#577: Optimizing the patient experience with Tracey Schroeder, Inova Health System

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® – Episode #577

Title: Optimizing the Patient Experience with Tracey Schroeder, Inova Health System
Date: September 18, 2024
Guest: Tracey Schroeder, Chief Communications and External Affairs Officer, Inova Health System
Host: Greg Kihlström

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Episode Overview

This episode explores how healthcare organizations can deliver exceptional patient experiences while navigating strict privacy regulations and evolving consumer expectations. Guest Tracey Schroeder shares insights from her transition from hospitality (as former Global Head of Consumer PR at Marriott International) to healthcare, providing a unique perspective on leveraging cross-industry best practices to enhance patient care, communications, and loyalty.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Transition from Hospitality to Healthcare

• Mission-Driven Work: After 20+ years in corporate America, Tracey was drawn to healthcare for the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on people’s lives ([02:36]).
• Culture at Inova: The authenticity and patient-centric mission at Inova continues to motivate her team, reinforced by leadership:
  “Every single person, no matter if they're at the bedside or behind the desk, impacts our delivery of healthcare.” (Tracey Schroeder, [03:36])
• Similarities and Differences: Both hospitality and healthcare focus on taking care of people—healthcare often when they are at their most vulnerable ([04:31]).

2. The Balance of Patient Experience and Privacy

• Compliance as Baseline: Patient privacy is non-negotiable, but compliance also creates a foundation for individualized, data-driven experiences ([06:37]).
• Empowering Patients: Tools like patient portals give access to histories, appointments, bills, and prescriptions, allowing patients to advocate for themselves and relieving points of friction.
• Personalized Engagement: Data enables tailored reminders (e.g., appointments, flu shots) and facilitates “one-to-one care” ([06:37]).

Notable Quote

“If HIPAA and other privacy regulations are our baseline, there are many things we can do to positively affect patient experience and use that vast amount of information at our disposal.”
– Tracey Schroeder ([06:37])

3. Communicating Privacy and Building Trust

• Trust is Ingrained: In healthcare, privacy is expected by consumers—patients trust systems with their “most intimate information.” ([09:26])
• Focus on Experience, Not Just Privacy: Once privacy is assured, communications can concentrate on defining and differentiating the patient experience.
• Authenticity:
  “I actually don’t feel an imperative to talk about privacy very often because I think it's already a consumer expectation when it comes to healthcare… which kind of gives me permission to not have to talk about it.”
  – Tracey Schroeder ([09:26])

4. Patient Experience: Learning from Hospitality

• Service Beyond the Building: Like hospitality, the patient journey encompasses online, onsite, and post-care interactions—ease of navigation, appointment-setting, bill payments, wayfinding, and follow-up are all part of experience ([11:32]).
• Rising Expectations: As consumers, patients expect healthcare to deliver the same seamless, frictionless experiences as other industries.
• Healthcare Catching Up:
  “In many cases, healthcare is getting caught up… putting the customer at the center, focused on enabling greater access, delivering seamless care, reducing points of friction.”
  – Tracey Schroeder ([14:20])
• Strategic Prioritization: With ongoing customer-driven innovation in all industries, healthcare organizations must identify which innovations best serve their mission and patient needs ([14:20]).

5. Loyalty, Choice, and Personalization

• Lessons from Bonvoy: Tracey draws parallels between Marriott’s loyalty programs and ways healthcare can foster patient loyalty—even if rewards take different forms ([16:02]).
  • In hospitality, loyalty is rewarded with customizable benefits.
  • In healthcare, eliminating stressors and offering meaningful choices (e.g., flexible appointments, preferred communication channels) can enhance loyalty.
  • True healthcare loyalty is transformational, not transactional.
• Example: Allowing evening/weekend appointments or enabling chat-based communication removes barriers for patients ([16:02]).

Memorable Moment

“The really awesome thing in healthcare is at the end of the day, we’re improving someone’s life… our patients are incredibly grateful and that is what drives loyalty. It isn’t transactional in healthcare. In fact it can be quite transformational.”
– Tracey Schroeder ([16:02])

6. Cross-Industry Learning and Collaboration

• Leverage External Inspiration: Marketers and leaders should draw ideas from other sectors, operationalizing innovative solutions where appropriate ([20:00]).
• Healthcare’s Collaborative Nature: Unlike other fields, healthcare professionals readily share best practices with non-competitors, enhancing industry-wide improvements ([20:00]).
• Consumer Feedback: Real user feedback (e.g., the Starbucks “splash sticks” born from customer suggestions) can identify points of friction and inspire solutions within healthcare ([20:00]).

