Pat's Podcast
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Pat's Podcast
Inside Covington - Episode 9 Rick Wurth, OneQuest Health, CBC Member Spotlight
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Pat Chats with Rick Wurth, CEO of OneQuest Health, to Discuss the Organization's Recent Rebrand, and the Value of Being Involved with the Covington Business Council
Welcome to Inside Covington, a podcast produced by the Covington Business Council in cooperation with TBNK, Telecommunication Board of Northern Kentucky. I'm your host, Executive Director Pat Frew of the Covington Business Council. And my guest today is Rick Wirth, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Philanthropy Officer at OneQuest Health. Rick, welcome to Inside Covington.
SPEAKER_01Pat, thanks for letting me be here. I'm grateful to share some time with you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, now, Rick, OneQuest Health used to be known as something else, and it was known as something else for a century and a half. So let's start with a little bit of history with your time starting there and the evolution to where we are today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're you're spot on. We've had uh a few different names as we uh have progressed throughout our history here, Pat. In fact, today I'm meeting with you on the anniversary of our articles of incorporation that were signed on this day back in 1880. Amos Chinkel is our founder, a very well-known kind of guy in the history of the city of Covington. And uh most people know him for uh the financing of the roebling suspension bridge project. And about 16 years after he finished that, he started a children's home. And so uh we continue his proud legacy today. Uh you are right. Most people know us as Children's Home of Northern Kentucky or CHNK Behavioral Health. Back in November of last year, uh we took on a new name to reflect our new way of being in the world and new relevancies that we were playing in people's lives, and so we're introducing ourselves today as OneQuest Health.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Now, Rick and I have been friends in the nonprofit space for probably more than two decades, and we kind of came together in uh northern Kentucky and the whole nonprofit sector. Uh so uh, you know, a lot of people that are somewhat newer to Northern Kentucky only know Rick as in his leadership role up on the hill. But uh I think our listeners would be a little bit interested in your previous career and how you transitioned out of that into what you're doing today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh uh it's uh it's a short story, actually, but I'm uh very proud of the impact that I had as a Catholic priest in the diocese of Covington, Kentucky. Uh served as a high school chaplain, served as a member of the Presbyteral Council and the certain advisory boards. I was on the board at Thomas More University as a trustee. Uh and I had a uh I I consider that experience a blessing, uh having been able to go to seminary. Uh but I went to seminary when I was 18 years old. And I think that maybe there is a maybe uh there's a blessing there, but there's also a challenge that you you really don't have yourself entirely figured out when you uh are making major life decisions at 18 years of age. So I went to seminary, I was serving as a priest then for 10 years in the diocese, and then made a decision that I would uh like to have taken a sabbatical, and I I got permission uh from the bishop at that time to take a sabbatical, and that's how I uh found myself uh in leadership at Children's Home of Northern Kentucky. For me, it's very much mission-driven. It's about creating a world that we all want to live in, and so I was very fortunate to have made that transition.
SPEAKER_00So you saw a real alignment in what you were doing as a priest and what you would be doing for the home.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I think I'm wired for the underdog. Uh I I and I I know that I'm not alone with that. I think one of the beautiful things about living here in northern Kentucky is that I find so many kindred spirits who are out there who legitimately uh want to see a better world for all of us, where everybody's lifted up, uh, where it's not a world uh ruled by violence or marginalization of peoples, but really an inclusive world where we really see how how do we bring out the better angels in all of us.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Let's talk a little bit more. Uh, you just touched on it briefly in talking about the evolution to the brand of OneQualt, but let's talk about what that is going to do in terms of you all uh fulfilling your mission and making an even bigger impact here and elsewhere.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it's kind of like this. I mean, as you go through life, Pat, I'm sure you can resonate with this as well, with the progress and evolution that you've seen in your own career at Covington Business Council. But, you know, as we age, the world doesn't get smaller. I mean, I I think the vision gets bigger, you know, and I think that certainly has happened uh with OneQuest Health. We we started off because Amos Schinkel spent a lot of his time along the Ohio River in Covington working on the bridge project. He was in river transportation and he saw unmet needs with a lot of folks who were living in shanty towns along the river, and he saw a lot of kids who were being uh neglected, and he thought we can do better than this. And that's that's our origin. And I think as we've progressed since our articles of incorporation were signed on this day back in 1880, uh the world's gotten bigger. It's gotten more complicated, and we've seen that our relevancy has grown from a simple orphanage providing three square meals a day and a comfortable bed to something much more profound. And I think uh we've been able to uh evolve uh and to respond to new needs. I think today uh our big invitation is how do we respond to the fact that mental health is a major, major uh factor that has to be responded to. I don't think any of us uh have been shying away from the fact that if we don't have mental health, everything else is affected. Our physical health. Uh I'm just shocked by the amount of uh interactions and alignment. If you're talking about things like incarceration, if you're thinking about things like school attendance, if you're talking about things like workforce development, so many times in Kentucky we keep coming back to the fact that there's two quote-unquote poisons in the water, and that's untreated mental health issues and untreated substance use disorders. And uh when we were doing our work in orphanage days, we saw those things playing out. We just didn't name them and we didn't have as much of a sophisticated understanding as we do now. But now that we do have a more sophisticated understanding about the role that mental health plays, uh, how does OneQuest Health respond to that? And how do we make sure those services are responding to our school districts, to our employers here in the region, uh, and to government leaders as well.
