Biotech Bytes: Conversations with Biotechnology / Pharmaceutical IT Leaders

How Behavioral Health Is Leading Tech Innovation In Healthcare: Insights From A CIO

• Steve Swan • Episode 25

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Hi Everyone and Welcome to Biotech Bytes by The Swan Group Channel

Are you curious about how leadership in IT can truly make an impact? Please visit our website to get more information: https://swangroup.net/

In this episode, I had the privilege of speaking with Jeanne de Vries Sands, CIO of Summit Behavioral Healthcare. With 38 facilities across 20 states, Jeanne is reshaping the role of IT in behavioral health.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

☑️ The importance of creating a transparent and trustworthy team culture
☑️ The emerging focus on behavioral health technology
☑️ The role of AI and soft skills in the evolving tech landscape

We explore how a transparent team culture and consistent communication can drive project success, including a case study on implementing an Electronic Health Records (EHR) system. Jeanne also shares insights on how AI is enhancing, not replacing, roles in healthcare, and the rising demand for behavioral health services amplified by COVID-19.

This conversation is packed with strategies for integrating technology as a partner in patient care while addressing real-world challenges. Whether you're a tech enthusiast or a leader seeking to innovate, this episode is for you. Watch now and join the conversation!

Links from this episode:

☑️ Get to know more about Jeanne de Vries Sands: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannesands
☑️ Learn more about Summit BHC: https://summitbhc.com
☑️ Learn more about T200: https://www.t200.org
☑️ Get to know more about Steven Swan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swangroup

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🔎 Related Phrases:Leadership Lessons, Behavioral Health, Tech Innovation, Future of IT, Healthcare Technology Trends, Effective Leadership, Leadership Development, IT Team Collaboration, Leadership Tips, IT Transformation, Team Management, Health Tech Leadership, Transforming IT, Tech Integration, Technology Trends, Leadership Inspiration.

#leadershipintech #itinnovation #behavioralhealthcare #aiinhealthcare #ehrsystem #teamculture

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:00:00]:
Transformation is in the eye of the beholder, but the transformation was actually every single day. And sometimes we lose sight because we have, you know, this, what have you done for me lately? And this recency bias. We forget about how far we've come. But I also think that sometimes we don't do transformation because we think it's something big. And it can be something small, but it can be this 1% effect where making these constant little changes really changes where you're at and how you're operating.

Steve Swan [00:00:34]:
Hello. Welcome to Biotech Bites. I'm your host, Steve Swan. And today I have the pleasure of being joined by Jeanne de Vries Sands, the CIO of BHC. Welcome.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:00:45]:
Hi, I'm Jeanne de Vries Sands. I'm the CIO here at Summit Behavioral Healthcare, which is a behavioral health company located in Franklin, Tennessee. We have 38 facilities in 20 states across the United States. Many of these facilities are psychiatric. The other facilities are substance use disorders. We also have a component of our business that includes outpatient facilities to have that full behavioral healthcare continuum of care. So happy to be here, Steve. Thanks for having me.

Steve Swan [00:01:18]:
Great. Thank you. Thank you. Well, you know, I always like starting out, and you just gave us a real big overview of your organization and such. I was like, starting out asking folks to tell us, you know, briefly about yourself, how you got to where you are and. And how you ascended to the CIO role, because folks like hearing those things.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:01:36]:
So I started my career in Wisconsin. I'm originally from Wisconsin. I spent many decades there. Grew up as a child of educators. And when I started working after college, I knew I wanted to focus on education or something else that allowed me to continue to learn every single day. And I immediately fell into web design. This was back in 2000, when everyone was a web designer and everything had to be in technology. And so I gravitated towards that.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:02:06]:
And after that and after the crash that happened shortly thereafter, you know, everyone was scurrying, looking for what came next. And I found myself in western Wisconsin at a progressive healthcare organization called Gunderson Healthcare, still there today, still doing great things regionally for those communities that they serve where they had developed their own electronic health record. So I jumped in with two feet, really serving as a liaison between the technical experts that were doing the development and the business leaders who really had requirements that they wanted. So I found a gap and a need and jumped right into that and really spent my whole career taking the business needs and transforming them into technology solutions that can deliver value. And so I've done that throughout My career starting in Wisconsin, working in progressively larger roles. Spent some time in New Mexico working for Presbyterian Healthcare which has a large provider side as well as a payer side. Then moved to Oklahoma City where I was the regional CIO for SSM Health, including St. Anthony's Hospital which is a 600 bed hospital in Oklahoma City as well as some other facilities nearby.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:03:23]:
And then was asked to move to the corporate location in St. Louis where I led a large team focused around clinical applications, digital and telehealth, our external facing consultancy, project management strategy and governance along with a couple other things like enterprise imaging. So did that for a couple of years and then decided to join Summit Behavioral Healthcare. Really wanted to do something where I felt like I could continue to add a lot of value and make a difference in our community. And I think we all saw through Covid the needs of behavioral healthcare growing. I think all of us. Recent data tells us that one in four families have someone who's impacted by behavioral healthcare needs. And there's just a lot of opportunities to serve in this area because there's such a incongruity between the supply and demand.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:04:21]:
Specifically the supply way way is not meeting the need of the demand and the demand is actually 4x the supply. So lots of opportunities to continue to grow both technology and behavioral healthcare, which has historically been behind other healthcare organizations, but then also to continue to make a difference in our communities. So excited to be here talking to the group today.