7. Emerging Trends and the Future of Patient Experience

• Rapid Change in Healthcare: Addressing workforce shortages, competition, margin pressures, and high demand drives communication innovation ([22:59]).
• Personalization in Communication:
  • Current: Automated reminders (text, email) are standard.
  • Next Level: Real-time, two-way communication (e.g., patient can text, “I’m running late,” and receive immediate support).
• Patient Education:
  • Growing need to inform and support patients as more care moves to outpatient, home, and virtual modalities ([22:59]).
• Continuum of Care: Expanding remote monitoring and home health options, coupled with clear educational efforts, is key to comfort, trust, and outcomes.

Notable Quote

“It’s imperative for leaders to stay flexible and nimble and agile, as your podcast is aptly named. Change management is… a discipline that we need more than ever before because the rate and degree of change can be intimidating and overwhelming… As long as we continue to center our change on better enabling us to reach our mission, then I think that’s going to help us be successful.”
– Tracey Schroeder ([25:24])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Tracey’s journey: Hospitality to Healthcare – [02:36–04:31]
• Balancing patient experience and privacy – [05:36–08:04]
• Communicating privacy and trust – [09:26–11:01]
• Industry similarities/differences and moving toward customer-centricity – [11:32–13:06]
• Is healthcare catching up? – [14:20–15:52]
• Loyalty and personalization lessons from hospitality – [16:02–19:09]
• How to leverage cross-industry innovation – [20:00–22:31]
• Emerging healthcare communication/experience trends – [22:59–25:08]
• Advice for healthcare leaders: change management & agility – [25:24–26:38]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “Every single person, no matter if they're at the bedside or behind the desk, impacts our delivery of healthcare.”
  – Tracey Schroeder ([03:36])

• “If HIPAA and other privacy regulations are our baseline, there are many things we can do to positively affect patient experience and use that vast amount of information at our disposal.”
  – Tracey Schroeder ([06:37])

• “I actually don’t feel an imperative to talk about privacy very often because I think it's already a consumer expectation when it comes to healthcare… which kind of gives me permission to not have to talk about it.”
  – Tracey Schroeder ([09:26])

• “It isn’t transactional in healthcare. In fact it can be quite transformational.”
  – Tracey Schroeder ([16:02])

• “It’s imperative for leaders to stay flexible and nimble and agile, as your podcast is aptly named.”
  – Tracey Schroeder ([25:24])

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Key Takeaways

• Healthcare brands must protect privacy while leveraging data to deliver seamless, personalized patient experiences.
• Drawing inspiration from hospitality and other consumer industries can inform innovation—though approaches must be tailored for healthcare’s realities and regulations.
• Patients increasingly expect healthcare to match the digital, on-demand, user-friendly experiences they receive elsewhere.
• Change management and a strong mission-focus are crucial as the pace of industry transformation accelerates.
• Feedback loops—with patients and across the industry—enable continuous improvement.

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Transcript

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[Greg Kilstrom]

Foreign.

[Podcast Narrator / Producer]

Welcome to season six of the Agile Brand where we discuss marketing technology and customer experience, trends, insights and ideas with enterprise and technology platform leaders. We focus on the people, processes, data and platforms that make brands successful, scalable, customer focused and sustainable. This is what makes an agile brand. I'm your host, Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, marketing operations and CX. Best selling author and speaker. The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world application. For more information go to teksystems.com now let's get on to the show.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Today we're exploring patient experience and privacy in healthcare with Tracy Schroeder, Chief Communications and External Affairs Officer at Inova Health,

[Podcast Narrator / Producer]

Northern Virginia's leading nonprofit healthcare provider.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Traci brings a unique perspective from her

[Podcast Narrator / Producer]

transition from the hospitality industry with a

[Greg Kilstrom]

role as Vice President and Global Head of Consumer PR at Marriott International to healthcare with her current role at Inova. Tracy, welcome to the show.

[Carvana Friend / Host]

Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our discussion.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, looking forward to this. Why don't we get started with you giving a little background on yourself and talk a little bit about your journey from hospitality to healthcare.