SPEAKER_00I know one of the phrases that you use uh to talk about the way that you uh care for uh young people is empathy-driven care. Yeah. Talk about that a little more and what what that means to somebody that's not a clinician.
SPEAKER_01Well, I I think there um we have two things going for us at OneQuest Health. We certainly have uh 165 employees, we have board members, trustees, subject matter experts, found a foundation board of directors uh who are compassionate people. And so empathy is a major force in what we do. But just compassion alone or empathy alone will not get the work done. We have to make sure that there's a second ingredient to everything that we do, and that's competency. And the types of competencies that the public has been demanding of us is changing. And so now it's no longer just making sure that we have really good house mothers who are taking care of the quote unquote orphans. How do we now today make sure that we have state-of-the-art clinicians, therapists, targeted case managers, uh advanced practice, registered nurses, pediatricians, child psychiatrists all working on our team to make sure that we can really produce an integrated health product that's addressing those untreated substance use disorders, that's treating those unmet uh mental health care needs. Because if we do that, Northern Kentucky and the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the Greater Cincinnati region is going to be a much better place to work, to live, and to thrive.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I was gonna say earlier when we were talking about the rise of the need of mental health services, obviously you uh your work is directed at younger people, but when we look in HR circles today, what is one of the more popular types of healthcare coverage today? It's mental health for adults. So, you know, the need must even be more pronounced and needed for children.
SPEAKER_01Right on. We had a major realization a few years ago, Pat, and uh that's back in the day when we really were focused, we saw our mission as focused only on children, and specifically children who were involved in some type of state's care. So foster care for state-aligned youth. And the big light bulb moment for us several years ago was the kids don't get better if we don't simultaneously take care of the adults who are taking care of the kids. And the other big realization was we had to get a heck of a lot more proactive in what we were doing because what we saw happening in the Commonwealth of Kentucky was this ever-growing number of kids who were being removed from their family of origin and placed into some type of foster care system. I think all of us agree the fact that the state can do certain things well, but I think all of us agree as well that kids need to be raised by families. And so our big emphasis was on how do we take care of adults in a better way, and how are we making sure that we're moving services when and where they're needed. We don't want to see kids coming into state's custody, we don't want to see kids removed from their family of origin if one quest health can be an answer and cutting off problems at the core before they become so unwieldy and complicated that we've disrupted families and we've placed children in a level of care that they really didn't need.
SPEAKER_00If you're uh just tuning in, listeners, you're uh listening to Inside Covington, a podcast about the intersection of people and business in Covington. I'm your host, Pat Frew of the Covington Business Council, and I'm talking with Rick Wirth, Chief Executive of Officer and Chief Philanthropy Officer at OneQuest Health. So, Rick, I I'm just assuming that all your services are just geared to children. But what you're telling me is no, you're the the movement moving forward, and maybe even in your recent history, you've done a lot of work with adults. Talk about that.
SPEAKER_01That's right, Pat. I mean, once again, we have to be a one-stop shop for everyone. Uh gone are the days where we had the luxury of saying we're only going to concentrate on this demographic or on that demographic. Part of the more sophisticated world that we live in is that we've got to take a much more catalytic approach to problem solving. And so I people might think, well, it's odd. You know, what is OneQuest Health setting here with the head of Covington Business Council? I mean, what's the connection there? Well, we know the connection. If we don't pay attention to both youth, adolescent needs in mental health, as well as adult needs in mental health, we have some real big problems that become very difficult to contain. If you look at the issues that we're currently facing around workforce development shortages and the fact that we're not even at the average mark with Kentuckians participating in the workforce, if you look at things like school absenteeism and the effect that that's having on reimbursement rates with our public schools and the seek formula, if you look at who's getting incarcerated, all of those things have a golden thread. And the golden thread, once again, is untreated mental health issues, untreated substance use disorders. We have got to be there in new and exciting ways. And that means how are we working more closely with Covington Business Council, with our businesses? We've got a very exciting relationship with Northern Kentucky University. President Katie Short Thompson has been an incredible force in this community. One of the things that we are dealing with, Pat, is there's not enough healthcare workers to take care of the demand here in Northern Kentucky. And so OneQuest Health decided we have to grow our own workforce. And we're doing that in conjunction with Northern Kentucky University, the College of Health and Human Services. And we've gotten things going like paid apprenticeships, paid scholarships. We're trying to really work closely in addressing this fundamental problem that we have in Kentucky of a lack of health care workers. Just by way of a quick example, Pat, in the United States, there's about 350 Americans to every one mental health care professional. You come to some Kentucky's some Kentucky counties here, not too far from where we are today in this studio, and that number goes to 4,000 Kentuckians to a mental health care worker. And so we've really got to be more strategic on how we're working with our universities, how we're working with our local school districts, and how we're working with businesses as well to really solve a problem that we all have a vested stake and a vested interest in solving together.
