The Hidden Side of Healthcare

What really happens behind the scenes in a hospital—and how does it affect your care?

In this episode of Health Recoded, I talk with Ben Goldberg at UGA about his experience in healthcare administration and how decisions made in hospital systems can directly influence patient care, nursing workflows, and health outcomes.

Most people think of healthcare as just doctors and nurses at the bedside, but a large part of patient experience is shaped by healthcare management, hospital operations, and administrative systems working in the background.

We explore how these systems interact—and where gaps in communication or structure can ultimately impact patients.

We cover:

• What healthcare administration actually involves in hospitals
• How healthcare administration affects nursing care and patient outcomes
• The relationship between healthcare administrators and clinical staff
• Why communication breakdowns can impact patient safety and care quality
• The importance of preventative care and system-level thinking in healthcare

If you’re looking to understand healthcare more and how it affects your long-term health, this episode gives you a place to start.

Subscribe for more conversations that help you better understand your body. New episodes weekly.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

04:19 Behind the scenes of hospital systems

06:37 Healthcare administration vs nursing: how roles interact

09:33 How administrative decisions affect patient care

10:40 System gaps, communication, and real-world impact on outcomes

16:58 What was most unexpected from working in healthcare administration?

20:00 What does success look like for health admin and patient outcomes?

24:18 Where can improvements be made for better patient outcomes?

29:27 How has working in healthcare changed personal approach to health?

31:27 What do people most misunderstand about healthcare?

34:00 Is virtual mental health affecting younger generations?

37:30 What is most important to understand about health systems?

This content is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for guidance provided by your own medical professional.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Health Recoded. I'm Alex. I'm your nurse. And today I'm talking with Ben Goldberg at UGA about healthcare administration, his experience in the field, and how that affects patient outcomes in the hospital. Hi, how's your week been been?

SPEAKER_00 0:16

It's been great. Been a little busy just getting things wrapped up at the end of uh this past academic year at the university, but pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Yeah. How much longer do you guys have for school out there?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Uh so the univers the academic year just ended, so summer classes have started um in full swing, uh starting this week actually. So um normally the semester ends usually around May 13th or around the second week of every May. So we're kind of in that lull right now, which is good. Um, so everything won't start back until about the second, third week of August.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Okay. So catching up from last year to get next year started.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yes, trying to take inventory of all the stuff we have, moving some stuff around, getting new equipment, all the fun stuff and new construction going on in the building. So dealing with all that and trying to figure out like marketing campaigns and all that has been a joy.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Cool, cool. Well, give us a breakdown on what it is that you normally do in the full swing of things, what a day looks like, what a semester looks like, any of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Yeah, so like at a high level, my job is more so about helping people connect with the resources that we hear or that we have here on campus, um, mostly to improve their overall well-being. So, as my role as the assistant director for marketing communications here at UGA Rec Sports, um, I oversee like the marketing strategy, uh, daily communications, social media, um, website content, and then I also oversee a small student marketing team. Um, a lot of my work involves figuring out how to take information and make it meaningful, engaging, and actionable for students since we do have about 40,000 students here on campus. So just trying to get casting a wide net to capture as much as we can. Um, in a typical week, I would say my days are really varied. Um, like I said earlier, I oversee a lot of the marketing communications for the department. So one day I may be working on a social media campaign with my students. The next I'm in a meeting with campus partners, uh, reviewing website content, planning different events across campus, um, or even just managing my student staff on a daily basis. Um, however, what ties that all together is kind of figuring out how to connect all these different people with the resources that we can have a positive impact on their well-being. Anything from like fitness and wellness, outdoor recreation, um, even just coming into the facility and checking things out and knowing what programs that we do have to offer kind of make a big difference to kind of get their foot in the door and that long-term goal of just having them come and visit our facility. Um I would say probably like most of what takes up my time is probably more so of just taking up um like thinking about any strategic uh marketing plans or communication plans that we have each semester, every year. Um, we have incredible programs that are available to all of our students, but just simply operating them isn't really enough. Um, like I mentioned before, we the goal is to really get them in the door. Um, so we have to understand our audience, identify any barriers that are um impacting participation for fitness classes or outdoor recreational trips, and just find a way to communicate that in a way that resonates with our student population, um, whether that's a social media campaign with a bunch of different reels that just make it exciting and engaging, uh, providing it uh the information on our website, updating everything to make it really easy to find and really simple, or just doing event promotions throughout the university, tabling, anything like that. Overall, I'd say the goal is just helping students understand how those opportunities can benefit them while they're here as students and just utilizing that um to the most potential that they have throughout their four years here at the university or more if they're going to grad school.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Nice. You went to grad school there, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yes. So I did go to school here from 2020 to 2022. Um, I received my master's in healthcare administration. Um, during that time, I actually worked for this department as a graduate assistant for facility operations. So a lot of my background initially before coming back was um the day-to-day operations with the facility staff, maintaining equipment, um, a lot of risk management preparations in case something were to happen and just managing the staff day-to-day. Um, and so coming back into this role was more so I wanted to keep that forward-facing um nature in my role and just being able to engage with students and kind of help guide them with any questions that they have about our facility.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Okay. So you went for healthcare administration. That's not specifically really what you're doing at the moment with your position. Have you done anything with that in the past?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Um, in the past, I have. So previously um I worked at an organization called Healthcare Outcomes Performance Company or Hopco. So during that time, um, I started initially as an administrative fellow. Um, basically, it was like an internship that gave me a lot of FaceTime with CC C-suite executives and a lot of leaders within the organization that you normally wouldn't have at an entry-level position. And so in that role, I learned a lot about the inner workings of the organization, being able to work with, I think we had four or five different um health system partners at that time. So I was able to kind of see how every organization did everything differently. Um, so that was a great learning opportunity. And so um, after my first initial year, I was hired on as a program coordinator. Um, and as a program coordinator, I kind of helped project manage everything from like governance structures, um, anything from like meetings, travel, um, and just getting everybody's uh together to kind of figure out what they needed to do.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Yeah. How long did you say you were there?

