Today we’re talking about partnerships. President and CEO of Covenant HealthCare, Beth Charlton, BSN-RN, MSA, is here to share his perspective and insights. We’ll talk about how lasting partnerships strengthen healthcare, serving rural communities, and of course, what it all has to do with rural health.
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Jeremiah Hodshire (Host): It’s great to be back in the studio today with a colleague and friend of mine, who I have had the great pleasure to get to know through our association with the Michigan Hospital Association. And we’ll share a little bit more about Beth’s background, her clinical acumen and her professional acumen and the great work that she’s doing. So, it is a pleasure to have in the studio, Beth Charlton, who is the president and chief executive officer at Covenant Healthcare, which has grown quite a bit over the last several years under her leadership. And in fact, I’m not sure if she’s allowed to talk about a new announcement. But I do know that they’re creating more strategic partnerships with other hospitals in the region. I’m excited to hear about that. Beth, you come with a very remarkable career because you arrive here with a little bit of experience in healthcare, as your start. And I would love to be able to give our audience a glimpse of who you are as a person, as a professional. So, could you just really trace back your career in healthcare and what you’re doing now? And a little bit about covenant?
Beth Charlton (Guest): Sure, absolutely. First of all, thank you very much for having me. It’s an absolute privilege to be here with you, and recording this. So, as said Beth Charlton, I actually started many, many years ago, 37 fine years ago. It was in May that I started in this realm and journey, and I started as a student nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit. I started as a nurse extern. At that time, I actually thought I wanted to be an electrical engineer was where I started with my college path, but then kind of came home after a few semesters of that work and said, you know, if you’re going to do something and it’s going to be a career, my parents taught me, you have to have really strong work ethic, and you have to be passionate about the work that you do. And so, there was a pivot in my educational path away from engineering to nursing. And I started at the former Saint Luke’s Hospital in 1989. I don’t even like to say that date out loud, but it’s true, in the 80s. And so, I started along that journey.
I’m a very big advocate for mentorship. And the reason for that is because very early in my career, I was blessed and literally hired into a nurse manager in the in the ICU and a situation with her. Her name is Sue and she remains a lifelong friend now, but she had a particular talent for really tapping into individuals to see what their skill sets are, God given strengths, talents, abilities, etc. And so, the long story short about that interaction with Sue as my leader was, she saw a particular passion in me related to the quality of care that is provided to patients and families. And you might think on the surface, well, geez, I hope so. If you’re a nurse, I hope you are committed to quality. But she saw this extra passion about the way that we develop quality and look at processes and do, processes, think, etc. and so she sent me to a conference and grew my inspiration related to a particular thing, had me present to my unit, my department, when I came back, and that grew from there into her sort of letting other people know that I had this passion.
So fast forward now, I’m about five years into my career and I am working as an adjunct faculty member for Saginaw Valley State University here locally, I’m driving because there’s no such thing as internet courses at this time. Again, let’s date myself. I’m driving to the University of Michigan a couple of days a week pursuing a nurse practitioner degree, and I am working full time in the ICU, a job I absolutely love, and our CEO at the time calls me to his office, and said to me, I have this opportunity for you, Beth. And I didn’t really know our CEO very well as a frontline staff member, just knew that I respected him very much. And he said he was going to be embarking on a project for the organization. It was ahead of the Balanced Budget Act, and we were going to be doing some work redesign for the whole the organization, and he wanted me to join that project. But what he said was that it was going to involve relinquishing my pediatric ICU job, relinquishing my current educational path, and relinquishing my teaching as adjunct faculty at Saginaw Valley, because it was going to be such a demanding time to work on this project, and it literally J.J. changed the course of my career.
I did end up telling him I would accept the challenge. I was the only care delivery representative on this team. There were five members of our hospital team that were selected, and we worked with this company that did work redesign for the organization. And, you know, it took me out of the ICU and into what is the rest of the organization. And, you know, what it really taught me was the power and influence you can have when you’re really passionate about something to get other people inspired, connect the dots, be a collaborator, and grow in an effort concentrated on something. And so, it was just a remarkable opportunity, and it completely changed my perspective on what I could do. I would have never, ever thought or wanted or desired a titled leadership position. And afterwards I did because I thought, wow, I could I could influence a group of people who want to provide care. And it’s kind of just gone on from there. You know, I’ve had a lot of opportunities and a lot of really remarkable people.