Steve Swan [00:04:48]:
Can I ask you. I'm going to go off my, my, my typical script for a second. I have a daughter that's in computer science and you've had a string of CIO roles, right? Very awesome roles. What's been your biggest challenge and what advice would you give to my daughter as she's coming out undergrad? I know, I know, I just kind of hit you with this, but.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:05:09]:
No, no, this is a great question. I get this a lot of time. I'm really passionate about mentoring. I'm very involved in a couple of nonprofits. One that's really close to my heart is T200, which is a technology female leadership group where we empower that next generation. And it's not enough to look at the directors and the managers. You actually have to go back to the colleges and say what are you majoring in? And then you actually have to go back to the high school and you have to go back to those children who are being told they're not good in math and the stem and steam and all of that. And so you actually have to go pretty far back to really get there.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:05:44]:
But for anyone who's looking at computer science, you know, computer science and technology is resident in every single thing we do. And I think jobs in technology are only limited by your creativity. But what differentiates people are the soft skills. So coming out of college, coming into that first job, the second job, there is definitely an opportunity to know languages, the Pythons, to know applications, the workdays, the saps, all of those types of things. However, what people are really looking for is the soft skills. They're looking for people who can understand what is the problem we're trying to solve, who can help use technology as a lever and as an accelerator, who aren't thinking about technology as a cost center, who aren't thinking about technology separately than the business, because everything we do with technology impacts the business and should be aligned to the business strategy. So what I would say to your daughter is she is not a technologist, she's a business leader. And she needs to position herself and understand the business just like the CEO, just like the cfo, just like her counterparts and other leaders across the business.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:07:02]:
If you don't sit with your business leaders and understand how do they run their business, you cannot provide the technology. And I think so often we separate and we silo and we think about technology for technology's sake. But when we think about the real value it's around solving real problems for people that are impacting their ability to be successful across the organization. Some are small, some are large.

Steve Swan [00:07:28]:
Yeah, it's funny you say all that, because my daughter's constantly telling me that in her the elevator to go up to her computer science classes, she tries to engage the kids in what you do for lunch. How was your weekend? And she's like, all they want to talk about is runtime. Dad, dad, I'm not going to be a developer, Dad. I don't want to be an engineer. I'm like, honey, you got to learn the language, you got to learn what they're doing. You, you need, you know, she does her Java, she does her Python, and she actually likes it, but she's like, that's not what I want to do. I'm like, you, you, you need to get in with the business. You need to help solve business problems.

Steve Swan [00:08:00]:
And, but you need to understand the technology first. Once you get out of school, then you'll start learning a business or something. Because she loves her statistics, right? Loves her numbers, loves her math, right? And she's also. So her, her majors, computer science, minor statistics, and Then concentration in sports analytics, that's ultimately what she would love to do. But to even get her to your point, to get her into the pro first programming class in 10th grade, it was, dad, people like me don't hang with computer people like that. Well, okay. And my. The only way I got her to take the classes were, you either take the class with them now or work for them later.

Steve Swan [00:08:37]:
She goes, okay, I'll take the class. I'll take the class.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:08:40]:
Well, it's the same thing with AI, you know, people waiting to use AI. It's like, you're not going to be replaced by AI, but your job is going to be replaced by a person who uses AI. But I think, you know, your daughter's doing everything right, that elevator speech and just practicing it. So much of what we do, you know, a lot of times with people who are early career, it's about practicing those conversations. How do you talk to someone and in 30 seconds tell them in one elevator ride who you are, what matters to you, and why they should care about that? Because it's all about us, right? And what do we need? What do we need at that moment and how can it help us? So your daughter's doing exactly the right thing, having those conversations, getting that feedback from others, understanding how she can continue to craft her message to make it more meaningful to her audience, whoever they are, whether they're the techies or the CEOs, or the, you know, the people who don't know anything about it. Because it's really great to be an IT expert, but only if people care about that. Otherwise you have to come in and say, hey, here's why you should care and help them to understand the value right?