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Um, I was there for about three years.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Okay. Did you enjoy doing the work with healthcare administration?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

I did. I really enjoyed in my role. Um, I did have an aspect of my role that allowed me to work with our graduate um programs. So um, every summer we had graduate um interns and then our administrative fellows that were there for a year-long uh program. And so that aspect of my role, being able to mentor and kind of help them learn and provide opportunities that weren't available to me, whether I was a student or while I was in my uh fellowship uh at that time, um, allowing them to have more professional development opportunities is kind of where I kind of saw myself flourishing in the day-to-day project management. I really enjoyed that aspect of my role. Um, there was just a lot of inner workings that I didn't really myself understand. Um kind of a challenge having a non-clinical background. So just um I think that's something that a lot of early careerists struggle with uh going into healthcare management if they don't have clinical background. Um, it's just more so of a learning curve and being able to move forward from that and not feel as intimidated while you're progressing in that role.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah, that's something that I've always considered being a bedside nurse, being a clinician, there seems to be a gap between administration and clinicians, not necessarily in like a bad way or like enemies or anything, but just sometimes it feels like they don't understand what we do and we don't understand what they do. And I can always tell a difference when someone as simple as like my nurse manager or even the chief nursing officer had background at the bedside because it's such a distinct environment to work in. I always equate it with honestly being in the military, being frontline worker, seriously, because there's just a certain flow to the day, a certain way that you speak about things, a certain way that things interact with you and your day and how it affects you, that's it's just very distinct to that career. So I'm always curious to learn more about the other side because I haven't seen it. And um, you know, nurses have their thoughts and opinions about administration, and I'm sure administration has their thoughts and opinions about staff. So you didn't work in that specific environment. Did you ever see any of those kind of interactions yourself?