JH: So, Beth, just as a point of history. So, Saint Luke’s, but you told me I spoke to you about this before. Right across the street is another hospital kind of fill in that gap a little bit because you had your journey started at Saint Luke’s, but really, you know, a block. And just as a side note, I was sharing with my CFO the other day who I was interviewing today, and he goes, oh, wow, she’s incredibly talented and smart. And I said, you know, Mark, there’s no better way to describe that. He had heard you on a committee and he’s heard of you. And when you think about Beth, I want our listeners to know; passionate, incredibly talented, incredibly smart, someone who you can just tell her business acumen is a result, and sometimes this is where, you know, we get it wrong as CEOs that are not clinical, is you allow your clinical acumen to influence your business acumen. And that is so important in a hospital setting. But I want to interject that because I wanted to listeners to get to know, you know, that this what’s burning inside of you is passion. And we see it. I see it at meetings. You’re you when you speak, we listen because it’s a lot that you’re saying in a very short window of time. So, I wanted to interject that, but that started in a career that you pursued at Saint Luke’s. But talk about how it’s morphed.
BC: So very near term after this project happened. We again, Saint Luke’s, as you mentioned, it was a DRG hospital in Saginaw, Michigan, and literally across the street from us, literally across Houghton Avenue was Saginaw General Hospital and the twain did not meet, let me just say, right. So, we felt competitive. We you know, we have a we have what’s called Bliss Park in between us, literally a park. And it just felt like it was this big chasm between these two organizations. And so, when Saginaw General decided that they were going to seek partnership, they really wanted to basically grow themselves in terms of development scale, certainly. And they wanted to make sure that they were going to be long term viable and have good livelihood for the region. So, they sought partnership. And so, we thought, well, we’ll throw our hat in the ring for that, right? Even though it was going to be very interesting a process and it was almost stunning, I remember the day that it was announced that that Saint Luke’s had been selected as the Saginaw General Preferred partner, and we were going to embark on this journey of becoming one organization, a new co, right. And it is what is now covenant. So, imagine these two former hospitals, Saginaw General and Saint Luke’s Hospital, coming together to what is now covenant, as you mentioned earlier. And covenant is a large rural; it’s kind of a weird combination, right?
So, Saginaw is perceived as a city to many people in Saginaw County is 100,000, you know, populous. We have a very large in are designated as a rural entity because of the communities that we serve. We are far more rural than we are in urban center. And so, you have 5000 people who work here. We have a large medical staff that’s grown over the course of my career. We didn’t have an employed physician roster when I started here all those years ago. And, you know, now we have 200 providers that are employed with us here and many other folks that are on our medical staff, and we have a lot of services that we provide all the way from a neonatal intensive care unit, 55 beds, all the way up through into geriatric care. We have a level two and adult trauma center designation. You know, we are award winning related to our stroke care and our cardiology care, and the list goes on and on about what we provide in the region. And it’s we really are a safety net hospital above and beyond, sort of just this local area that we provide care for. You know, we have a 20-county service area in terms of our secondary service area, etc. It’s really remarkable. But once you get to a certain place in the state, you know, it’s by diminishing numbers, the amount of hospitals and healthcare delivery that is available and accessible. So, we just take our role and our work very seriously and try to do a very good job providing care across that healthcare continuum.
JH: Well, you do an amazing job and you’ve certainly made a significant mark in in medicine for Michigan. And I think a neat story is the fact that you’ve literally bridged the gap between the two hospitals. Why don’t you tell us about that?
BC: Because so what’s funny, right? I talked about this Bliss Park or Houghton Avenue. So, when our organizations came together, certainly our first new Together leadership team and board had the wisdom that it might be a nice physical gesture to do something too. So, we literally built a bridge, a walking bridge between the two entities across the street. So, it starts on the what was the former second floor of Saint Luke’s. Now again, we call it Covenant Cooper Campus and now goes up and enters Harrison Campus. Covenant Harrison Campus on the third floor, which was the former Saginaw general. But it’s really cool. Many times, we display banners for different things that we’re celebrating, like our particular aspect of care. Let’s say we’re highlighting our children’s hospital designation. We put that right on that bridge for like the world to see. And it just really hallmarks the coming together and how you can do things better. When you put aside your competitive vibe and think about what you might be able to do better together. And that’s really a hallmark of how our board works for this region, and has really afforded us a lot of success as an organization going forward.
JH: And it’s a hallmark of your leadership. How many years have you been in the leadership position now as president and CEO?