Steve Swan [00:09:48]:
Now, the organization that you mentioned A minute ago, T200, is that what you said? Yeah. Is that a local organization or is that nationwide?

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:09:56]:
It's a national organization. And, Steve, it was founded by a group of women, national and international leaders in technology, who really had a vision that technology could be more and that they had gone through all of these struggles and they wanted for the next generation and the generation to follow, and everyone else, they wanted to kind of take their lessons learned and pay it forward. So it's a group that I've been part of now, I think, for three years, and just an exceptional nonprofit, completely volunteer, supported. Definitely have some partners now, some large international, worldwide firms that are supporting it. But what they're focused on is developing that next generation of leaders through the paths that others have already cut out and leveraging that, because I Think what we all know is there are not enough female leaders. I think I just saw a survey that said in the C suite, 22% of CIOs are women, which is shocking to me as a female cio. But I recognize when I look around the table, you know, it is frequently a lot of men and not so many women. So they're really looked at, looking at leveling the playing field because we understand, all of us as leaders, that diversity of our teams, whether it's gender, whether it's background, whether it's all these other dimensions of diversity is so important to have a future that can reflect our consumers, our customers and the general population.

Steve Swan [00:11:36]:
I can't even believe it's 22%. One in five, at least.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:11:39]:
I was shocked too. I thought it would be about 40%, honestly, if you would have asked me.

Steve Swan [00:11:43]:
I actually thought it would be lower because I don't, I don't know. Yeah, I thought it'd be half of that, you know, because I. Maybe it's just, I don't know, I just.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:11:51]:
Well, and again, you know, just like if we think about other, other challenges to having a diverse workforce, a lot of times stereotypes, norms, and then it's even background. So going back to what we were just talking about with your daughter, how many children, you know, I have twin nine year old girls. How many times are they told they're not good at math? Even as a nine year old in fourth grade, one of them is convinced she's not good at math. And that's going to persist throughout her lifetime. So she is already saying, I'm not going to be in these careers that are advancing, whether it's a science, whether it's a math, whether it's a computer science, you know, all of these careers. She already feels, for whatever reason, through you know, society and through her upbringing, even seeing a parent who's in these roles, that she's not going to be successful. And again, she's not alone. My 14 year old also feels the same.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:12:47]:
You know, she's in these math classes, she's struggling, and she has a lot of imposter syndrome. Why am I here? Can I be successful? How many of us feel that even at different levels? You know, I just saw another survey that said that over 50% of CEOs have imposter syndrome. Well, as females, our gender stereotype, you know, is that if you feel imposter syndrome, then you're not going to apply for that next role. You're not going to put yourself out there, you're not going to do all the things that allow you to continue to advance your career. And so the numbers are telling us the story that we're all experiencing and that we're feeling. And that, unfortunately, is counterintuitive to increasing the output and the revenue and the products that this country and all the countries in the world can deliver. You know, and so it's counterproductive for all of us to not have every single member of the workforce working as hard and on the right things and at the top of their license for all of us.

Steve Swan [00:13:59]:
Well, yeah. I mean, again, going back to the young ones, right? I mean, I always taught my girls, whether they listened or not, but, you know, shoot for the top rung of the ladder, because if you only shoot for the second rung, you've already eliminated the top rung. At least try for the top. You can always default back to number two. Right. And to your point, kind of, you know, again, you know, mental health, right? You know, making sure that your head's clear and that you do believe in what you can do. I mean, I got my older daughter meditating early on just to get out of her own way a little bit. She was a softball pitcher, so she was on the field by herself all the time.

