the process of, uh, uh, going down a road of Google Voice for Business to replace our Cisco call manager and all of 'em have multimillion dollar returns, uh, to successfully start moving ourselves down there.

We also signed a very large GCP, uh, agreement with them to allow us to be able to, uh, take advantage of cloud services. And, you know, Steven has already talked to some of our business partners in a different space to allow, uh, them to be able to either move or to add, uh, Google's cloud to their environment.

So it's not an AWS or, or not just an Azure. Uh, uh, company, but something now where, where Google Cloud is at least one of the three, and we hope to be the preferred in the future for other people making these decisions. And there's, then there's a whole slew of the AI and ML components, uh, whether it's on the contact center side, the administrative side, or on the clinical side.

And so we have a, a regular meeting. I mean, uh, Steve and his team chairs. Our Google, uh, steering committee, which is a subcommittee or really it's an equitable committee to our technology committee. So I'll let Steven kind of fill in a little bit more of the detail, but it certainly is a very accelerated and advancing, uh, relationship.

Yeah. Yeah. The one thing I would add is that, you know, when you go, when you go down the path of Google and, and Craig and I had this discussion before I actually joined SEL, is, you know, once I heard that was kind of the direction that was going, you know, I understood, you know, that the culture change will be.

The sign, and you really have to be not just forwarding something where changing the dayday uh, tools that associates have been using for 20 plus years. And, uh, but, but when you look at things through the lens of the Google developers and you see that their design around certain things are extremely collaborative, uh, and, and really like, you know, we've had discussions around how certain platforms like, uh, SharePoint and others really get kind of replaced by the holistic product.

Uh, and so you just have to, you kind of beat associates their way. But SCL, particularly in technology, uh, we're, we're trying to be forward thinking. You know, I, I, I kind of chuckled earlier when I realized that, that Craig has his desk phone sitting on the cabinet behind him and, and . Yeah. And the reason for that is, is that, you know, he doesn't have a desk phone.

And so it's not that our tele telephony team is bad at phone placement and.

Sip a solution like Google Voice per business. And, uh, it just allows us to be a lot more mobile, uh, and and so forth. And I think as far as, you know, the, uh, ai, uh, platforms, I mean there's, there's, without question, you know, from a natural language perspective, you know, their use of TensorFlow and stuff like that, Google's definitely an industry leader and we wanna align ourselves to someone like that.

And there's just, you know, the abilities to use that, uh, uh, investment that Google has made is, is, uh, is pretty amazing. So I'm, I'm fascinated by the, the phone. I mean, clearly there's a lot of ways to go off of that conversation. So, um, the, uh, the, the Cisco solution has proven to be a way too expensive solution to scale.

Uh, and, and that was the case for us. It's just, it was a very. Uh, hard telephony solution to, to get across the board, including into our call centers. With that being said, we found the cloud solutions, and I'm going back six years. We found the cloud solutions, uh, couldn't cover all the use cases that you had in a hospital setting.

Uh, do you guys have sort of a hybrid approach there? I. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. And you're spot on. Like, uh, Google will tell you as well as Microsoft, if you wanted to talk about their, uh, team's voice or Skype for business voice, uh, solutions, they'll tell you that when it comes to a complicated environment like a contact center, for example, uh, they're, they're not the solution for that, right?

So you. Functionality that comes with building out a, a robust contact center. Uh, they're, they're not really ready for that. And honestly, you know, when, when I've talked to some of the folks, uh, at, at, at Microsoft, for example, they'll tell you that they're, they're not necessarily interested in getting into that, that deep business.

Uh, and, and, and from my perspective, if I was them, I, I wouldn't. You know, the phone call interaction with businesses is a, is something that's gonna die off. Like folks like the three of us on this call, we would probably spend a lot more time trying to interact with a business virtually than than ever.

Picking up the phone and calling, right? Like, I'll, I'll search your website, I'll try to chat with people. I'll do all these things. To avoid making a phone call. Uh, and so, you know, knowing that that's kind of where technology's going, that fewer and fewer people are eager to pick up the phone and actually place the phone call, then these, these, uh, cloud solutions are not necessarily poised, uh, to, to do a lot of development specifically around Google.