BC: Five years in July that I’ve been in the CEO position. I actually was in the COO position during Covid. And we’ve had in my whole term of time in the organization, 37 years, as I mentioned, I’m the third CEO. So, we do these roles for a long period of time. And so, with Spence retiring at, Bruff became the CEO. And when Ed retired in 2021, I had the privilege to step into this work. First time a nurse has ever been, and really a clinician has been in this role. So that is another thing you mentioned that earlier; it’s just been a different perspective. And so, it’s been, good in the respect that it just brought something a little different. Our team composition is certainly as you mentioned, you have to have business acumen. You have to be able to lead the organization. But it’s really important to have the deference and respect for the clinical work that’s going on in the organization. And I certainly have that.
JH: Fully agree. So, Beth, talk to us about some of the primary challenges that you’re facing right now.
BC: Sure. I think the challenges that we face are the same that everybody’s facing, certainly in the state and really across the nation particularly, we serve a very large Medicaid patient population, and about 70% of our total payer mix is governmental payer. So, if you add in Medicare right to that Medicaid roster, it’s a good portion of our business. So, you don’t have control related to pricing and reimbursement in all of those things. And so, with the with the legislation that is currently being entertained in the nation, it’s particularly challenging for us, the ACR, the average commercial rate boost that has been provided to our organization over the past few years is afforded us an ability to do some things that I don’t know that we would have been able to do without it. We’ve never existed on big margins, and right now we actually one of our solutions for preparing for the changes related to Medicaid specifically, was to not count on that money year over year in our budget. And so, we’re eking by with a 1% projected margin. And you can’t you can’t do a lot of what you might want to do especially if it holds some risk for your organization. When you have that kind of fiscal pressure, you better be making sure that you are making as prudent and wise of choices related to your investments and work as possible. So, I would say that’s our biggest challenge. We need to be able to respond to the care delivery needs. To do that, you need people. Inflation far surpasses our ability to be able to keep pace from just a, you know, a cost-of-living standpoint, sometimes very, very much a challenge. And the technical resources that we need, the care that we provide requires equipment and skills and talents. Providers that I talked about earlier. Those all come with price tags. And so, we have to be able to adequately pay for those. So, no margin, no mission. And our mission is just too important to not get right. So, we have to make sure that we are prudent with our fiscal resources. And the world around us is challenging that right now.
JH: Very challenging. You know, we can’t we can’t negate the fact right now that if you were to look at the political landscape across this country in reference to the opinion of healthcare, it is a significant challenge for us because constantly in our face, we’re told waste, fraud and abuse. And H.R. one comes into play. The government takes away $1 trillion. They give us back 50 billion in this program. That is going to have very little benefit to community hospitals across this country. So given the political landscape that we face right now, Beth, you know what you shared one of the strategies that your hospital is deployed, but you know that the other factors are 340B cuts, you know, and those types of things. What other strategies? I know you said that, you know, you’re preparing for the worst and I commend you for that, but what are you doing outside of that to prepare for these? And it’s an onslaught of attacks against hospitals.
BC: I think making sure people understand what we are and the importance of this sector of work. We’re the largest employer in our area as well. So, these economic pressures are real, but we have an obligation to provide healthcare. So, we’re going to do again what other things other institutions are doing as well. We have to take a look at care delivery models. Where can we leverage technology to be able to do something, perhaps to gain efficiency that we didn’t have yesterday, that we could maybe have tomorrow? And so, some of those things come with price tags, but some of those investments have to occur so that you can right size some other important aspect of the organization. Unfortunately, I think a byproduct of what’s also going to happen in covenants is not going to be able to be immune from this. We’re going to have to consider what services are provided where. And so, you have to think about what our service line scope is. And as I said earlier, we are a from birth, servicing all the way through geriatric hospice care, home care, etc. So, can we afford to do all of those things and be all those things to all people, or do we have to rely on, again, collaboration and team spirit? And do I have to make a relationship, a partnership? To say if we can’t, can you or can you do it more efficiently or effectively or at a reduced expense than I can? And if we can, let’s put our swords down and figure out how we can render that aspect of care to the region. And that’s not easy work. It’s not easy work at all. The significant amount of work ahead of us.
JH: You know, Beth, I had the opportunity to have Bob Riney on the podcast, and he was talking about the Innovation center that he launched and a lot of great things happening in innovation and a lot of conversation today around AI. And I just want to know from your perspective, you’re the largest employer, one of the largest. You have a huge diverse workforce, 5000. How are you utilizing, if at all, AI technology in your role today?