Steve Swan [00:14:32]:
So, you know, I mean, everybody's on the field with her, but she. It's just her and the batter. So she's got to get her head together in the middle of a game or else she can't get imposter syndrome in the middle of a game and drop the ball and say, I'm out. I can't do this. You know, she had to believe all the way through, right? So.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:14:47]:
Well, and I think what you're talking about is, you know, that idea of taking care of yourself. And, you know, I think that's another leadership, team leadership philosophy that I'm passionate about. And it's the whole, you're on the airplane, do you give yourself oxygen or the person, the child or the elderly person next to you? Well, if you don't have oxygen, you. You can't give it to the next person. You need to start with yourself, and if you're not in a good place. And I think as we grow, maybe older, more mature, we have more longevity in our careers. We recognize that there's this fallacy that not only will you have more time in the future, but that you'll have a better balance. And I think what Covid taught us all is we were all working all the time, 24 hours a day, many of us at Home, you know, so it was really endless.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:15:34]:
There was no work life balance. It was all one was that you have to find that balance because it's not sustainable and it's not the right example for your teams. If you're running around, you know, I notice it in my workplace. We're in the office every day, and if I'm rushing to a meeting, my team notices it and they start to feel stressed and they start to feel that urgency. Whereas if I'm slowly walking confidently and chatting and in a good place, they're in a good place. And I think sometimes as leaders, we don't recognize that we need to be the where it starts because it ends with us as well. And if we're not setting that example, then how can our teams be successful as they look to continue to grow and develop? Right.

Steve Swan [00:16:20]:
And your results depend on it, like you said. Right. So your, your scorecard is, you know, big time on that. I'm going to scorecard.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:16:28]:
But also financially, right. We know that it's not sustainable to work people 24 7. And financially, your company will suffer if you try to do that. So it's not only the, you know, the employees and how they're rating everything on the employee survey. And if you're a best place to work, it's everything.

Steve Swan [00:16:49]:
It is. Yeah, it's, it's. It's. You got to take that holistic view, otherwise, you know, it doesn't matter. You're missing the boat on something. Right. So what would you say to, to circle back to the technology? Oh, by the way, do you mind if I put the T200 sort of web link on your, on your.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:17:06]:
No, not at all.

Steve Swan [00:17:07]:
I'd love to do that. So just.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:17:09]:
Yeah, no, I love T200 and I, I'm a huge advocate for it, so. Absolutely.

Steve Swan [00:17:14]:
Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna include that on, on the podcast. Just have a look.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:17:18]:
I would love that.

Steve Swan [00:17:19]:
Cool. Yeah, cool. Good. Thank you. Technology, right? What are you seeing? What are you thinking? What are you feeling about where we are, where we're heading? What are your thoughts around that?

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:17:32]:
Yeah, so as a technologist, I think people always expect me to talk about these new, exciting things, virtual reality, AI. For me, what I'm really seeing is a focus on getting the foundational things right. And it's this idea of back to basics. So all of those things that I just mentioned, they matter. Big data matters, AI matters. But if you don't have the basics right, then nothing else matters. You know, we're not talking about going on. I have a friend who likes to say, you're not planning your trip to Hawaii when your kitchen's on fire.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:18:06]:
So for me, as I joined Summit two years ago because behavioral healthcare is behind, it was around really having a solid suite of applications and creating that technology platform. Then it became the next real opportunity there. As we think about people, process and technology is really about looking at the people and upskilling them. Because we have a proprietary behavioral health ehr. They for example, didn't have any certification program for our analysts. So we worked with them to develop, to co develop an analyst training program where I could be ensured that not only were my analysts meeting my needs, but also positioned to meet the future needs of the company and building a very solid tool or customizing a very solid tool for our future. So as we think about those basics, again, starting with that technology stack, making sure that we have the integrations, making sure that we have the right ancillary systems, of course we're all in financial situations right now with the economy and everything else, where there's a lot of application rationalization going on, where we're removing things and kind of saying, what can that look like if we do a best of suite, if we fully maximize these large investments we've made in these large platforms. So we, like other companies, as part of this tuning exercise, are also doing that and saying, hey, let's look at this differently and let's say we brought in these four things to meet these needs.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:19:36]:
Is there another way that we could use the platforms we already have? And can we make sure that we're fully exploiting all of the capabilities? Because you're paying a lot of money, millions of dollars for these platforms. How can we make sure that we're fully utilizing them to their greatest capabilities? And a lot of that becomes vendor partnerships as well. None of us go this road alone. You do it through partners. And when I joined our company, we had a lot of what I'm going to call vendors. We didn't have a lot of partners, we didn't have a lot of people that we were interacting with on a regular basis who were asking us about our strategic roadmap, who were helping us to advance not only the technology, but also the company who are really partnering with us as I consider a partnership. And what I'm most proud of is over the last couple of years we've really established these clear vendor partnerships where of course we're having the quarterly business reviews and of course we're looking at scorecards, of course we're looking at their costs, but moreover, we're talking about the value, and not just the value they're bringing for our technology team as they continue to grow our team and our tools, but more for the business. Because, again, the company strategy is the IT strategy.

Steve Swan [00:20:49]:
Of course. Yeah. And so, like you said, all those other things are just sort of shiny objects, distractions, if you will.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:20:56]:
Right.