SPEAKER_00 8:01

I did have exposure. Um, so the good thing about the role that I was in being a project manager, I was able to kind of see um everything from like a 10,000 foot their 30,000-foot view. Um so being able to kind of see everything from like the boots on the ground, nurses that were actually um engaging with the patients and taking care for the patients, um, all the way up to like the C-suite executives to kind of see how that communication chain worked. Um so I think what causes a lot of like that system breakdown um is more so about the visibility and communication. I don't necessarily think it's it's not that people don't care, whether that's from like y'all's side or from the administrator side. I think it's more so we've just built a system that's mainly more so about like treating the illness rather than like promoting health overall. And so a lot of administrators feel that pressure to kind of get that bottom line and get that dollar out rather than just kind of seeing everything from y'all side of things. Um, and so that breakdown in communication is like very, very high, in my opinion, because everything kind of trickles down, and y'all probably only see like a small fraction of what's getting communicated to even like your managers, and your managers are only getting a small fraction of what's giving to them. So, like large organizations can become very siloed, um, and that information doesn't always flow as effectively as it should. So, a lot of my career was kind of has been and still is like helping bridge those gaps and communication, making sure everybody feels heard because at the same time, you're gonna have managers that are getting report from you all about things that are going on on the floor, and then everything's not getting reported up all the way to C-suite or the VP's office that needs to be communicated. So they're only getting bits and pieces. So I think overall, kind of my previous role helped bridge that gap.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Okay, that's cool. Where do you think that pressure comes from? Because it always like for me, it always felt like it was coming from management, even though I know it's coming from several levels higher up than that. Like where is there a source of like the one focal point that that's coming from?

SPEAKER_00 10:06

I think it really varies depend organization to organization, because you also have like a board of regents half the time. Like here at the university, a lot of our decisions are based off of um what the board of regents says and things that we can get approved. And I think you have a lot of boards at the university or not the university, the hospital level or at system level that kind of help um help I'm not gonna say navigate. I don't know what the word I'm looking for, but just kind of helping uh it's not always the most helpful thing in terms of guidance and what they offer. Um so that kind of helped narrows down what the decisions are made from like this uh C-suite. Because if the board says one thing, the executives are kind of their hands are kind of tied about what decisions they can have and make without getting the boot on their end if they don't necessarily agree with the board.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah. This is honestly one of the biggest reasons that I wanted to start having these conversations and sharing this knowledge with people is because coming from the inside. I mean, I think for both of us, it's such a distinct view that you get. You know, it's kind of like going on a hike. You don't see the view unless you've climbed that hill. And um just trying to share that insight because I don't this might sound fatalistic, but I don't see it getting any better. And um just trying to help people advocate for themselves and learn more about their bodies and their health just so that they know how to approach this realistically and make the best decisions for them. But it does still feel futile, you know. The American healthcare system is a beast in of itself. And for me, I've always said that um particularly with COVID, it was like the Swiss cheese effect. It highlighted all the holes in the system, but it doesn't feel like the holes are really getting fixed or adjusted. Do you feel the same way on your side?