Some of your existing, uh, Cisco infrastructure, uh, and give us the ability to get robust tools and so forth. Uh, and and the most recent announcement from Google where you're able to, you know, kind of, kind of route your data through the Google platform and how it interconnects with, you know, your existing platforms like Cisco.

Uh.

You know, bill, if I could just jump in just for a minute. I think Steve had touched on a very important point that might be overlooked and really, you know, it is the, the term contact center. Uh, it's no longer a call center. And we did some changes recently with ServiceNow and went up with our, um, uh, an upgrade, a major upgrade within the Epic environment a week and a half ago or so.

And we, all we saw was a total shift. The number of, uh, incidents that were reported in terms of how they were reported. So, uh, 80% of all incidents reported were reported via, uh, online, uh, utilizing that as a contact versus having a, a phone call come in. And so we had people, you know, eight people sitting around waiting for five calls an hour to come in via the phone versus the incident piece.

And then what we saw is, is what we're learning is the actual AI feature within ServiceNow. In this case, we'll actually start to build based upon all those different incidents and how they're reporting. And so in the future, you know, they'll be able to, and we're talking just a couple months away. When they actually start to key in their problem, it'll start to solve it for them because it'll have a database of knowledge built enough and we'll take that artificial intelligence and bring that back, which won't have a, a reported incident at all anymore.

It'll be self, self-serve. So we'll see ourselves in a short period of time. And when we look at things that, uh, with Google and some of the partners, as Steven mentioned. That's gonna be very similar of how we plan on delivering that service back out to our patients. So much of the work that the patients will do will be initiated via the voice and or online with very little human interaction.

So we'll have be building up what I would call like the digital workforce. So Craig, that's a good transition. You know, we've gone from patient to consumer to person, people and people-centered design around it. Uh. How's that changing the, um, the thought process in terms of strategy, tools and implementation for you guys as you move, uh, move maybe from a patient-centered to a consumer and, and, and, uh, really a person-centered?

When we talk about population health and we talk about social determinants of health, we're potentially not talking about even consumers anymore. We're just talking about. The community that we live in. So how does, how does the, how does that impact health it and how does that impact your thought process, uh, for technology, technology and strategy?

t's called Mission Forward in:

Became very clear that for us to be able to accelerate our work to support and to achieve or overachieve even the, uh, the objectives that were established as part of that strategic plan, that's where the, the, the growth for us is coming into the digital services area. And that's where I was able to actually repurpose, uh, one of the executive positions to be the vice president of digital services.

And now we've got the work around that. So we've already inventoried all the different digital assets that we've created. Now started creating the, uh, the list of, uh, achievable, uh, uh, goals for other digital initiatives in the future. Then we also, which I think is equity important, is to, we created a list of that parking lot.

So we wanted to make sure that we looked at all the different digital assets that we're capable and that would be capable coming in the next several years. And so we have things that we're working on, things that we want to work on, and then things that we don't wanna work on just to make sure that there's a conservative effort.

And that was very intentful. If somebody asked me, for example, um, what are you guys doing in, in the area of blockchain, I could say for us at this time. Is on the parking lot list. We are not spending resources, time and energy within the blockchain. As that matures, as we continue to mature, there will likely be the opportunity that we would bring that into the portfolio.

But for the moment, we're gonna allow other people to, uh. Continue to generate that good work. So it was really for us to create the digital piece, which will lead into our consumer and our person, uh, focus so that we are very personalized in the delivery of our services. Not customized and not one size fits all, but very personalized to Bill Russell, for example, when you come into our service line.

So let's talk about CRM or XRM as you and, and Steven, I'm not gonna put you on the spot here. You, you've been there for 90 days, is that right? Yes, sir. . So I'm just gonna throw this out to both of you. So from ACRM perspective, how are you thinking about it? You have a phenomenal tool in Salesforce that can do a jillion things.

I mean, it literally is a platform that can go in how. Is it around personalization or is it around outreach? I mean, where, where does it get used the most effectively in healthcare? Yeah, either of you. Okay. I was gonna say, like, you know, one of, one of the challenges you run into is the bleed over of technology.

Right? So I, I think in every organization I've been a part of that and, and my last three organizations have all been Salesforce platforms. And it's a great platform and, and, uh, and how it's utilized. I, I think that. Like with many platforms like that, that there's so many capabilities that sometimes we don't realize, uh, what we don't know.