Steve Swan [00:20:56]:
To get you away from.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:20:58]:
It's very easy to have a solution, but no problem that it's solving. So we always try to pivot that like, that's great. That's a great solution. What is the problem it's trying to solve? And, you know, many times I think there are solutions. Don't get me wrong, we're starting to do some pilots with AI and we're starting to say, let's bring in a tool, let's use it, let's see what our results are. I think there's huge opportunities with administrative burden that we can reduce with AI. Absolutely. Table stakes.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:21:27]:
We should do those. So we're starting to do that. You know, the other day I had to do a business case. I went to Copilot and I said, here's what I need. It shot it out. It would have taken me 20 minutes. It took it two minutes. You know, that's a real value add.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:21:41]:
It's able to look in my files. It's able to pull things from chats and things from, you know, Excel and things from email and things from teams, and it pulls it all together. You know, the transcription it can do on meetings and then searches of transcription and summarization. And there are so many things that it can do to make things better. But I think for us, we're really in the stage right now of dabbling, creating that framework that we feel good about, that we feel we have the policies, we have reduced the risks we've done the things from a security perspective that we need to. We've really put the rules of the road in place and those guardrails. And then we'll start letting people out a little bit on their own and giving them a little bit of a leash, even more so than these structured pilots to say, okay, you've shown you can do this. Now what? And then the goal, of course, Steve, is to try to solve real business problems and try to transform our business just like everyone else.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:22:39]:
Because if you're not transforming, are you really going to be there in the future?

Steve Swan [00:22:44]:
Right. We're going to have to transform. Right? This. This is here to stay. It's just a Matter of, like you said, what the use cases are, how we use it, how efficiently we are at it. And what we do at this stage is, you know, experimentation or just trying it out, just trying to figure it out what you did with your transcription. Right. You know, and I heard a lot of leaders talking about that, you know, like you said, some of them have the guardrails on and they say, okay, let's stay within these guidelines.

Steve Swan [00:23:09]:
Others say, just go and play, get used to, you know, I don't know. Everybody's got the risk adverse ones.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:23:15]:
Yes, that I think are saying that. But, you know, it's like everything else. Transformation is in the eye of the beholder. And I used to watch a lot the Biggest Loser, and I love that show. And you look at the person at the beginning and then they'd lose like 200 pounds over like 10 weeks, which doesn't really make sense. But somehow it would happen or nine months or whatever it was, and it was like a complete transformation, but the transformation was actually every single day. And sometimes we lose sight because we have, you know, this, what have you done for me lately? And this recency bias. We forget about how far we've come.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:23:49]:
And I think it's always important. Yeah, you have to take those moments and reflect and say, wow, look at how far we've come. But I also think that sometimes we don't do transformation because we think it's something big and it can be something small, but it can be this 1% effect where making these constant little changes really changes where you're at and how you're operating.

Steve Swan [00:24:12]:
Well, like you said, people get overwhelmed because they see they're here, they want to get here, they think of it all in one bite. You can't, like you said, little, little, little steps. Just like everything, right, with, with the kids we were just talking about. Yeah, little, little, little steps. Otherwise, if you think you're here and you got to get here, you're not doing it in one day or a half an hour. Like you said, the Biggest Loser. Maybe that was a little crazy, right? Losing that much weight and whatever.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:24:35]:
Well, I think they unfortunately gained a lot of it back. It wasn't necessarily the best outcomes, but that also is just like transformation and change. If you don't make it sustainable, if you don't build that culture around it, if you're not educating, if you're not doing the right things, it's really hard to sustain and it becomes, well, that was really great, but it didn't last. So how do you create that lasting change that really can outlive any of us. You know, I have a leader I was listening to last week who was talking about their legacy. And I think as I get older, as we all grow later in our careers, we start to think about what are we leaving behind and what will outlast even us, whether it's at a current role or at a company or. Or even just for a lifetime. And I think that really matters.