BC: We are, to do some of the things I just mentioned. So, for example, we’re trying to get efficiency, right? So, if I want to be able to increase access I need to make it better for the provider. So, one of the ways that we’re doing is with our medical record, we have the opportunity to have some ambient technology, ambient AI technology that can provide some note taking. So, imagine that a doctor and a patient are having an interaction. And I can literally, you know, prompt a listening tool that can automatically write the note for that interaction, grasp the history, kind of let out the background noise. So, you know, sometimes things that are said that are not really super relevant to the to the moment that the patient and the doc are having. And it can skinny down that note and make it very specific and save the doc a whole bunch of time in terms of documentation. Also, imagine we have an electronic medical record that might have your whole history of all the times you’ve interfaced with our organization in it, and now they can also prompt a review of all of that documentation. Draw from it what is relevant and appropriate to the problem or the work at hand, and put it at the fingertips of the provider that used to take somebody from medical records to pull a record, to bring it up, to be able to review it, to put it in front of somebody. I mean, there were all kinds of people, resources expended. And so, we’re leveraging AI in that way.
Another way that I think is interesting is in our lab, we have some technology, like for example, we have an afternoon shift, just like, you know, we have three shifts of folks that work in the in the lab. And our second shift had this dual assignment where they were doing some medtech responsibilities, and they were also working in the blood bank because we know resources are precious. So, they sometimes have multiple assignments. So, we have this technology now that assists the person looking in the microscope in terms of being way faster. Is my highly technology laden term in counting the cell types. So, where I was looking for, you know, cell anomalies and trying to count red cells or white cells or, you know, some kind of anomaly previously. Now the technology counts at the medtech verifies it. Right. And then the work is so much faster JJ than it was previously. So that it has to be verified because otherwise you risk the danger. The machine can’t do everything for you. But it can it can augment the work or make more efficient the work of the person utilizing it. And so now what was a dual assignment. Now there is another aspect of work that that person in the lab is able to do to help better service, for example, the trauma patients or the patients in the units, and maybe bridge the gap for some of the caregivers that are outside of the lab. And so, it’s things like that.
On the flip side, you have to have some governance of things like that. So, taking a look at what kinds of liability exist with that and making sure our IT team, we want to be cutting edge. We don’t want to be bleeding edge. We want to make sure that if people are already going to be utilizing these tools, right. Unlike myself, who existed with a paper record, these folks that are now newly hired, they’re leveraging technology. Whether we’re going to rain it in or not. So, we have to figure out these very smart, methodical, purposeful uses for it and then put some governance around it and some structure around it to make sure, you know, for example, copilot can help us with our emails. But if you put covenant information in another chat bot, it’s not protected for us. So, you know, there’s just some things that you need to be wise about, imprudent about. But I think it’s going to be a differentiator for us in terms of work going forward.
JH: I agree, I love your approach. You’re balancing caution with the reality that this is where we are today. I mean, my three-year-old grandson is fixing my cell phone for me. End of the day, you know, people are learning technology and they want to deploy it, and it makes their job easier and function better and smoother. And the end result for us, as we’ve witnessed even on claims, look at claims data, look at how we get the bill out the door. We could do it more effectively. So great job with you and your team. So, hospitals, you know, have been spending decades building strategic plans that go, you remember 3 to 5 years, right. And now that gap has narrowed. We’re looking at strategic plans that are a year, two years. It’s a changing landscape. And so, Beth, I guess my question to you, you know, what is what’s top of mind for you in the next year as you look at it? And the one thing I appreciate about you, you’re not just looking at it from covenants viewpoint, you’re looking at it from healthcare globally. So, what do you see in the next year? Top of mind. And then contrast that to maybe what you think could happen in the next five years.
BC: Sure. I actually think in immediate course the things that are seeing, I have followed very wise predecessors as one of the things I’m going to say. And so, because of that, we are not really varying strongly in a different direction away from our strategic plan. We have always believed, for example, that the thumb region of Michigan was really important in terms of us figuring out how we could best help each other meet our missions. So, we have never had a competitive stance. We have instead said, what can we do better together? And so now, as you know, the formality of that or sort of the cultivation and next step of that is we are formalizing some of those relationships. So right now, we, you know, we have an LOI with Aspire Rural Health. We are working together and going through the due diligence process right now of doing a member substitution and determining whether or not that’s going to work for us to achieve certain objectives for both of our organizations. And so that’s going to be very busy, important work for us this year. We are really pleased to do it when both of our organizations are in a position of strength. And so, we’re trying to figure out how we can do that. And that’s going to be very busy work this year. How do we do that the best and how do we live up to what we are both committing? We want to do for patients and families in our region. And so that will be some very big short-term work.