SPEAKER_00 11:54

I would agree with that. Um, again, I think it varies between organization and what their priorities are, especially since COVID. Um, I will say that is definitely part of the reason that I kind of exited that private sector. Um kind of moved back into higher ed. Um, not necessarily of like, I didn't want to have to deal with that, but I kind of felt for my role and my skill set, I was gonna be more beneficial from like the student side of things as a mentor and helping them develop and helping them prepare for real life, so to speak, um, that they may not have had during their academic uh training. And so um I think being able to prepare these students, whether they're going to med school, whether they're going to an administrative role, whether they're going to nursing school, um, I think clinical or not, at the end of the day, like you've been talking about in your podcast, it all talks about that the foundations that we all need. So if these students can learn about these programs that we offer here at the university and they can kind of get their feet wet and like a fitness class or an outdoor recreational trip. And I think that's one thing we do well is like there's something for everybody, like whether that's a club sport, if you want to play flag football, whether you want to lift some weights here at the gym, or um, if you want to just go hiking or paddle boarding, like you have a variety of things that are open to you. It's not like, oh, I own this is only a gym. Like I can only do this, I can only lift weights. And that's not the case. And so this allows people to kind of focus more on their overall physical and mental well-being. I think initially we start off with that physical well-being to kind of help them realize, like, oh, hey, this should be a priority in my life. And then in that turn, they kind of realize, oh, hey, I'm doing great physically. Well, what about mentally? And so partnering with all these other organizations here on campus allow us to um bridge that gap so that they're aware of all the well-being resources to help them mentally and physically. We're just kind of more so of the flagship, so to speak, um, in terms of like the physical well-being. So kind of helping them navigate their way.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yeah, that's one of my topics that I really like to hit on a lot too, is that the physiological and the psychological are much more connected than what people probably realize most times. But kind of to piggyback off what you were saying, like you left where you were with the private sector with health admin. I felt the same way. I loved what I did as an ICU nurse. I love taking care of patients day in, day out. But it just gets to a point where the system is basically defeating you in your own goals and endeavors to do your job that it's asking you to do in the first place. And it starts to wear on you. And it became a little bit too challenging to continue to get up every day and to go into the hospital and feel like I was making a difference, let alone helping somebody, even though I knew I was, you kind of start to feel like a cog in this broken clock that's not actually telling the appropriate time. You know what I mean? So it makes me sad. I don't like to see how the system is, and I hate to say that it's broken, it'll never be fixed. I have hope that it will be. But I think a lot of people can relate probably to both sides of wanting to do the best for everybody else, but also really having to take into consideration yourself and your own health. And that's ultimately a part of the conversation, no matter whose side you're on. Um, you were talking about bridging gaps a little bit previously when you're doing health admin with. Can you talk more about the gaps that you were seeing specifically, is what I'm trying to get at.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Um, I guess for me, for my side of things, it was mostly communication. Um, things would get lost in translation via email, so that would require like more meetings to be scheduled, meetings for meetings, um, so to speak, and then things just weren't getting communicated properly from uh from the chain down, so to speak, or even like from the bottom up. Um and so that was one thing that I did enjoy about my role is like meeting everybody that had hands-on with the patients and feeling their headaches and then being able to communicate that effectively up the chain. Um, because again, like I said before, there's things that managers don't they like to share the good, not necessarily all the bad. And so they kind of cherry pick of like what they would what they would prefer to share. So it makes them look better. Um and I think we all have that in ourselves. It's not necessarily just managers. We all kind of want to cherry pick like the good and the bad of like, oh, I did XYZ, but this makes me look still good, even though I made this a mess up. Um, and so I think that's something that pride can we need to kind of put our pride to the side, especially as you move up into a management level, or even if especially as somebody that has no clinical experience, I just kind of sat in the back of the room and would hear everybody out and just make sure I heard them correctly. And if there was something I didn't understand, um, I think for me it was just a learning opportunity. And I think there are some leaders out there that do understand that and they do take that as a learning opportunity to learn from their staff, um, clinical and non-clinical. Um, but I think there are very many people out there who do the opposite and they just don't care. Yeah. I have a master's, I have a doctorate in healthcare management. I'm here, I know all the business side of things. Let me do my job and you do your job. Like you're just here to take care of patients. I'm here to do spreadsheets and make the hospital money, even though we're all working together.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

That was their side, you're saying, like that's where that barrier comes in?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah. What surprised you the most when starting that work? Like, was it what you expected when you got into doing that?

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Um, honestly, I don't think I I think I was young and naive about like, oh, I'm gonna have this cool consulting job and healthcare, and I'm gonna get to travel, get to see all these different hospitals and see all these different surgeries, and everything was like very orthopedic specific. So obviously a huge moneymaker for um all the hospitals, and so I was able to see like how all those big decisions were made, but I don't think in the back end of things because I was so used to like when we were in school together, I heard about like everything that y'all were doing with your clinicals and like even being married to a nurse, I hear like whether you wanted to or not, exactly, and so it gave me a different perspective going into my role and having an understanding of like the work that you all do, yeah, um, and just being more empathetic to those decisions, um, and kind of making sure that those whether it was relevant or not, making sure that was still a consideration if a decision was being made, because at some point it is going to impact the patient. Um, and I think at the end of the day, they are more worried about how that impacts the patient, not and necessarily impacts the staff who then will impact the patient. Um, and so there's I feel like there's like a middleman that they always forget about most of the time when making those decisions, and it's always more so about like patient outcomes, not necessarily about staff outcomes. Um, so yeah, that was definitely something that was surprising for me.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

No, I think that's a really good point that I've noticed that as well. When I was doing travel nursing, it seems to be because similar to you, I thought, oh, I'll go travel and I'll find the perfect hospital, the perfect system, and it'll all be great. And you realize it's all just the same. It's just a different tree or a different mountain or a different look. And the best experience I had was in California, which is like the best state for nursing overall. And so it was interesting to note the differences from state to state or hospital to hospital. But the thing that I noted there was basically exactly what you're saying. The middleman wasn't forgotten. They took care of their staff, they took care of their nurses, they checked on them. We had constant breaks. And as a result, the patient care was better. And so I do feel like, yes, patient care is important, outcomes are important, but if you're forgetting that middleman, you're directly forgetting your end result, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

And I also think that people may assume that healthcare is just like one system when it's actually like a collection of so many interconnected ones. Like you have providers, you have nurses, you have the hospital itself, you have insurance insurances, technology platforms, and the patients are trying to navigate everything all at once. Um most people working within healthcare, like you and I, generally just want to improve the outcomes overall, but that complexity makes it very difficult because you have so many hands in the pot trying to make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

It is a very complex system. Very much. Um, what does I guess good performance or success look like in that role that you were in?