Steve Swan [00:25:21]:
So what do you want to leave behind as your legacy? Concentration.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:25:24]:
Oh, so it's interesting. I just had a meeting before this with someone on my team who's, you know, going through some things, and we talked about how important the people are. And so for me, of course, it's about making a difference with the patients. And we have a saying at our company that it's about improving the lives we touch. And I really believe that. I've been to many of our facilities and met many of our patients. And, you know, these are patients who are in their worst moments that we are helping. And it is impossible to overstate how important that is and how delicate those times are.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:26:00]:
And like, you know, sometimes we say, well, this isn't life or death. It literally, in our field is life or death in many cases. And so when patients come in, we're able to do what they need to do. So that's. And giving our clinicians, our doctors, our therapists, our psychiatrists the ability, the tools that they need to so that they can focus on their patients and aren't distracted by everything else because the network's down or, you know, they don't have a computer where they can document to the electronic health record, whatever. That's the goal here. But more broadly, my legacy is around the people and the people that have been on the journey and continued to grow. And I look back at people from all of the places I've worked that I'm still in touch with.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:26:47]:
You know, last year I did a LinkedIn post. My old boss from 15 years ago came and worked for me. He retired. I pulled him out of retirement and said, hey, I need you. And he came and worked for me for a while. And it was like this full circle moment for me because he's no longer my boss. And this person that I learned so much from, he's now a friend. He's a friend, a mentor, a trusted advisor.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:27:11]:
And I'm very fortunate to have in my life a lot of people that I've had long relationships with. And I know this is true for you too, Steve. You know, it's a very small world. And it's about having those meaningful relationships, those authentic relationships, those deep relationships with people where you're able to help them grow and they're able to help you grow. Because I, you know, have I learned from the reverse mentoring just like I learned from mentoring?

Steve Swan [00:27:38]:
Well, again, I'm going to go back to the kids. We learn as much from them as they learn from us. You know, I mean, they've taught us a ton. And I learned from my parents. Right. And they learned from me, I hope. Right. So I think it is from the long term relationships and, and with the world being as small as it is, it sometimes shocks me how some folks don't realize that.

Steve Swan [00:28:02]:
And some of the things that some folks do, like, wow, no, it's a small world. So.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:28:08]:
Well, it's interesting. There's still bad actors, there's still people who are in it for themselves. There's still people who have misaligned incentives. You know, I think all of that's real and it's unfortunate because I think it can be disillusioning at times. But again, I am a firm believer that, you know, doing the right thing and doing the hard thing is always the best thing. And at the end of the day, you know, you want to be able to look yourself in the mirror and say, I tried my hardest. And maybe at all times it's not successful. That's okay.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:28:40]:
Sometimes we're also, you know, bound by situations outside of our control and, and all you can do is try your hardest.

Steve Swan [00:28:48]:
Last week I was with my 24 year old. We were in New York City. We were on the streets. We were having a couple drinks. It was a, it was a sunny day and we were with her roommate and I said to her, the hardest thing for me as a parent was to watch you fail and to sit and watch, not jump in, not get involved. But I knew you were growing from it and that's the hardest thing. But I had to sit and watch and I said that was torture, but had to do it, right? You know, so to let people experience what they need to experience as a.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:29:20]:
Leader, you have to give people safe opportunities to fail. Because if you don't give them the. You know, there's two types of leaders. Someone told me early in my career, and I so believe it. It's the leaders who will let you do things you've never done because they know that you can do it and they're going to help you do it. And then there's the leaders that wait till you've done something and then they'll let you do it again and again and again. And you can never grow if you're with that later type of leader because they're not giving you that trust, they're not giving you that support. So in my culture and my organization, you know, it's all around not being punitive, but being supportive and giving people that safety net so that you're never going to give them something.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:30:00]:
You know, they're going to fail, but you're going to give them stretch assignments where they might not be as successful. But that's why you have that soft landing to support and that support system so that they can be lifted up if they, if and when they do struggle, because that's a reality. None of us are successful all of the time. We've all failed. And quite honestly, some of those failures are your biggest learnings.

Steve Swan [00:30:23]:
They are, absolutely. And again, to go back to the example I was just using, you know, I, I always said I, I was here if you, if you were going to fail or hurt yourself, I was there 100%. But anything short of that, I was going to catch it, you know.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:30:37]:
Well, it's hard, right? And for a lot of us, you're just like, oh, let me do it. As a leader, there's this common idea. I'll just step in and do it. And what I have to tell myself, because I'm inclined to do that at times, is I'm taking away an opportunity for them to grow. And we think about that with our kids, right? Oh, it's going to take them 20 minutes to do this. I could do it in five. I'll just do it. Well, no, we're taking away that opportunity.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:30:59]:
And what's the next opportunity, the next one that now they're not going to be able to do because they didn't have that foundation. I was just talking to a friend of mine whose daughter's at college, and she's like one of her friends, you know, their roommate doesn't have any idea how to do anything. Laundry, you know, dishes, all these basic things, you know, boil some water or whatever. Because their parents did it all. And their parents did it to be helpful, to be kind, because they love them, I guarantee it. But now they have a person who can. Doesn't even have basic living skills and can hardly function. And so they did them a disservice with the best of intentions.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:31:40]:
And I think we can extrapolate that to the workplace, where I don't think anyone or most people do not have Bad intentions. But if you don't give people that little bit of a rope, they're never going to be able to grow and we're going to impede their ability to be successful long term.