And so there's sometimes there's features, functionality that aren't being used. Um, I haven't seen that yet at SELI haven't been there long enough to see, you know, to, to to what extent we are, uh, uh, utilizing. But Craig mentioned, uh, uh, ServiceNow as a platform, right? There's a lot of bleed over between ServiceNow and Salesforce, for example.

And so the challenge for someone in our position is we have to look at that bleed over and see, okay, well how much are we consuming on one end? So in other words, like to, to what degree are we consuming Salesforce? Uh, and, and using the features that be differentiators between them. Uh, so. For the organization, uh, we're not there.

Uh, and, and certainly the new VP of digital coming on will be a major player, uh, just because of that responsibility to, to get us there. But that challenge has existed in every organization I've been a part of. And it's not unique to, to SEL just simply because these, these platforms that are being built are fantastic and robust, but they also bleed over into each other quite a bit.

You know, bill, when you, uh, talked about Salesforce, um, in, in some of the different ways of how we could use it and what we found out, uh, in the current inventory of the assets we're actually using Salesforce in pretty much every way you could think of. The issue was, uh, to Steven's point, we didn't rationalize what would be the best platform.

For, uh, some of the services and also we needed to align the different services together. So we knew when we were talking to internal people, for example, that we had a certain amount of personalization to it or looking at, um, uh. Actual patients of ours or providers, again, very personalized with some of the ways that we would look into, they look at the outreach with a lot of our consumer base, you know, to start to capture and bring some of that information in.

Uh, you know, again, we're kind of moving toward that avenue as well. So we're using it in all different assets of how you would think you would use the, uh, the cloud for, um, uh, Salesforce. So both the Marketing Cloud and the we'll rationalize primarily the service cloud of. How that fits, uh, within some of our other platforms that we have.

And so for us, it's really gonna be organizing the work and then accelerating the work based upon the best platform that we choose. And we have a very, you know, the, the the, when you look at the Salesforce and the digital products that we're bringing out, it's myself and our senior Vice president of marketing are the co-executive sponsors.

So it's not an IT thing, it's not a marketing thing. It's actually a corporate thing that, uh, we're coming together on for, and if you looked at our new name that we originally just, uh, rolled out in the last couple of months, our new name is Information Technology, which is basically what. It goes across all industries, but we're also responsible for digital services, which is the, the last two things.

So I think we're probably very unique in being called ITDS, but it kind of brings in the future of the digital world that you, uh, uh, brought up as well as the, the, the base foundational aspects of technology. So, uh, that's fantastic. So I guess this is one of the final questions here. Let's talk about data a little bit.

So, data is foundational for the digital services that you're going to be delivering. Uh, in terms of, um, well, in, in terms of everything. I mean, data is the, is the lifeblood of, of digital services. How are you gonna normalize that? How are you gonna make it available? Um, are you going to be developing your own set of digital tools on this?

Uh, uh, ecosystem of, of, uh, innovators that are already out there. Are you gonna be tapping into maybe some of the, uh, programs that, uh, larger health systems have in place? What, what are your thought processes on that? Yeah, you know, we're, we're not gonna be doing a lot of, uh, what I would say internal development.

Uh, what we're gonna doing is we're gonna be, uh, looking to, uh, look to see what's happening across other industries as something that. Steven and I and the rest of leadership too are, uh, very proud of is the network that we've built over our careers are not only in healthcare, but outside of healthcare and how that all is, is, uh, being utilized.

'cause you know, data and digital is, is a big piece going across all the different, uh, verticals that are out there. But we'll be looking at the, uh, innovators in terms of, uh, some of the things that the large technology companies. Platform partners like Google for example, or ServiceNow or, uh, some of the things that Epic is, uh, moving forward with bringing those into our portfolio.

h, it aligns quickly with our:

So that becomes another, uh, product that we're delivering in our data services steering committee will be leading that charge and the way that we're looking at it. We are actually looking at bringing all different kinds of data interchanges in and outside of the organization, all within, uh, a single platform and a single services for us to provide that back out to our customer base.

Absolutely. Uh, last question, best thing about moving to Colorado. Steven, have you moved to Colorado yet? Steven? Yes, yes, I actually have, and um, you know, my, my background being from North Carolina, it's going to get me in a lot of trouble. But I'm gonna be honest with you, bill, probably the best thing about moving to Colorado has been the barbecue

They've got some really good, like, you know, which I know that's blasphemous for.