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Like currently, or am I?

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Um the previous one with a health admin. Like, what would look like success in that position to help improve outcomes?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Um, I think just good like for Hopco, that might mean like improving patient outcomes or helping a system become more efficient in their workflow. Um, basically from when a patient comes into the OR for a surgery all the way up until they're discharged. So just finding ways to make that more efficient was probably the best way to measure like what good performance was. Like this is your this is your baseline, this is where you're at when we'd first come into the facility. Um, and then over the course of several months, we'd kind of see what needed improvement. Um, and usually by like the third month, we're already implementing things and making changes or recommendations, I should say. And then that governance structure would be adopted all the way from the first decision would be made from the bottom tier with like pre-op, post-op, pack you, and then everything would kind of move up up into like the management suite, up all the way up to C suite. Um, and so they that lower management level kind of felt like they were making more decisions that were relevant to the department. Um, and so I think that's where like good performance was kind of structured around, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

And like, for example, coming into this role now, like at the university, it could mean more of like students participating in more programs that support their overall well being um or just how they feel connected here on campus and building that community. So very opposite ends of the spectrum of like what that good performance looks like. But also at the end of the day, it's just like More like better patient outcomes, better participation. And like it's all kind of the same when you talk about like metric-wise.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

How often do you see that?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

In this role, a lot more. A lot easier. Because you also have to deal with another aspect, like especially like post-op of health literacy, is a huge, huge problem, uh, like across the country. And so that's not necessarily an issue at a at a gym or a recreational center, is you can they'll be a little bit more confident in asking questions on things they don't know, as opposed to going to the provider and asking questions from the clinic. And most of the time the information's there, they just may not know how to get to it. And so even then, they don't necessarily want to get to it. They're kind of lazy, they have competing priorities, and I think everybody's just kind of all over the place when it comes to that.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah, I agree. That was the biggest lesson that I didn't expect, and ultimately why I'm here doing this is health literacy was the biggest problem. Even if we have all this heart disease or the strokes or the physical ailments, the preventative care at the end of the day, the crux of the situation is the lack of health understanding. The information's out there, but it's actually, yeah, receiving it and ingesting it and digesting it and comprehending it. And I don't put that on the fault of the listener or the patient entirely, because, and I think this is kind of where it comes back to the system a little bit is we'll hand you a pamphlet, you'll have a five-minute conversation with a doctor, and you'll be on your way. And a lot of this stuff is really complex. Like, I've been in healthcare for a decade and I'm still learning things. Like this is constantly evolving. We constantly have new research. So, yeah, it's wading through all the information, understanding it, and then let alone how to apply it. Like, I went to school for four years for this, and then you went for like six. So I don't blame people for not. I know, we're still learning. I don't blame people for not completely getting it or having frustration with the system. And it's frustrating to feel like the system isn't helping the people that it was built for all the time. So I'm sure people are gonna listen to this and think that I'm completely out to get the system that I absolutely hate it. I don't, I'm just frustrated because I want it to be better and I care. So I think you probably are in the same boat there. But um I've just been asking myself throughout my whole career, but for this whole thing is like where can we move the needle even a little bit? Where can we make some kind of improvements on either side to see some positive outcomes?