SPEAKER_00Obviously, in the direction you're taking, and I'll let you get more into this, this is going to cost a lot of money. Recently, the Young Family Foundation uh provided you uh a gift of a million dollars to help uh build the capacity, repair, and maintain your uh building in DeVoo Park. And talk about the need there and where w how Northern Kentucky will look differently in, say, ten years from the work that you're you're doing and what's it gonna take to make that happen. Well uh those are big questions, I realize.
SPEAKER_01And they're great questions, Pat. I mean I I say it's back to the future, right? Amos Schenkel got us started uh on this day in 1880 by signing the Articles of Incorporation. And uh in that day, there was not one state tax dollar or federal tax dollar at play. This was simply a movement of Northern Kentuckians and specifically business people. Amos Sinkel was a savvy businessman, and he reached out to 12 of his fellow business folks to get us started. We know that the secret going forward to our success and our expanded relevancy is going to continue to harness the power of the private sector. We have to have the support of businesses and private individuals. You mentioned the great friends that we have with Bill and Marty Young and uh Mr. Derek Hott, the executive director of the Young Family Foundation. If it weren't for these private dollars, there is no way, Pat, that I would be sitting here across from you at this table and able to announce that this year we will reach 50,000 treatment services with 7,000 family and client impacts. And that's just this year alone. And the people who are making that happen are our friends in local foundations, they're our friends in local businesses, and they're private donors who are deciding to put in $10 a month, $25 a month to help oneQuest health. At the same time, we're also leveraging dollars that are coming from the public sector. And so we're really grateful for the help that we had with the Kentucky General Assembly back in 2024 to bring state dollars to work here. All of that comes together, and so what's the impact? Here's what we're hoping, and this is what we can prove, in fact, that there's less kids and families imploding and needing to be placed in foster care or in higher levels of acuity care. We don't want to see kids necessarily in a hospital for a psychiatric issue if those issues can be solved with an outpatient uh approach. And so we are hoping for fewer hospitalizations. We also hope the fact that because of what we are doing, there will be more parents able to go to work rather than staying home with an adolescent who's experiencing a mental health issue today. So work for workforce development is at play. We got way too many people in our jails because of a mental health issue or a substance use disorders, and that's costing the taxpayer. I think all of us as Kentuckians agree that we want to make sure that our tax dollars are being used for the highest and best purpose. That's the impact of OneQuest Health. That's what happens when public sector and private sector works together in making sure that these services are provided when and where they're needed.
SPEAKER_00So, Rick, in wrapping up, what what what haven't we covered, what other message or messages would you like to share with the audience?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think, you know, certainly, Pat, this is probably not going to be a surprise to you where there's a call to action. You know, this is this is not a spectator sport. If we really are committed to a northern Kentucky region and a region in the Commonwealth of Kentucky that more and more closely aligns with that vision of a world that we all want to live in, then there can't be a spectator. All of us have to roll up our sleeves and say, I have a role to play to that. We all have a role to play in making mental health less stigmatized and more of a common topic in our workplaces, in our faith communities, in our families. That's something that we can all do. I I would suggest there's three questions that all of us can ask our students, our family members, our co-workers to help us in that regard. How are you feeling today? Name the emotion that you're dealing with today. What's your goal? How do we develop a type of culture where we're asking each other, what's your goal, Pat? What do you want to have occur today? What do you want to see happen this week? And then finally, the third question is: who are you going to ask for help? Now, those are three little questions that have profound consequences. How are you feeling? What's your goal? Who can you ask for help? And I believe that those three questions can lead to some really exciting consequences, not just for OneQuest Health, not just for the clients and families we're serving right now, but for this entire region.
SPEAKER_00Great. Rick, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate you being on the program today.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me, Pat.
SPEAKER_00So that's all the time we have today. I've been talking to Rick Worth, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Philanthropy Officer at OneQuest Health. I'm your host for Inside Covington, Pat Frew, Executive Director of the Covington Business Council. Thanks for tuning in. Enjoy the rest of your day.