Steve Swan [00:31:57]:
I agree. And you just keep knocking back on course if you need to. Right? You know, that kind of.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:32:01]:
Yep.

Steve Swan [00:32:01]:
So you already kind of went into my next thing. You know, what makes you and your organization unique and you spent a lot of time on that. Is there anything else you'd like to add to that? I mean, what makes you working for you, working with you and or your organization unique from others?

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:32:17]:
Well, I would say again, it's the culture that I've created within my team. I think, you know, behavioral health is a unique space just because again, from a technology perspective, it's in a little bit of a different place, a earlier, less mature place than other areas of healthcare. And now it's really a focus. We really feel like we have the spotlight on us, which is great, but you know, it's hot in the spotlight sometimes. For my team specifically though, it's really around the culture. You know, I just had my application team, they had an off site the last two days where they really talked about how do we develop as a team. And you know, some of that is the typical team bonding exercises that go to the go kart course and see who's the fastest and then talk some stuff about each other. But then a lot of it is really around stacking hands and continuing to develop and to develop that culture, that trust.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:33:08]:
All of the things that we know as leaders are so important to get to those financial results. So I think people should want to work for me. And I. I've been very fortunate and I feel like I'm successful every time I have someone come work for me who's worked for me. Again, I have people across my career who've worked for me multiple times because they appreciate the way I work, which is again, with a strong culture, but also with a very transparent culture where I try to be very communicative. I send out frequent emails to my team. We do a monthly newsletter. We have frequent parties.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:33:43]:
Actually we're going to have a party in 15 minutes for someone's birthday. You know, we try to do things that make being at work enjoyable because we all spend so much of our time here at work. And I think so. Those are all things that I think are reasons why people should want to be in behavioral healthcare, want to be at summit behavioral healthcare, but maybe even want to be in technology and behavioral healthcare. And healthcare more generally. It's just a really exciting place to be. Every day is a challenge. Every day has new things that are coming to us, but we're really making a difference.

Steve Swan [00:34:17]:
I like that. You know, again, going back to. You can run that example through starting with kids, sports teams all the way up to as they're work, you know they're going to keep coming back to you if they're having fun, if they're learning something and the boundaries are defined and they don't move right. If they're here and they stay here, you're good.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:34:34]:
Well, how often, Steve, as leaders do we say things and we think people understand them and then it's only till you say stuff. The third, the fourth, the fifth times, sometimes that they resonate because they're not at the right place to take that information or they're not understanding it because of the context or for whatever reason. We say stuff a lot as leaders and we forget how far our voice carries and what that means to our people and how important it is to be consistent. You know, we always used to talk in it about these big reveals and these go lives. And I remember I was at a go live for an EHR at one of our facilities once and someone came into the command center in the middle of the night and they looked around and there was one person quietly typing on a computer. And they're like, what? We just went live. Where's like this chaotic running around and people yelling. And I said, that doesn't happen.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:35:28]:
We planned, we practiced, we trained, we tested. That's not real. And I said, if that was happening, there'd be a different problem. I said, where are the people? They're out on the floor supporting the end users. You know, like, that's not how we work and that's not the reality. And they're like, oh, there was no big reveal. And it's like there never should be. We should never be making these sudden surprising moves that scare people or confuse people.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:35:54]:
It should always be calculated towards an agreed upon goal and in a way that makes sense.

Steve Swan [00:36:01]:
Yeah, no, absolutely. Communication, communication, communication. That's huge. So I have one final question I ask of each one of my guests. You may already know what that is because you know some other folks that have done my podcast in the past. But before I get to that, anything else you want to add before I ask my. My final question, which is completely unrelated to it and everything else.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:36:25]:
No, nothing else I want to add.

Steve Swan [00:36:27]:
Okay. I'm a music fan. I like seeing live music. What Would you say if, if you've ever, you know, some. Some folks have never seen live music, so I respect that. But if you've seen any live music or any live shows, what would you say has been your favorite one that you've seen in your life?

