Kristen Gradney, MHA, RDN, LDN • Live at the Summit

This episode was recorded live at the 2025 Joy & Wholeness Summit in Asheville, North Carolina.

Kristen Gradney, MHA, RDN, LDN, is the Chief Wellness Officer and Vice President of Total Rewards for LCMC Health in New Orleans, LA, with over a decade of experience leading healthcare teams and transforming care through innovative, community-based strategies. A graduate of Louisiana State University with degrees in Sociology and Nutritional Science, she completed her dietetic internship at the Medical University of South Carolina and earned a Master of Health Administration from Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University. Kristen has held senior leadership roles in both acute and ambulatory care, developed worksite well-being programs, and served as a care transformation consultant. She serves on the Southeast Region American Heart Association Board and other healthcare and academic boards and is a nationally recognized wellness expert featured in major media outlets. Kristen also speaks nationally on healthcare leadership, nutrition, and wellness and has held leadership positions with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and multiple nonprofit organizations.

Thanks for tuning in! Check out more episodes of The Well-Being Connector at www.bethejoy.org/podcast.

Transcript

Introduction: 0:13

Welcome to another episode of the Well-Being Connector Podcast, hosted by Roy Reid and sponsored by the Coalition for Physician and APP Well-Being. This episode is one of a multi-part series recorded live at the 2025 Joy and Wholeness Summit. Thank you for listening.

Roy Reid: 0:31

Welcome to a new episode of the Well-Being Connector Podcast. I am your host, Roy Reid, and I'm here this morning at the Joy and Wholeness Summit with Kristen Gradney, and she's going to talk about her work and her programs and maybe a little bit about the presentation that she's giving at the conference.

Kristen Gradney: 0:50

Sure. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, this is exciting. This is my first time here. And you know, it's really great to finally connect the work that I'm doing more globally and see how it fits in with healthcare across the country.

Roy Reid: 1:03

It's a great event, wonderful turnout, and a wonderful cross-section of disciplines here. So let's start with you. Let's let's we all come to this work uh through a journey, through our own story. Share your story of what brought you into this work of well-being for providers.

Kristen Gradney: 1:21

Yeah, you know, it it's a it's a kind of a long journey that happened without me, I think, even realizing that it was happening. But when you look back and look at all the pieces and the puzzle over time, it makes sense. So I'm a registered dietitian by trade. And, you know, I started seeing patients 17 years ago. And so I was a clinician and I worked in hospitals and then I worked in ambulatory settings and diabetes care and in dialysis centers. And in dialysis centers, that was really hard work. It was really fulfilling, but it was really hard. And so I kind of transitioned into leadership and always carried with me the experiences that I went through, um, the times when I was side by side with the provider when we had to give bad news or hear bad news, and that just kind of stuck with me. And then, you know, through my career, I became different levels of leadership. I was a manager inpatient and then a director of many different ambulatory settings. And during COVID, that was kind of a shift for me. So I supported healthcare in schools and schools shut down. So I had to kind of figure out really quickly how do we make ourselves useful in this really tough time? And so we started opening um COVID testing centers and just really supporting everything that the hospital needed related to COVID and saw the toll that it was taking on our employees and our community, and then really started to look at things through a different lens. Um, fast forward to 2023, a chief well-being officer role popped up. I saw it and I said, you know, this sounds kind of cool. This sounds like really kind of I could put everything that I've done together and maybe make an impact in a space that I've never thought about. And it was like just the doors opened and it was, it happened. So in 2023, I became the chief on this officer at LCMC Health, which is a health system in New Orleans.

Roy Reid: 3:16

Awesome. So talk about the work you're doing now in the space and maybe that leads into uh what it is that you're gonna be talking about with the attendees here at the conference.

Kristen Gradney: 3:27

Yeah, so I really approached initially this work from a population health standpoint. Because of my background, I really looked at it like we are responsible in a way to provide a healthy environment for this group of people to work in and thrive in, and not just when they're in our four walls, but outside of our four walls, because we are sending 15,000 people back out into the community after the work that they do every day. So, how do we really look at that holistically, not only from a singular perspective, but really this impacts the well-being of everyone around us.

Roy Reid: 4:02

Right.