You mentioned by Bob Riney earlier. We at covenant have long had a very strong neuroscience program. We just forged a partnership very specifically in neuroscience with Henry Ford, because there are some things that we would like to bring to our region for care. And if you can imagine, there are certain things you don’t want to have to drive to Detroit or to an arbor for to another place in the mitten, right? You want to be able to have some of these things closer to home. And so, we’re forging a relationship and building on the good relationships we’ve had historically with Henry Ford to work in neuroscience program, and we’re going to have presence here in the region related to that. And then, yeah, I mean, some of those kinds of things are just seeing fruition. Now. We you probably know this as well, but the relationship that we just formally forged and invested in, we took some of our, you know, our ACR money, that some people consider extra money. It’s not extra money. It’s money we’ve been providing care for, for years. But what we’re doing is we’re dedicating that to bringing years one and two of CMU medical School to Saginaw to literally make sure that we have a long-range provider talent pipeline here in the area. We think that covenant is a great place. We say sneaky big or sneaky small, depending on what your perspective is. And when people land here and they see what’s possible in terms of care delivery, oftentimes they want to provide it long range.
So, we think if we have the medical school, we already have a residency program here, putting those things together, putting the resources to it and developing it over this next course of, you know, that’s going to take more than one year. It is really important work for the organization. So those are some of our biggest things, the leveraging the partnerships, the relationships for the greater good of what we can provide for this community is my number one in the board’s assignment that they’ve given to myself and the executive team. And so, we’re going to keep doing that. I think it’s going to pivot, you know, the further the economic pressures and screws get turned to the organization, the harder the decision making. You can’t continue to just make investment. You’re going to have to also take a look at balance. And I think some of the work unfortunately may be evaluating what sticks and stays, what changes and gets modified going forward, and what strategic things can we put in place to make sure we have preservation of good care?
JH: Wow. I tell you, every time you talk, I’m ready to charge hell with a squirt gun. I’m telling you, the work that you’re doing is so impactful, not just for your region. Beth, I want you to understand the importance of it for our state of healthcare. And I couldn’t be happy for you that you’re looking at this relationship. You know, Angie’s a great leader. She does a great job there. But that’s bringing 25% increase in your workforce that you’re going to be signing on. It’s a lot. It’s a heavy lift. And if anyone can do it, you can. And I’m so happy for you. It’s what your region needs and what they truly deserve is that access to all the things you know, that you as that tertiary center can provide them. So great work on that. Let’s transition a little bit as we wrap up today. So, I want to ask you a pointed question. What’s keeping you up at night? Is there is there one thing that you’re thinking of right now that are just top of heartburn list of things that are like, you know, we can accomplish all this if not X.
BC: You know, I think we’ve talked a lot about the financial pressures and the understanding related to the importance of the healthcare sector. I’m going to add a different twist because I think it’s something we just did. We just completed our employee engagement survey. You know, literally I spent two days, I read every comment because it matters to me very much about what people think about creating and keeping this mission. And so, what I would say right now is I think we’re at a very important juncture related to society and people, and I think how we are going to keep people inspired about working in healthcare. And on top of that, healthcare leadership, I think, is going to be challenged. And it’s incredibly, incredibly validating, important, wonderful work. But I think we have a really a big hill to climb right now when you have people who have been working for decades in the in this sector and they’re now just getting out, right, or you take a look at the perspective or the optimism rating for where we are.
It’s very troubling. And we can ill afford not having really talented, smart, dedicated, pointed people understanding that their ‘why’ is making healthcare better for the patients and families that we serve. And so that’s kind of been keeping me up just this week of how are we going to make sure we attract and retain talented people to work in healthcare amidst this really pressurized, crazy time we’re existing in right now because things are cyclic. But I really believe you got to have people who are right minded for this work. And I’m going to try to do my part and talk to people about it. I think how we connect with the education sector, how we connect with other business sectors, chambers, you know, the political environment, how we’re talking about the work we do and the importance of it is going to really matter at the same time, where everything is more reliant on technical skills, etc. So much about what you and I do is about relationships, people, communication and just really being fundamentally connected to a purpose. And I hope we can keep that JJ, that’s my that’s my big thing right now kind of a boiling the ocean kind of thing.
