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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Jill West, Chief Executive Officer of People Incorporated Mental Health Services
00:08:37
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- [00:00]
Insight Global Health Representative
At Insight Global Health, we are dedicated to helping you and improving healthcare for everyone. That means building stronger teams and delivering sustainable solutions that truly make a difference. We offer a full spectrum of talent and technical services and deliver cross industry expertise to bring you innovative best practices to solve the problems that we face in healthcare. We're not just promising you results, we are delivering them. Visit us@insightglobal.com hello and welcome to the.
- [00:27]
Beckers Healthcare Host
Beckers Healthcare Podcast, recorded live in Chicago at the Beckers 15th annual meeting. I'm joined today by Jill West, CEO of People Incorporated Mental Health Services. Jill, would you take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your organization?
- [00:40]
Jill Wiedemann West
Sure. Again, my name is Jill Wiedemann West. I'm with People Incorporated. I am the CEO of the organization. People Incorporated is a sort of a nonprofit community based entity in Minnesota. We are the largest of the nonprofit community based entities in Minnesota serving Minnesota's mental health needs and of course, co occurring other disorders as our clients experience them.
- [01:08]
Beckers Healthcare Host
Awesome. Well, in the last 12 months, what's an initiative that you took on that you're particularly proud of and what impact has it had on your organization so far?
- [01:16]
Jill Wiedemann West
You know, we've taken on a lot of initiatives because we came out of COVID realizing that everything we thought we knew needed to be altered. And so we've taken on a lot of initiatives. But one of the initiatives that I've been really most proud of is we've looked at our organization very differently in terms of how we're engaging our community and really worked to get out into the community, into places where we find individuals that are in need of services, whether they know they are or not, but are not likely to knock on our door or pick up the phone and call us either because of fear or their own sense of where they're at or maybe bad experiences in the past. But a lot of those folks that don't show up at the door, we need to be out there in the community creating that wellness platform by making sure that we're meeting them where they're comfortable and letting them know that these services exist.
- [02:14]
Beckers Healthcare Host
So you mentioned Covid and post Covid, have you seen a drastic increase in the amount of people seeking mental health services or how has that changed things?
- [02:23]
Jill Wiedemann West
No, absolutely. You know, to be quite honest with you, Covid. Covid. And I don't want this to sound bad, but Covid was wonderful for mental health because I think there's a lot of stigma with mental health and people definitely didn't want to talk about it. As much. And those of us in the field, we struggle recognizing that everyone has mental health. But there was a lot of that stigma. Covid changed a lot of that because we went through a period of time that was so extraordinarily unprecedented with the pandemic and the social and political unrest and whatnot. That even if it was as simple as I've been stuck in the house for a year with my children and my spouse, people all of a sudden started to recognize, you know, I feel a little anxious, you know, I feel a little blunted. I, I feel a little sad. Sometimes when I watch the news, I get so just sort of, sort of dissatisfied and sad that I don't really know how to handle it. So I'm not watching the news anymore. Those are all aspects of managing our mental wellness. And it' been beautiful for the field because we've actually acknowledged, and I think more people are acknowledging their need for supports around mental wellness.
- [03:36]
Beckers Healthcare Host
And what would you say right now is the biggest challenge facing the mental health care industry and how is your organization addressing it?
- [03:44]
Jill Wiedemann West
You know, I think there's a number of things that, that are really big, but I, I, I'm going to pick two, not just one. If that's okay, I'll go fast. One of them, I think, is that we have to really acknowledge mental wellness as a fundamental part of overall healthcare and overall patient wellness. People who are not managing depression symptoms or not managing anxiety symptoms or that don't have safe and secure housing or food or all of those things are not going to do well in rehab after a cardiac event or managing their diabetes or their hypertensive disorder. So the more we can come together as a healthcare entity overall, really acknowledging that we need to work together, I think is really a challenging space right now. But it is a place where I believe we actually move the needle on outcomes. It's also the place where we transform the system to be, I think, more equitable. Secondarily, I think the challenges just really making sure that we're getting into all of our communities. You know, we have to remember that in every, you know, part of the United States, we have individuals that did not grow up in the United States. And for some of those individuals, there isn't a word in the language that they grew up with for mental wellness or mental health. For many of those people, they don't go to a clinic or a hospital until they are ready for death because that's just how their culture approaches it. And as a result of that, we really have to be really Thoughtful about how are we truly getting to all of our citizens, not just the ones that we know.
- [05:34]
Beckers Healthcare Host
Post Covid, a lot has changed in the workforce and it remains the number one challenge for many leaders in healthcare. How are you addressing workforce challenges within your organization?
- [05:46]
Jill Wiedemann West
Well, we have been. We have about 750 employees where I work and for more than six years we've been at least 75 to 130 positions down at any given time. And certainly post Covid, it's been much worse. It is something that has been going on for a while and so one of the things that we've had to do is we've had to think about how it is that we gain workforce and stabilize. What is a lot of people not going into healthcare because it's hard, you know, a lot of people choosing different routes that maybe are a little bit better at work life balance are a little bit more capable of managing a 9 to 5 kind of environment. One of the things that we've looked at is creating what, you know, we've called our Pathways program, but it's really evolved into a work place excellence initiative where we are not only training our internal employees at a career path, so coming in, moving them consistently in the organization and giving them a career path so they don't want to go somewhere else but outside, really bringing in in our field, unheard of paid internships, bringing in individuals from communities that maybe didn't think they could without a degree, work in our space and create a career path for them in the training and coaching and mentoring necessary for them to not only be able to start a career, but to be able to grow a career. We are doing this at a number of levels with training, you know, working on experiential programming, internships, but we're also doing a ton with helping people go back to school or start school with degree programs that they get discounts for or they get experiential credit for the work they're doing at People Incorporated. So this has been a huge initiative for us and I think it is essential to our future.
- [07:45]
Beckers Healthcare Host
Awesome. I love that answer. And you've clearly learned a lot throughout your career. And if you were to, you know, give one piece of advice for young leaders in the mental health space, what would that be?
- [07:58]
Jill Wiedemann West
Gosh, what I would say is find your true north. Find out what gets you up in the morning and then be a relentless champion for it. It'll keep the joy that you you need in your career. It will keep the momentum that you need to get through those hard days. And most importantly, you will naturally become a transformational leader in our space and, you know, find your true north and relentlessly go after it.
- [08:27]
Beckers Healthcare Host
Oh, my gosh, I love that answer. Jill, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.
- [08:32]
Jill Wiedemann West
Thank you for asking me.
- [08:33]
Beckers Healthcare Host
My pleasure. You have a lovely rest of your day.