Empowering Healthcare Professionals with AI

Narrator: It seems like just about everyone is using AI these days, both at home and at work. Indeed, there are so many useful ways you can put AI to work, including in the digital employee experience. In fact, AI is taking over some of the more repetitive or mundane tasks and streamlining employee workflow, so your people can focus on the people stuff, the human stuff, the face to face stuff. That’s what we’re hearing from Meredith Williams

Meredith Williams: When we think about AI, what I would want to point to is really how are we helping physicians utilize AI to give them more time to be with the patients. So one of the, tools that we’re, we’re utilizing in some of our businesses is a dictation tool AI. So that helps to kind of eliminate hours worth of charting and just note taking and being able to simplify that. And that gives more time for the physicians to be with those patients as well as the pieces in addition to the physicians. giving those doctors more time to be with the patients. That’s what they love. That’s what their passion is. and giving them more time to do that certainly increases their satisfaction and certainly balance in terms of well being. 

Narrator: Meredith is CHRO at VillageMD. She previously served as the SVP of Human Resources. Meredith joined VillageMD in 2017 as VP of Talent Operations. At VillageMD, Meredith established the Talent Operations and Human Resources Business Partner Model, which includes developing and administering programs, policies, training, and engagement to support their rapidly growing organization during every step in the employee lifecycle, from onboarding to offboarding. And in this episode, Meredith and our host, Nicole Alvino, discuss the use of AI tools to improve efficiencies for healthcare providers, creating tailored employee experiences, leveraging data to improve engagement, and fostering a high performance culture. On Cruising Altitude, we talk about employee experience lessons from leaders at large companies. A lot like reaching cruising altitude at 30, 000 feet. Things look a little different when you’re managing that many people. On this podcast, we bring you insights from the leaders who inhabit that rarefied air. Today’s episode features an interview with Meredith Williams. But first, let’s hear a word from our sponsor.

And now your host, Nicole Alvino, CEO and founder of First Step.

Nicole Alvino: Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us on Cruising Altitude. I’m Nicole Alvino, founder and CEO of Firstup. Super passionate about ensuring that every worker feels connected and engaged with their employer. Firstup is a SaaS platform used by 40 of the Fortune 100 to provide an exceptional employee experience for every employee. When we do this, we retain and grow our people and increase efficiency and adoption of organizational initiatives, all part of driving a high performance culture. So our mission today is to help you learn about how we can retain top talent, improve organizational culture, and drive your business outcomes. So, Welcome Meredith and so glad you are here. At Firstup, when we welcome new employees, we ask people to share three fun facts to better get to know them. So what are your three fun facts?

Meredith Williams: Well, Nicole, it is a it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And I love this question. Although I think like many people don’t love talking about myself, but certainly love to share some of the some of those fun little nuggets. So something that’s that’s I think a little bit unique is actually met my husband many, many years ago. He actually was teaching me when we when we originally met how to drive a school bus. And we were both working for a day camp at that time. And so we met at that day camp as he was teaching me how to drive a school bus, and I eventually went on to get my CDL. Which then leads me to many years then later, I was training for the Chicago Marathon, and so was he. And so at that time we remat andwe’re just in a stage in our lives where it made sense and, continued to date and ultimately then got married. So I then went on to run an additional, probably at least 10. A few more actually marathons across the last 15 or so years.

Nicole Alvino: Wow.

Meredith Williams: yeah, so, so that was just kind of a fun little kind of trip down kind of a fun little path. and then just another little fun nugget is, we love to vacation and I’m a definitely a beach vacation person. So that is my happy spot.

Nicole Alvino: Okay. What’s your favorite beach and have you ever run a marathon there?

Meredith Williams: Never run a marathon there, but Islamu Harris, which is a tiny little island off the coast of Cancun, which you could probably run a couple of times around that island just fulfill a marathon, but it’s a great location.

Nicole Alvino: Nice. Okay. Well, thank you for sharing those. Now tell us a little bit about your role at Village MD.

Meredith Williams: Well, I am the newly appointed CHRO. So I, I just took on this, this opportunity with VillageMD and with that comes really my scope includes everything from total rewards, talent acquisition, people, operations, HR policy And then the HR business partners. So really from that entire employee experience, inclusive of onboarding and, and HR compliance really falls underneath my purview and, really a phenomenal group of, of individuals that are supporting us.

Nicole Alvino: That’s great. And then in in health care, can you talk about the different personas that you serve? And I think with that, some of the unique challenges and opportunities that you face, especially as chief people leader.

Meredith Williams: interesting thing I think about Village MD is that we have a lot of different personas just in the different types of individuals we employ. So when I think about our SG& A or corporate team members. Those are mainly remote employees across the entire country. Then we have our clinical team members. So that can be both clinical staff as well as providers, both physicians as well as APPs or advanced practice practitioners that are supporting our patients. And those are individuals that are in the clinic on a daily basis. Some of those individuals are hourly, some of which are salaried. And again, they are patient facing in, these clinical locations across the entire U. S. and then we have our executive team, which similar to our SG& A group sit across the entire country and really have different needs and at any given moment.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, so I think especially in health care, right? different types of employees with different needs. So how have you thought about creating an employee experience that really works for each one of those individuals?