[Carvana Friend / Host]

Yes, thanks. Well, so I came into healthcare just about four years ago and at the time as I was sort of after 20 plus years of sort of working in corporate America, I was considering my next move, and I felt really compelled to work in an industry that had made a meaningful impact. And so I was talking with Inova, and, you know, not only was the job really attractive, but the culture of this organization felt really authentic and that the mission that everyone was sort of centered on, you know, and even today, four years in, I would say, like, it still is such a centering part of our culture and the work that we do every day. And then it was just the opportunity to impact lives in a positive way that really attracted me to this role and this industry and our CEO, you know, even as recently as, you know, in the last week, the CrowdStrike incident and so forth, you know, he makes a point of saying, like, every single person, no matter if they're at the bedside or behind the desk, impacts our delivery of healthcare. And so you're part of the patient experience. You're part of delivering health care. And that really resonated with me that, you know, we all have a role to play and that all working together is really important to make sure that we can deliver the best care possible. So, you know, beyond sort of that, there are so many similarities between healthcare and hospitality. Obviously, at their core, both are about taking care of people, you know, but healthcare does it. When people are at their most vulnerable, hospitality in some way seeks to take care of them. When they're working, traveling, vacation, they're living their life, they're spending time with family, friends, colleagues. You know, both are important. Both have a role to play, and both have the opportunity to impact, well, being in a positive way. And, you know, in both instances, really gratifying spaces to work in.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, great. Yeah. No, and I love that how you framed the. The CEO, talking about everyone's role, really impacting that. That patient experience. I think that's such a powerful thing when leaders emphasize that. I know there's that, like, classic story of, like, the janitor at NASA that, you know, described his job as, you know, helping people, you know, helping put people on the moon and stuff like that. I think it, you know, it goes. It goes all ways, right? It's everybody's. Everybody has some kind of line of sight to that end customer. So I think that's really powerful.

[Carvana Friend / Host]

That's 100% true. We had an incident that underscored that just recently where we even say someone who, like the janitor or the security guard that might be working in one of our emergency departments, they're observing patients. They may see when a patient is in distress and so, you know, they have their primary job to do, but they have a real opportunity to impact patient care as well.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's dive in here. We're going to talk about a few things today. I wanted to start with this idea and this concept of balancing patient experience with privacy. So lots of changes for those in the healthcare industry very familiar with things like HIPAA and other things, those outside of the industry, you know, certainly there's a lot of talk about consumer data privacy and other, other things in, in all industries. But you know, healthcare in particular, definitely lots of, lots of fast moving changes and as I mentioned, some recent updates to HIPAA and, and other privacy regulations. You know, from your, from your perspective, how should a healthcare system not only ensure compliance, I mean, compliance obviously is mandatory, but, but how do you balance this compliance with privacy while still creating a great patient experience, which takes knowing a lot about your patients. So you know, how, you know, how do you balance the two?

[Carvana Friend / Host]

Yes, it's a great question. And I mean, and you kind of hit the nail on the head. Like information, data is key to providing a quality healthcare experience. And at its core, HIPAA's about protecting that patient data to ensure it's shared only with the people who need it to deliver that healthcare. And if we merge the two, the sharing and the protection of that information, that's part of our calculus in every single patient interaction. So if that, you know, HIPAA and other privacy regulations, if that's our baseline, then there are many things that we can do to positively affect patient experience and use that vast amount of information at our disposal. So when it comes to data, you know, we want people, we want our patients to be able to access their patient portal. For example, they can review their medical history, they can make appointments, they can get a prescription refill, pay a bill, that, you know, we need that information. But they need that information too, so they can be their best advocate and you know, it allows them to really take control and be proactive when it comes to managing their health. For us, you know, it also means we can deliver a more individualized patient experience. So for example, we can remind them when they have an appointment coming up or it's time for their annual flu shot. And again, the more that we can deliver that one to one level care, that personalization, the more seamless we can make their overall experience.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean this is as you've said already and as many know firsthand, you know, this is, this can be very critical things that need to be communicated and so, yeah, it's that balance of just making sure that people have that access and yet protecting what needs to be protected. And part of that too is certainly there have been a lot of data breaches and all those kinds of things in various industries. They certainly make headlines and stuff. And so I think consumers are a bit, let's say, jaded about some of this stuff. And so, you know, with your background in, you know, from a communications perspective, it's like you, A brand needs to reassure their, their customers that they are, you know, respecting and are. They're respecting privacy and are good stewards of their. Their customers data or their patients data. But there also has to be some realism in all of this. What do you see as the balance between talking about respecting privacy and all of this and the action? So consumers are not only confident, but it feels authentic to that end. Consumer.