JH: Well, I hear the passion in your voice. I see the passion in your actions. And I know without a doubt that you will definitely achieve that. I think there’s a pointed phrase in the Bible that’s very, very important to me. It says for such a time as this, and it’s a story that was told that relates to a young gal who saved a generation. And I believe for us in healthcare today, Beth, for such a time as this, we have been called to serve, to lead, and this is a mission field that we’re on to ensure the long-term viability of our hospitals, independent rural hospitals. And not only that, but for the care that our community needs close to home and continue that fight. In contrast to the question of what’s keeping you up at night? Can you share something with us that has you excited? And it’s hard to do because you’ve got so many things that you’re excited about. But what’s one thing you’re just so ecstatic about right now in healthcare?
BC: I think we’re at an incredibly important juncture where I just thought I was worried about that juncture. I also think that without pressure, much like with Covid, right, the incredible innovation that occurred when we were all tasked with this common, common enemy and situation, I think if we can lever this incredible pressure that we feel right now to get it done, that what could be a result of that work could be incredible for the way we deliver healthcare. I now hear people not waiting to talk about what’s happening in a hospital, but I hear about so much more about the healthcare continuum. We hear so much more about behavioral health. We hear so much more about, you know, just the important research that has to happen in the in the area of healthcare overall, that this is an incredibly important juncture. And I’m really excited to see what’s going to come of it in that respect. So, it’s weird because it’s a juxtaposition, right? It’s both. But I think it’s incredible. And I also get very inspired JJ, and I’m not just saying this because, you know, we’re chatting when what you just said about applying, you know, just a bigger purpose to the work that we do and clearly understanding. I get incredibly excited when I hear peers and coworkers, people at MHA, when we’re sitting there together. We’re really fortunate to be able to get to work with really talented people. We’re going to be able to do some incredible things. I’m positive of it.
JH: I agree with you. Let’s close with this. On every podcast, we ask our guest to share some sage advice, some wisdom. Because, you know, as a national podcast, we hear from many people across the United States about the challenges that their hospitals are facing. I’ve helped many hospitals in their strategic plan and identifying. But one of the things that I often get questioned about is, you know, I’m a new leader. These are the most tumultuous of times. How do I do it? And you’re a veteran of healthcare and someone who walks the walk talks the talk. And I want to get your perspective from the leadership seat of a clinician, from someone who’s got a business acumen. What would you say to the young? Maybe they’re aspiring, maybe they just took the role on in such a time as this very, very rough times. What sage advice or wisdom would you give them to continue keeping on in this day?
BC: I’d say first of all, I probably set up all times here. Know your why, know your purpose, know why you are doing this work, and if it is a what I would consider a light purpose, I would buckle up because it’s incredibly challenging work that stated mentoring, being open and understanding and having the humility to say I might not be the best at that. But my friend JJ might be the person that I can reach out to, and if I just approach him with humility and respect in an open mind, there might be some incredible things that I can do, and be available to do. The other part is; know your non-negotiables. I think one of the things that we talk about here is having integrity of purpose is also very important, because there are many times, my mom and dad taught me that the real measure of a man or woman oftentimes is when the chips are down, and so don’t waffle, don’t waver, understand what’s really important, and stick to it. Don’t be blind to what is out there. And again, always be humble enough to ask a question here and answer. Listen. Be a good listener. Be a good mentor because those things come back to you in spades would be all just that wisdom and insight, I would say, and find a circle. Find a group of people, because as we, especially in the CEO roles, you know, we don’t have a big circle in our organization, right? We might be a party of one. And so, relationships matter. Cultivating relationships matters, saying things that are important, it matters. And so yeah, I would say my biggest thing would be humble and be a good mentor.
JH: Well, you certainly set the example for that, Beth. And it’s always a pleasure to talk with you. I’m always inspired by what you’re doing in your speech and your demeanor. Its second to none. I truly mean that. You’re a great inspiration to many of us, so keep up the great work. It’s been great to have you on the podcast. As we talk about some of the challenges that Michigan’s facing, but also some great opportunities that are ahead of us as well. So, thanks for joining us today.
BC: Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to be with you here today. It’s the privilege is mine.
JH: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in to Rural Health Today! Catch our next segment, Rural Health News, to stay up-to-date on the current state of rural health every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t forget to check out the latest updates and resources from Rural Health Today at ruralhealthtoday.com and make sure you’re subscribed to the show so you never miss an episode. Until next time, remember rural health strong!