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:36:44]:
So I'm dating myself here, but I was very fortunate. My brother lived in Chicago in the early 2000s and Madonna was touring. And this was Madonna in the Madonna heyday, not Madonna today, which I assume is great and all these things, but this was Madonna when, you know, it was Material Girl, it was like a virgin, it was Madonna. And I went and saw Madonna and you know, that was probably the first concert of that scale I had been to. I was in my early 20s or so and it was just such a spectacle, such a performance. She was someone that I'd been listening to for years. So it was just like a culmination of so many things that I wanted. And you know, at a time in my life when I was a little bit more naive and had very low expectations.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:37:37]:
And so that was an amazing concert and I'll never forget it just because it brought together so many things that I loved in a way that it was even hard at the time to fully recognize at all levels. Like I enjoyed it, but then I kept enjoying it the more I thought about it from different dimensions. Even still today, 20 some years later.

Steve Swan [00:37:59]:
Yeah, they. That's awesome.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:38:01]:
That's.

Steve Swan [00:38:01]:
That's interesting because I've asked everybody that question. Never got Madonna. Not at least not yet until now.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:38:06]:
Again, it was the time that I was at. In my life in place. It was the context. And you know, there's a lot of great performances now. I've seen a lot of great other groups and things, but for me that was an amazing one.

Steve Swan [00:38:20]:
She's getting a lot of heat. My wife was telling me, maybe by way of People magazine or something, but she, she told me that Madonna's been getting some heat for, I don't know, concerts will start at 9. She doesn't show up to 1 in the morning or something along those lines, you know.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:38:33]:
Yes, I think it's hard when you're that good. And you know, what is an absolute power corrupts absolutely or whatever that quote is. You know, I think she's been in this business now for 40 plus years. I think personally she has some interesting things going on with her new boyfriend and those types of things. But I think it's hard to be in the public eye and I think you become a little disassociated. With kind of the standards and the norms of how everyone else lives and whether that's time, whether that's going to the grocery store and how just other people live. Because you're so. You're so pulled away from that, and you're in, like, your own little Islander bubble.

Steve Swan [00:39:13]:
So to completely date myself, I was at Live Aid in High School. 19.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:39:19]:
Oh, my goodness. Okay. I only saw that on TV.

Steve Swan [00:39:23]:
Madonna. Madonna was, without a doubt, definitely one of the highlights. Top. Top three in that whole. That whole day.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:39:32]:
Oh, that. That was like, us, who's who of music stars, too, back in that day. Wow.

Steve Swan [00:39:38]:
Yeah. I don't really consider them. Like, if someone says, did you ever see, I don't know, Black Sabbath? They were there. I didn't. I saw them for 25 minutes. You know what I mean?

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:39:45]:
Sure.

Steve Swan [00:39:46]:
Sure see them. But Madonna dancing around with two or three dancers. I don't know, some print on that looked like somebody's couch or something. It was. It was cool, though, that.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:39:56]:
The dancing, I recognize, like, that. The music festivals. I mean, there was some music festivals. Obviously Woodstock predates us and stuff like that, but there wasn't these festivals like we have today, where you see all these performers together. There wasn't really that back in the past, you'd have the opening act and then the performer, and that was kind of it. So, you know, people today are like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. A group of people. But there wasn't that venue.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:40:21]:
Those venues and those events like we have today. So it was a whole different time.

Steve Swan [00:40:25]:
Yeah. Oh, it was. Yeah. 35 a ticket. It was definitely a different time at Live A. That's what it cost, 35 bucks.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:40:30]:
Oh, wow. And you probably thought it was expensive.

Steve Swan [00:40:33]:
I did. It was huge. I had to borrow them.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:40:35]:
I don't remember how much I paid for Madonna, but I guarantee it was not more than a hundred, because that would have probably been my limit.

Steve Swan [00:40:41]:
I have a shoebox full of all my tickets. I save tickets.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:40:44]:
Oh, you should put those in one of those frames. You should do a glass frame. One of those. The. What are they called? The window box. Yes. You should absolutely do that. Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:40:54]:
I have my live a tick in there. I have a Lou Reed ticket. I have a few Grateful Dead tickets. I. Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors, and maybe David Letterman in there. Something like that. Right. So just a few.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:41:04]:
Oh, David Letterman's another classic now, right?

Steve Swan [00:41:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. That was fun.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:41:09]:
I saw him taping live once on New Year's Eve, and it was amazing.

Steve Swan [00:41:13]:
Oh, very cool. Yeah. I think my wife would love to go see if. I guess they don't do it live. Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper do their live thing.

Jeanne de Vries Sands [00:41:23]:
I don't know. I think they're, like, regulated now after that two years ago, that debacle with the too much drinking. I think they kind of got a little notice for last year. I heard last year was a lot calmer.

Steve Swan [00:41:34]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, listen, great having you. I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Steve.