[Carvana Friend / Host]

Yeah. And so I was thinking a lot about this, and what's great about healthcare is that our patients trust, trust us with the most intimate information about themselves, about their bodies, and by doing so, that allows us to deliver the best health care we can. So we don't take that trust lightly. But then the other side of that is it's a highly regulated industry, as you mentioned, so there's already an understanding of the privacy that comes with that. Every patient's aware of our privacy, our privacy practices. We have notices at our clinics and our hospitals. We have notices on our websites. You know, so having said that, I actually don't feel an imperative to talk about privacy very often because I think it's already a consumer expectation when it comes to healthcare, and it's ingrained in every consumer and every team member. And so, and it should, and it should be, to be truthful. So once, like, once that baseline is established, it in a lot of ways frees me up to focus more on the patient experience and focus on talking and communicating what consumers can expect around that. You know, that's where we can define our brand drive preference and make sure our patients are continuing to come to us for care. We do, like I said, we don't take that trust lightly. And because it's such a regulated industry, I think it's well known that privacy is a huge component of what we do. And so it kind of gives me permission to not have to talk about it.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Well, and that kind of leads to the next topic I wanted to talk about, which is just you have a background in a few industries, so you come from, directly from hospitality, where you're at Marriott International. Now, in the healthcare industry, I wanted to talk a little bit about similarities as well as differences between the two. So, you know, maybe we could start with, with that or, you know, what do you see as some of the key differences between these two industries?

[Carvana Friend / Host]

Yeah, that's, that's great. So. Well, so to start with similarities in both industries, you know, I think you can say at a very high level that the primary focus is on providing exceptional service, a defined customer experience, if you will. I think where healthcare is increasingly getting more savvy and taking cues from hospitality and other consumer focused industries is that the patient experience is not just when you're in our building, it's not just when you're receiving our care. I think healthcare was sort of a little bit slower to realize that and to recognize that the patient experience is. When you're navigating our website, you're making an appointment. It's the wayfinding and the ease of which you can find the place you need to go for your appointment. It's how easy do we make it for you to pay your bill or ask a follow up question to your provider? All of those things are part of the patient experience. And increasingly I'm seeing healthcare is focusing on that more and more, which they should be, which is the right thing to do. There's an appreciation that consumer expectations have changed and if health care doesn't mean, doesn't kind of catch up to that and start considering that as well and making that, you know, making changes based on that, you know, will, you'll lose relevance and certainly lose customer loyalty. And so, you know, if our objective is to, you know, maintain both of those things, then we have to adopt that consumer thinking as we've seen happen in so many other industries.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, I know I often talk about this when I'm Talking about like B2B marketing is, it's kind of been a little behind the curve in some ways. But I think recently, you know, we're all B2B customers are consumers in their real lives outside of work and stuff. And I feel similar enough in various industries. But you know, speaking specifically about healthcare, you know, healthcare patients are consumers in the rest of their lives when they're not dealing with, with healthcare issues or things like that. And so there's this expectation to your point, that they're going to have the same level of service and same customer experience whatever they're doing, where, whatever the challenge they're trying to solve. Do you think that, I mean, it sounds like there's, there's sort of an implicit mandate, so to speak, in health care to whether it's to catch up or keep up. Do you think that healthcare is keeping up or catching up, or does it still have a little ways to go compared to some other industries like hospitality or others?

[Carvana Friend / Host]

I mean, I think both, yeah. So I think in many cases healthcare is getting caught up. They are. You know, at ANOVA specifically, I know we have a lot of initiatives that are putting, you know, putting the customer at the center, focused on really, you know, enabling greater access, delivering seamless care, reducing points of friction, all things that we were talking about in consumer industries, you know, five and 10 years ago. And so, you know, I think healthcare was behind. I think there's a lot of effort to get caught up. And I also think it's not changing. The consumer industries are not sort of resting on their laurels. They're not stopping where they're at. And so in some ways, I think it's about figuring out what innovation is right for your company, your industry, what's going to help you make the most significant impact on your patient experience or your customer experience and investing in those areas because you can't do everything at once. And so you really have to consider what is going to have the biggest payoff. And for us, it's not just, you know, it's about our customers. It's also about our team members. You know, how can we be innovating to ensure that our team members can have the best experience in delivering that care as well? And so, you know, we sort of look at it from both sides of that coin. And that's how we decide sort of, you know, what we want to prioritize and where we want to spend our time.