SPEAKER_00 24:42

I think especially like being in this marketing role, it's kind of helped me understand like the importance of communication and like tailoring everything to your audience. Um, I think focusing more on like community outreach initiatives are beneficial to a point, but I also think like collaborating with other organizations or like local smaller programmings or programs or community initiatives kind of help bridge that gap a little bit more. Um, because at the end of the day, like where we went to school, everybody kind of went to the one hospital that was the only hospital within an hour. And so nobody really focused on the other supplementary like programs that were around in the community that are available to them. Um and even the school that we had gone to didn't provide probably like not comparing it's not comparing apple to apples, it's definitely comparing apples to oranges by the University of Georgia versus like Austin P. But like Austin P had very little well-being programming available to us as students or just like programs in general compared to a university of this size that has 80 something thousand 70,000 students, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

So yeah. All the additional funding and resources always seems to help, which is part of the frustrating part. But you were talking about um being happier that you left the health admin and also taking those skills with you to apply to your new position. I noticed that as well when I was transitioning away from the bedside to telehealth, and it really it's one of those things that you don't notice it until you start paying attention, right? And then you have to start focusing, like, oh, okay, I can actually do these things, and then how that plays into the broader picture of things. What were some of those skills that you feel like were most beneficial, most applicable?

SPEAKER_00 26:31

I think coming into this role, definitely the project management aspect of it. Um, in my previous role, I'm balancing like 16 different hospitals, their governance structures, all those meetings on top of like the regular team that I was a part of. Um, and so coming into a smaller group that is one department instead of 16 hospitals was very night and day. But I think bringing in the structure that I had in my previous role has allowed me to be a lot more successful, um, especially when it comes to like the storytelling, like all the different programs, the student experiences that students share with us, um, and just being able to share that like with the university or like the community at large. I just find it um I enjoy finding different ways to tell those stories and helping people understand the value of what they're doing. Um, whether that's our department or other departments here on campus. Um, I think those moments kind of remind me and others that communication isn't just about like promoting something. Um, and it's more so about just connecting people with the different opportunities that can genuinely impact um their college experience while they're here. Um, and then turn lasting impacts after they graduate. Like, for like example, the first thing that pops up to me is like when I first started here, probably within the first month, we had a student reach out who uh is a pharmacy in pharmacy school. He's getting ready to finish up um his program, and he had let us know that um he had completed his first through hike through Scotland by himself. Um so the previous year he had participated in one or two outdoor recreational trips, kind of got familiar with hiking, never grew up hiking in his life, never been camping, backpacking, anything like that, um, and kind of helped build his confidence up of getting comfortable outdoors. Well, then when he got to the point of feeling confident of like, oh, I want to do a through hike, I'm gonna go to Scotland and do this. He got more comfortable with participating in like fitness programming and particular like actually going to the gym, uh, following a program plan to like get physically like ready to be able to do that. Um, and just being able to hear that and share his story was something that was great to me. Um, and I think um kind of showed like uh what I mentioned earlier, like we have something for everybody. Like, you don't have to come in here and lift all the heavy weight, you don't have to hike if you really don't want to hike. You can play flag football and be perfectly content for your four years, five years, six years here, um, and meet friends that'll have like the lifetime of um relationships afterwards. And so being able to just tell those stories has been something that um I think between my previous role and this role, being able to like kind of project manage all that and being able to ensure that we're following that storytelling effectively has been beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

So yeah. Yeah, that's one lesson that I like too. It's easy to get on social media and everybody tells you you have to do one thing. It's like, well, okay, sure. If you want this outcome, like sure, you need to lift weights. I always advocate for that for everybody for multiple different reasons than just having large muscles, but it doesn't have to just be lifting weights for those uh benefits, right? So yeah, find something because if the alternative is doing nothing, then something is better than nothing. Exactly. So what has working in healthcare changed how you think about health personally?

SPEAKER_00 29:47

I think I've come to appreciate that my health is much more broader than just like medical care, as all college students were and all of us when we were young.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Sleep, stress management.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

What is it?

SPEAKER_00 29:59

We are all like really poor at focusing on that and mainly focusing on like the social connections. So I think just being able to find a way to like prioritize my sleep, my physical activity, my stress and social connections, um, and just finding my sense of purpose um played a huge role in that. Um and I think that's one of the reasons that I enjoy working back here at college recreation um is now because of I have to know how to focus that and tell that story to other students. I think in my role, especially in marketing communications, I can't effectively market that kind of programming or content if I'm not actually participating in it and myself. And it's it to me, it feels like a facade if I can sit here and tell you, like, oh, we have these great programs, we have all this stuff to offer you, but I'm not gonna participate in it. So I feel like I can be more honest with people about like what's it may not be my cup of tea, like I'm not gonna sit here and lie to you. I'm not gonna show up to a 6 a.m. cycling class, but I'll do it. I'll do it once or twice. Um, just so I can get the experience and tell people about it, but I'm not gonna do it every day or every other day.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Yeah. Just give people the information, but say, hey, I can't necessarily advocate for it on my own personal standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Yeah, exactly. And I think part of like when I was in school here too, I m a lot of my like graduate research was on like student well-being and how like recreation um can help improve that. Um, and so just being able to figure out how um a lot of those upstream factors can influence our overall well-being, whether it's just one or two programs at a time. And it just takes one program for them to attend to make a huge difference. That could just be the one thing that really gets them off the seat and gets them here in the gym.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Yeah. What do you think is something that people or students in your case most often misunderstand about health or even healthcare systems, if you want to talk about that?