Kristen Gradney: 4:03

So we got to really do it well. Um, and so I really looked at where the opportunities lied. And the first thing that I really noticed was our middle managers were kind of struggling with supporting the people who were really doing the hard work every day. And then you go level up, and you know, people are kind of like, what is wellness? Is this yoga? Like, what are we talking about? So I really wanted to make it relatable. And a lot of the work that I did was initially educating middle managers on what does it mean to create an environmental well-being? I always talk about well-being informed. So when we make decisions, everyone in our organization should be well-being informed. We need to look at every decision through a well-being lens, just like we do finance, right? But we got to look at it well-being informed and helping those leaders even think about, and I've told people, where do you put a printer? Let's look at that from a well-being informed lens. Does it need to be in the next room down the hall, or can it physically be behind somebody and make their life a little bit better? So we did operational well-being courses for our new leaders. I go and talk to every new leader orientation. So it was really important to drive the culture that way. And from there, we created other, we have a Be Well Center, I should say that. So it's called the Be Well Center, and that kind of houses all of these programs. A few other things that we were doing were um responding to trauma and not in the traditional sense of just handing off EAP resources. And there are lots of great ones, but we hired in-house at the time a RN who became a social worker and who had worked in the ICU in new trauma, and that evolved into another PhD level social worker and then another one. And we get calls all week long. I got one this week about uh a really tough case that traumatized the unit. And these are folks who do this every day. So you know it's really tough when I get a call. And so we were able to send out that PhD level social worker the same day to have a conversation before they went home to at least check in with folks and say, hey, we're here, you know, and I'll be back tomorrow, so that they can show up feeling like I have some real-time support. So we've really tried to make our approach tangible. You know, we've offered our providers real-time resources. We're doing pilots when they say, hey, this isn't working, how do we equip a manager to do a pilot to really address whatever that might be? So my approach is really hands-on, really focused on supporting people with resources that aren't just like on a web page or exist somewhere, but I want them to see it, feel it, hear it from the top down, even from the way that their manager talks, excuse me, the way that their manager talks to them every day.

Roy Reid: 6:33

You unpacked a lot. I did. That's that's but but that's great. Let me let me take a couple of pieces and ask you to expand on it because a couple of things you said I think are unique in this space. And one of them, you talked about the proximity to the printer. So you're you're looking at workspace and its impact on my well-being. Yes. Talk a little bit more about that and and what went into creating that, and who all do you have to have involved to make something like that work in a health system?

Kristen Gradney: 7:05

Sure. So it really came from Lean Six Sigma principles. Like I've been in operations for a long time, and I I that was something that really drove the way that I did business. And so I thought about it and I said, you know, those are the things that really make the difference in somebody's work day. We when we're thinking about well-being, it's not just the time of crisis, it's not just when I need something, and those times matter, but really burnout begins in little increments over the course of time, right? And if we don't address those little things, they turn into big things. So thinking about the things that really beat us up every single day, right? I'm tired of having to get up and walk to the other room. It's it's wasting the patient's time, my time. I'm frustrated already. And then this is one other thing. Or, you know, we even looked at education. So we've educated our leaders on operational well-being. And we did, we brought in a lean six sigma black belt. She partnered with me, and I educated her on here's what well-being truly means. Now, how do we apply what you know to creating environments that support well-being? So we created this course and we really looked at it, was you know, we almost created well-being was a function of how we improve our efficiency and care for our people. We almost looked at it mathematically to say, you got to do these things if you want this to happen. So we brought in Aline Six Sigma Black Belt, myself, we had our well-being program manager at the time. And then we we just opened it up to all managers who were seeking some training and really listened to them and heard their situations and then kind of consulted with them to figure out how do we improve your day-to-day, whatever it might be.

Roy Reid: 8:46

That's awesome. And you talked earlier uh about incorporating that healthy community model uh as your as your guide because you're you deploy all of your employees back into the community uh when they go out there and and and how they integrate. What type of measures are you using to check the results that you're getting for all of what you do based on that?

Kristen Gradney: 9:12

Yeah, and and I'll be honest, measures are tough. I find that it's very tough in this space because right when we do an engagement survey once a year, it's kind of a checkpoint. Um, we've seen engagement scores increase over the past few years. And so we've had this initial, we've started these initiatives over the past two years. So we have a little bit of a correlation there. We do also engage with folks once they've touched our services. So we do surveys to find out was this helpful to you? So anecdotally, we have that data that says people are feeling like they are more supported than they were in the past, even if it's just I have a conversation with someone about the services. Um, in addition to that, we've really we've deployed the well-being survey, so the AMA well-being survey, but we added on all employees and we kind of we really created that kind of on our own. We partnered with AMA to get their input, but we created a well-being survey for everyone because we wanted everybody to know this is not just for providers, right? Like we providers have unique needs, but we want to hear everyone's voice. And we heard their voices, we've been addressing the needs, and we find engagement just in our services. We monitor our traffic and it has gone up over a thousand percent over the past two years, just in people visiting our services.

Roy Reid: 10:35

That's fantastic. What's next in your program? What are you guys working on now that a year from now we'll be talking about how it's working?

Kristen Gradney: 10:44

Yeah, so we're really honing in on I mentioned that operational well-being and efficiency. And so we've partnered with some of our clinic managers and really focused on how can we impact providers day to day? What does that look like? And so we're working with clinic managers to start pilots that they really come up with.