[Greg Kilstrom]

How has your experience in hospitality or other industries as well influenced how you think about healthcare?

[Carvana Friend / Host]

So in hospitality, we focused a lot on customer loyalty. That was a big initiative. I was part of the team that launched Marriott Bonvoy. And so with that it was understanding what motivates or necessitates a need for someone to travel and intercepting that at key moments in order to drive consideration, preference and ultimately more stays. We look to, you know, part of that loyalty proposition was, you know, rewarding that behavior as well. And so loyalty members get benefits. So things like free WI fi at a basic level and then more attractive benefits, the more often they stay, the more points they have, the deeper their loyalty is. So there was a real movement, you know, five or so years ago to towards experience platforms where we could really deliver these once in A lifetime experiences to loyalty members and really, you know, reward that loyalty. We often talked about, you know, that, that business travel, that traveler, that road warrior, you know, who might spend 200 nights a year on the road staying at, you know, a mid level hotel. Well then it was, you know, we wanted to make sure that they had the option to, you know, cash in those points to, you know, take a vacation at a luxury property if that was what interested them, you know, and so really trying to make sure those benefits could be really specific and customized to, to the loyalty member to, to the traveler and sort of what they would find valuable in a particular moment. That is not something we can duplicate in healthcare. Exactly. But I think we can take some key learnings from that. So for example, how we retain and leverage customer preferences. Our clinicians really try to understand what matters most to a patient so they can help address or remove any obstacles that might be standing in the way of the patient being able to focus fully on their care. And so if there's an opportunity for us to take away a point of stress so that that patient can focus fully on getting better, we want to do that. And that, that is something that, you know, can drive loyalty. Another option or excuse me, another learning is giving them options. A traveler might prefer, like I was saying before, that mid tier hotel for business, but they want to splurge on something like an experience or a luxury property when they're with their friends and family and they should get that choice. And in healthcare I think we need to look at what choices can be meaningful to our customers, our patients and whether that be appointment times like happening in the evenings or the weekends, or communication via a chat instead of having to pick up the phone. And so high level, yes, we can sort of adopt learnings from the loyalty value proposition even if it's not sort of a one to one comparison. I think the really awesome thing in healthcare is at the end of the day we're improving someone's life, we're helping them get back on their feet, get back to living, get back to feeling good. And what we find is our patients are incredibly grateful and that is what drives loyalty. It isn't transactional in health care. In fact it can be quite transformational.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, speaking as a Titanium Bonvoy member, I do thank you for, for, for the perks that you mentioned. But, but totally, totally, totally agree with you. And you know, so not, not all leaders have the, you know, I think, I think it's an advantage and a benefit to have div. And industry experience and stuff like that. Not all leaders necessarily have that, but they can still leverage insights and strategies from other industries. How do you suggest they do that? You know, again, somebody in healthcare, you know, 10, 20, 30 years, they certainly know an industry deeply. But how would you recommend that other leaders kind of look to other industries and take the right lessons?

[Carvana Friend / Host]

Yeah, I think every marketer in particular looks around to see what's happening, and every professional to see what's happening that might be innovative in their own industry. But also what other verticals have effectively solved an issue or situation that they may be dealing with. And taking inspiration from that and adopting it to your own situation, I think is a really effective and at times can be efficient way to solve a problem or address something. One thing I love about healthcare that was sort of unique and not something I experienced in any of the industries I worked in before is that it's really a collaborative field for every. Everyone's trying to deliver exceptional care. So if someone's doing something and they're in a different market, not a direct competitor, there's a real openness to sharing the playbook. That wasn't something I ever saw before. You kind of had to strict walls up from one competitor to another. And so that's a really interesting thing about healthcare. And I think it can be inspiring, and it's a awesome way to learn from your peers, but also sort of change the consumer expectation of what they can expect from healthcare. When I look at my background coming from consumers, you know, I also have seen how consumer insights can be leveraged in really effective ways. And so, for example, one thing that has always stuck out with me is the Starbucks splash sticks. So, you know, the little green sticks you put in so it doesn't spill. And these were introduced in my Starbucks idea blog post back in 2008, and came, I think, from consumers sharing that, you know, a solution was needed for their coffee spilling or splashing around. And, you know, I think they came up with ideas and ultimately, you know, Starbucks took a cue from that and developed the splash stick. And so I think that's an awesome example of, you know, looking to see how other industries, you know, pay attention to what their customers are saying. In our case, pay attention to what our patients are saying, because they'll tell you what the points of friction are, and they'll tell you, you know, how you can, you can help solve that. And they may even have the idea. So I think that's a really great way to kind of look across and various industries and Also, you know, pay, you know, the answer in some cases might be right with the customers that you're already serving.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, as we wrap up here, wanted to ask you one last question. As far as looking ahead and, you know, trends that you're seeing, certainly there's a lot to be to look at in other industries as well. But, you know, what trends are you seeing emerging in healthcare and healthcare communication and marketing that could impact how an organization like ANOVA engages with your patients?