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Um, I think I think I'd go back to like what I mentioned earlier about how everything's like so interconnected, like there's so many moving parts. Yeah. Um, especially like even here at the university, we have like four or five different like uh programs that focus on well-being as a whole, but then each of those departments have different programming that is available to them. And so I think sometimes, especially when we get to like the digital platforms for uh like stress management or well-being or counseling, sometimes it can seem overwhelming and not not everything seems like really interconnected and just seems very intimidating to them. And I think that's the biggest thing is just trying to just see what's available to you and just take chunks of it at a time. I think we kind of look at everything of especially like when it comes to insurances and everything, we just see like, oh, I'm gonna just do my annual like checkup. That's fine. Yeah, that's better than nothing, like we said earlier. Um, and so I think that building block of like, oh, now I gotta do all this blood work, I gotta do all this. And so I think a lot of people that don't have the best experiences with healthcare, um, they kind of get into that that functional freeze of like, okay, well, now my provider's wanting me to go do all this blood work, now I gotta go see a specialist, now I gotta do all this, and it just kind of compounds and stresses them out, and they're just like, okay, well, now I'm not gonna do this because now I gotta do all these things and I'm worried about money and I'm worried about this. And so I think that's one thing that they really misunderstand is like you can do baby steps, you can take it out like a chunk at a time. You don't necessarily have to do everything at once. Um, and so I think just taking your time with it, I think that was one thing I definitely had to learn, especially when I I got diagnosed late with ADHD and just kind of figuring out like what worked with me, working with like providers about like hormonal issues and some other stuff, and not trying to do everything all at once, um, even though it kind of felt that way. But uh again, kind of what you mentioned, everybody's telling you on social media what you need to do. You need to do this one thing that'll fix everything that you need to do, and that's not always the case. Yeah. Um just kind of doing all the little things to kind of help build on that one big thing.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Yeah, it's always the perfect plan. You have to do this with your sleep, you have to do this with your stress. It's like this laundry list of stuff that you have to do. And sometimes just getting a couple of them done or just doing the best that you can that works for you is enough. But yeah, that comes back to that health literacy question. You talked about um the telehealth or the virtual, particularly with the mental health aspects. I've been curious more and more about technology and how it's gonna affect younger generations in particular, right? Because we're millennials, so we came from a time when that didn't exist previously. And I don't think we have enough research on it just yet, and it's growing, but particularly with therapy and mental health in the way of like AI, I feel like there's a lot more different systems that are coming up that are virtual in that aspect, and it's kind of like what you're saying, where those can be helpful, but sometimes they can kind of miss the mark a little bit, because sometimes the whole point is you just need a hug or you just need a friend or somebody to actually sit and be present with. But I'm curious if you are noticing that in your environment since you're around students and in health.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Yes and no. I think this generation, like you said, primarily so used to being on their phone or stuck virtually, especially like COVID, I think like really like elaborated that for everybody to make that the norm. Um, I will say one of the I can't remember the name off the top of my head, um, but one of the platforms that we use for students to utilize, it allows them it's like a peer. So think of like Reddit, but for like well-being. So basically these students can log into like this. It's dangerous. And so it is so it is monitored by like uh licensed professionals and everything in case something does like something's talked about that doesn't need to necessarily be in there or is of concern. But um, I think the best way to is like a Reddit thread. And so students can sit there and they can ask certain questions of like, hey, I'm from out of state, I'm really struggling making friends. Does anybody have recommendations of like certain events I should attend here on campus to make more friends or places I should go and stuff like that? And so it's more so of like a peer, peer-to-peer conversation instead of sitting there, and I think there is also like a lot of people have um concerns of like, well, somebody always has it worse than I do. I don't need to go to therapy. Um, or there's nothing wrong with me, why would I need to go to therapy? My problems are like not that big. Like, why would I want to bother somebody when somebody else has 10 times more problems?