There's some great food out there, but of course everybody's gonna talk about, you know, the beautiful sky and the weather and, and all. That's amazing. But the, probably the one that's been most surprising has been the food, that's for sure. Yeah. More days of sunshine than any other, uh, city in the, in the country is what they say.

And just outta curiosity, you came from North Carolina, you have Villanova, Notre Dame over your shoulder. Are you are what, what's your, what's your college basketball team that you Oh, well, yes, that's a great question, bill. So, uh, being from North Carolina, you have to make a choice at a young age, uh, as to which basketball team you're gonna pull for.

I was with Tar Hill. Uh, you know, I've definitely. You know, so I was like nine years old when Michael Jordan and, and Dean Smith and James Worthy, uh, who was from my hometown actually, uh, won the National Champions. So, uh, definitely a tar hill when it comes to basketball and it's extremely hard to watch, uh, the Tar Hills play Villanova or any of the other schools I'm affiliated with because I'm still a heart.

So I get this picture of your father taking you aside, sitting down and nine years old. You know, is it Duke? Is it UNC? Is it NC State? Where, where are you going? Yeah. He, he didn't gimme much of a choice. It definitely wasn't gonna be Duke in his, in his mind, that's for sure. Craig, what about you? Best thing about moving to, to Colorado?

Well, I'll have to, uh, uh, default to, uh, the weather. Uh, the lack of humidity is amazing. The summer has just been, uh, uh, physically one of the best summers out there. I don't think I've had one beat of sweat. Um, come down my head. So that's beautiful. And then every day, you know, coming into the office or going home or just going out casually, the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains are absolutely gorgeous.

It's just, um, you know, it's just like kind of having a mural, you know, on your wall. And you still even see some white caps, you know, throughout the whole summer, which is kind of nice to see. You're kind of gazing up there. It's like, how can that be, you know, . So, uh, that's actually the, uh, both of those to me have been just a, a very great place to live.

And when you grow up on the east side, you know, I'm from Michigan and then down to North Carolina. Um, you don't spend a lot of time, at least I have not spent a lot of time on the western side of the United States, but everything, uh. Other side of the, uh, Mississippi for sure. So I'm really looking forward to exploring, you know, to different parts of the West is just a beautiful part.

Well, Craig, you've lived a charmed life. 'cause Michigan is one of the most beautiful states on either side, surrounded by water and North Carolina. I mean, I mean, you have mountains all the way down to the ocean. I mean, you can really cover the entire, uh, landscape in North Carolina. And I, I think the hardest thing, so I'm on the West coast now too.

The hardest thing for me to get used to is mountains without trees on it.

App. You, you, you know, you don't get as many great views because there's trees as opposed to here. If you're on the top of a mountain, you could see, uh, you could see for miles, but it's miles, it's rocky. So that's the name. Well, great conversation. I will have to check back with you guys, um, you know, next year.

I'd love to love to hear how things are progressing. Uh, just getting started out there, some ex exciting things, uh, going on. So thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Uh, any, any way, any way people can keep track or, or follow you guys? Yeah, I'm can see, uh, ourselves on, uh, LinkedIn and our progression.

But any type of, uh, industry leading communications and conferences, you'll continue to see us. Uh. Project ourselves warmer out there on, on the forefront. I do wanna thank you Bill, though, um, because you're really a big asset to the industry. You take a very, uh, generic and neutral approach and the objective approach to bringing things out to, uh, the rest of us that are, uh, trying to execute some work.

So I appreciate all your talent and been able to, uh, pulling a lot of the, uh, different people that you have over the years. I, I appreciate that. Appreciate that and Steven, thanks for for joining us as well. I appreciate. Uh, not only the CIOs on, but, but other people from within their organization to, to maybe have a little deeper, uh, conversation.

So I, I appreciate your, uh, perspective. Uh, even though I'm a UNC fan, I, I appreciate you being on the show, . Yes, sir. Sounds great. Thank you for having me. All right. Go Heels, . Exactly. Please come back for influencer. Don't forget. Which is impacting health it. This shows a production of this week in Health It.

For more great content, check out our website this week, health.com, YouTube channel this week, health.com. Click on the YouTube link. Uh, thanks for listening. That's all for now.

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