Roy Reid: 11:08

Okay, right.

Kristen Gradney: 11:08

Like we don't want to be the solution, we don't want to drop something in and say, hey, research says, or hey, we think we really want to partner. So we've been identifying clinic managers. They come to us and say, Hey, our managers are really complaining about our providers, are really complaining about this. Can you help us with it? So we really become consultants to the practice, okay, help them identify, help them pull signal data, start looking at measures and provide equip them with resources that they may not have had in that well-being informed lens. Like we're really trying to hone in on that. So that's something that we've been working on. But really, like as the chief wellness officer, looking at all the other components that we may not have considered. Um, we think about benefits, and benefits is something that every organization does. And a lot of times it's boilerplate, yeah, you know, or oh, we think this is, but really hearing the voice and really doing that from a better well-being-informed lens. And I want well-being to be woven into every single fabric. I want finance to think about it. I want, you know, nursing to think about it in a new way. I want legal to think about it, right? I've been having conversations with our legal team on how we administer leaves and how we do that from a well-being-informed lens. So that's the future, is really that wellness, well-being is not a singular department, which may put us out of a job at some point, right? Which, which may be great, but to have every single person looking at it through that lens.

Roy Reid: 12:40

Talk a little bit about leadership buy-in. You can't do a program like this if you don't have that. What what steps did you have to take? And and who who are your who were your initial champions for this?

Kristen Gradney: 12:53

Yeah, you know, it was, it was, it's been a difficult journey. It still is a challenging journey because as I mentioned, when you talk about well-being, people think about code lavenders and yoga, and that that kind of caps it out. And honestly, that was a little bit easier. People feel like, oh, okay, I get that. I know what that is. But then when I start talking about well-being informed lenses and operational efficiency and how that somebody asked me what's like, what does that have to do with well-being? So it's helping people connect it. And and I think by doing some things well. So we had one particular really tragic incident, the mash casualty incident in New Orleans that happened on New Year's Day. Um, that was a moment of clarity, I think, for some folks. My so I got a call very early that morning, called my team, and we responded. So we showed up on site. We were some of the first folks at the hospital on site, um, worked with the reunification center for families, supported employees, like in the moment. And this was really tragic, really hard. And so I think leadership had an aha moment, like, oh, wait, this is what we're supporting. This is when it matters. And that's what I'm going to talk about tomorrow is how do we we get paralyzed with the data, right? And we're like, oh, we need really solid data. But sometimes you just need those impactful moments to show this is what this is about, and this is the long-lasting impact that it can have when you have it, right? If we focus on the numbers too much, we miss out on the impact that it truly has to people. And so that has been one of the ways when it really matters, we're there, and people get that. And that allows me the flexibility to work on those operational well-being in the day-to-day pieces that may not be as clear.

Roy Reid: 14:41

Our audience is primarily people that are either interested in doing this type of work or aspire to do it. As you think about where you started and and where you are today, what would be two or three pieces of advice that that you could give that can help people break that barrier of what people perceive wellness to be and get them into the kind of wellness that has these types of results?

Kristen Gradney: 15:07

Yeah. I would say, you know, uh be informed, read the data, read the research, talk to other folks, but don't be afraid to really dive into what the people that you're serving needs. Every institution is going to have some of the same things, but you will have those different things. And I think that's where we've been able to pick up traction is like really paying attention to what we needed in addition to all of the other things, right? So be creative, be thoughtful, be present with the folks that you're trying to serve. Remember that there are people on the other side that you are trying to impact and really hear what those people need. I've always said, you know, the golden rule is treat people as you want to be treated. Let's treat people the way that they need to be treated versus what we think they want. So, you know, focus groups, wellness committees, where you truly hear the voice, let that inform how you move forward in this work versus just letting it be research-based, study based. Those are those are great, right? We have to have those, but you want to hear the voices of the people that you serve and you'll be successful, right? You are serving their needs. You'll be wildly successful if you do that.

Roy Reid: 16:15

Well, your energy and enthusiasm are tremendous, and the work that you're doing is sounds like it's moving the needle. And I want to thank you for spending time with us today. Uh, look forward to hearing the story again, yeah, uh, perhaps down the road uh as you expand and grow on it.

Kristen Gradney: 16:31

Well, thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

Roy Reid: 16:33

Absolutely. It's been a blast. All right. All right, take care.

Closing: 16:38

Thank you for tuning in to the Well-Being Connector Podcast, brought to you by the Coalition for Physician and APP Well-Being. The Well-Being Connector offers insightful conversations with healthcare professionals devoted to fostering wholeness within their organizations. Each episode delves deep into the holistic approach to well being, underscoring the importance of physical, mental, social, and spiritual health. For more episodes, visit our website at www.bethejoy.org/ podcast.