SPEAKER_01 36:44

It's just self-gaslighting.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Exactly. And so I think having those peer-to-peer conversations kind of help them be more comfortable if they're not ready to take that next step and talk to a licensed professional.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

Yeah. Vulnerability will always help heal pretty much anything, but it's scary to get into, which is where the shame comes in, which is why you need the vulnerability. So it's a little hamster wheel there. Yeah. Have you heard or read the book Um The Anxious Generation? It's pretty much about this specific topic with um telephone or cell phones, social media, things like that, um, affecting younger generations, increase in anxiety and mental health issues. And then I think it's more guided towards parents of this generation so that they can be aware and then also have some tips to help adjust. So it's on my to read list. I haven't read it, but I'd be interested to learn more about that.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Yeah, for sure. I'll have to add that to my list as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yeah. Um, but pivoting back to um healthcare, is there anything that you wish that people knew? And tell me if I asked this already. Is there anything you wish that people knew about either your current job or your previous job or both? Working in health admin? Because they seem to be relatively similar. It's just kind of the environment.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

I'd say like with my like earlier in my career, like working with the different health systems like across the country, help like helping improve like quality operations and patient care processes, um, was very beneficial for me. But I would say like now that I work in like higher k higher education, like leading marketing communication initiatives for one of the largest like student rec facilities here in the United States. I think on paper they sound like very different industries. Um, but both roles play like a really important role um in helping people like better their lives. Um, it's just um what's the word I'm looking for? Preventative versus like while they're there. So um I think for me, like one focuses more on like healthcare delivery and the other one focuses more about the overall like well-being, the prevention, um, and just creating those community environments where people can thrive in, like we talked about earlier, um, before they even need medical care. Because once they get comfortable and find that community, I feel like people get more comfortable to seek out that medical care, especially if they have a strong support, support group or community to kind of help back them and encourage them.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Yeah. Is there anything that you're currently working towards in your current role or as a next role as you've worked to transition?

SPEAKER_00 39:29

I think for me it's like not necessarily like the next role, but I or maybe like the next thing in terms of like long-term over the next few years for like my role specifically in like the department. I think my goal is more so focusing on helping students realize or at least think about how well-being is more like holistic instead of like, you know, like a lot of students know like rec is like rec sports in my department, is like a gym and we offer so much, like they may not be aware that we offer so much more than that. Yeah. Um, but like we're just trying to help students connect with different opportunities that support like physical, their mental, social, um, and just their overall college experience. So I think from like a marketing perspective, um, it's about mark making those resources more visible and accessible to them than we have in the past. Because more so, like if you're just looking at like social media or anything that's on our website, that's great. All the information's there, but not everybody's gonna know that we have a social media page. Not everybody's gonna be aware that we have all that information on the website. Um, and so just taking that extra step to like be present, like at events, tabling, coming to speak with different students at like first first year classes, anything like that, to kind of just share that information verbally and in person. Um, that way if they have questions that's at least a familiar face, they know who to reach out to.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Nice, nice. Well, is there anything else you wanted to cover today that we didn't get to talk about?

SPEAKER_00 41:02

I think if there's one thing that I've taken away from like my career so far, even though I'm only like less than a decade in, it's that health can be complicated, but it doesn't necessarily have to be intimidating. So the more that we can help people understand how their bodies work and give them like practical ways to improve their well-being, um, I feel like the more they're going to be more empowered um to become and take ownership of their own health later on in life. So I think that's just something that people really need to consider, especially like from both sides of like healthcare management and even just from the clinical side as well.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Yeah, I agree. It can be both systems can be intimidating, either the healthcare or your body. So making it make more sense and ideally be less scary because they both can be.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Yeah. Very much so.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Well, thank you for your time today. I enjoyed our conversation.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Of course. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. If you found that helpful, please like and subscribe or share it with someone else who might find it interesting. You can always reach out to me, leave a comment, or find me on Instagram at Health Recoded Podcast if you have any questions or any topics that you want covered. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you guys next week.