[Carvana Friend / Host]

Yes. And healthcare is, you know, if you look at all the headlines there, there's a lot of change right now. It's an evolving industry and you know, everything from workforce shortages, new market entrants, creating competition, margin improvement pressures and you know, capacity constraints. You know, we demand is, is very high, particularly in our market right now. And so for us, you know, this oftentimes means rethinking our, you know, referrals and access our interactions with patients. So for example, many health systems will already text you and we do this as well. We will text you a reminder that you have an appointment coming up. But as a patient, I might want to be able to respond to that text message and say, hey, I'm running 10 minutes late. Are you still going to be able to see me and have somebody on the other side that can say, well, we can shorten your appointment by 10 minutes or we can reschedule you for tomorrow at this time. What do you prefer? And right now we're not able to really have that back and forth, but I think that's the level of personalization that's going to become the expectation and we'll need to move in that direction to be able to provide that on a one to one level. Similarly, I think patient education is another opportunity where communications will need to play a role, particularly as it relates to how we're delivering care. So for example, we used to, you know, most surgeries used to be you'd be in the hospital for a couple of days. That's not the case with many surgeries anymore. A lot of times they're happening in outpatient settings. And so, you know, what we're doing is shifting to leveraging virtual modalities. We're using remote monitoring and we're, of course you still get calls from your care team checking in on you. But this also might mean that we have to get creative with home health options and think about how we expand that in the years ahead. So really getting creative when it comes to the continuum of care and how we adjust consumer expectations to that educate them on those changes and really make sure they get comfortable with them will be critical.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. Well, Tracy, thanks so much for joining today. You know, as kind of closing out here, what's your advice for healthcare leaders that like what they're hearing here but you know, want to prepare for some of these things that you're outlining?

[Carvana Friend / Host]

Sure. Well, first, thank you, thank you for the opportunity to sit down and talk with you today. It is a great time to work in healthcare. It's a really awesome industry to work in. And like I said at the beginning, you know, we have an opportunity to impact lives every single day. And that's a really gratifying space to work in. And it's rewarding to think about how we can continue to innovate on behalf of our patients and our team members. And as the saying goes, you know, the only thing that's constant is change. And so it's imperative, you know, to answer your question, it's imperative for leaders to stay flexible and nimble and agile, as your podcast is aptly named. Change management is, I think, a discipline that we need more than ever before because the rate and degree of change can be intimidating and overwhelming for not only our patients, but our team members as well. So, you know, I think how one way we get through that is by being very clear on our mission. You know, for us, that's providing world class health care to every person in every community we have the privilege to serve. And so as long as we continue to center our change on better enabling us to reach that mission, then I think that that's going to help us be successful.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, that's wonderful. And you do get bonus points for mentioning agile in your answer.

[Carvana Friend / Host]

Oh, thank you.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Awesome. Well, again, I'd like to thank Tracy Schroeder, Chief Communications and External Affairs Officer at inova, for joining us today. You can learn more about Tracey and Anova by following the links in the show notes.

[Podcast Narrator / Producer]

Thanks again for listening to the Agile Brand brought to you by Tech Systems. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show more easily. You can access more episodes of the show at www.greggkillstrom.com. that's G-R E G K I H L S T R O M While you're there, check out my series of best selling agile brand guides covering a wide variety of marketing technology topics. Or you can search for Greg Kelstrom on Amazon. The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, Stay Agile.

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