Meredith Williams: so the unique thing about our employee experience is that because we have all of these different needs. We have individuals that are in a clinic on a daily basis. They’re not in front of their laptop. They’re not in front of a computer screen on a daily basis. So how are we reaching them? How are we drawing them in from day one and keeping that engagement throughout? Because we do know engagement is the highest way to have productivity And ultimately having that patient in the center of what we do and how we support them on a, on a daily basis. And so that employee experience kind of brings them in on, you know, on day one. And what we’re doing is, We actually have surveys that were from the moment that they accept an offer. We’re asking them about their employee experience in terms of their onboarding experience. And then we pulse them at 30 days, at 60 days, and then at 90 days. And then, really, we have that engagement survey data that runs throughout. But that is all connected through one platform, allowing us to really get a sense of where are we seeing trends, where are we seeing themes, and what do we need to do to push into those employees. And we can also parse that data. Based on that employee group. So we can see, okay, what’s happening with the physicians right now? How are they feeling? Okay, let’s look at the physician specifically in Arizona. How are they feeling? What’s their temperature? What’s going on? what are we seeing? And then bumping that up then against, of course, the human capital metrics that we’re, we’re tracking on a daily basis around attrition Any kind of additional data that we can pull into to get a sense of our employee health.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah. I love that. I mean, we think about all of those types of engagement as leading indicators to those other people metrics, as well as other operational metrics and things that you’re looking at around patient satisfaction and even other things around filling ORs. So it’s, I’m so glad that you’re, taking that, that look and taking advantage of the data.

Meredith Williams: Absolutely, and it’s interesting you bring up kind of those leading measures because we do think about How are we tracking employee relations types of activities? Because those additionally, we feel like are those leading metrics that kind of. Help us to kind of inform. Are we going to see a problem later down the line? So that is something that we’re underway with developing through our HRIS platform of which is Workday is what we’re what we’re using and so we’re really trying to take that as Being something that we can really get that that pulse in addition to the survey data. What are we seeing in terms of those trends?

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, and I think that that’s the part that I personally just love about the data and the leading indicators because then it can help us predict things and get ahead of issues. So you talked about employee relations. We might have an issue. So let’s go in. Let’s talk to that particular group in that location. Let’s give them what they need. So we can have a better outcome for everybody.

Meredith Williams: Absolutely. that is critical for us and really to pull the thread through on leadership development. Where are we seeing that issues with specific leaders or or where are we needing to bolster up certain training in a way that gives leaders more on just in time learning opportunities when they’re seeing trouble spot.

Nicole Alvino: Mm hmm. Yeah, love that. I feel like health care was on the forefront as far as using data as far as patient outcomes. And then it’s so great that we’re using that to help us with our own people and drive again those people outcomes.

Meredith Williams: Absolutely. And that that’s certainly a way for us to think about again, how people are feeling and ultimately avoiding flight risks and ultimately individuals that are treading.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s the key thing. I think, especially in, in healthcare, what I’m talking to other CHROs there. So tell us a little more about how you’re, handling those personalized types of employee experiences. What data are you using from workday? And then what is your, the team look like to enable all of this?

Meredith Williams: With our onboarding experience. So that starts from day one. We really want to create that simplified way for people to get into the system. it’s interesting physicians who are going through the recruitment process are often, you know, not to generalize, but they often don’t want to kind of worry about and kind of get into the minutia of kind of filling out a, you know, applying online and how can we make that as streamlined and simplified as we possibly can from that initial encounter, then through that, that experience. And so from that, we really try to really think about things in terms of how much time do people have to give us feedback and what are the ways in which we can do that and through pulses and through those, types of quick hits that we can then take the data. Understand what people are saying. How are people feeling about leadership communication? How are they feeling about the organization? And was it what they signed up to do? And is that continuing through their entire experience? And that’s really something, again, from a theme standpoint, that we’re, identifying satisfaction, we’re identifying ways in which we need to alter our, plan.

Additionally, one of the things that we have done more recently and through all of that data is developing our mission vision values. And so really kind of reinvesting in how we think about our MVV. And we recently rolled out in 2024, our mission vision values and our values specifically around being kind, building trust, innovation and going the extra mile. If you take the first letter of each one of those values, it’s be big. And so how do you be big? And so we pull that thread through on everything that we do and ways in which we Celebrate employees, ways in which we recognize and put the spotlight on different initiatives that are going on. how are you being big? And that’s really a way that we’re fostering that culture and creating that experience on a daily basis that people can live by.

Nicole Alvino: I love that. And can you share a little bit more? It seems to me like just given your clinical and non clinical population, that’s a great way to bring people together as well as bring in the incredible patient experience that you’re delivering by investing in this employee experience. So I’d love for you to expand on that.

Meredith Williams: Absolutely. So when you think about that one of the, those values going the extra mile. So going the extra mile when we have any kind of Town halls, and we have town halls on a monthly basis and sometimes quarterly basis, depending on the specific subject matter. But on the monthly calls, we break that down into our various business units. So we’ve got village medical. health and city MD. So all are three distinct, very specific ways in which we reach patients. So you’ve got primary care with village medical, you’ve got summit health that focuses on multi specialty and urgent care, which is City MD. So looking at all three of those, they have their individual town halls. So we celebrate those going the extra mile moments that people can be nominated to, to have gone the extra mile. We make sure to celebrate those physicians. We look at clinicians, we look at SGNA team members that we’re able to then celebrate them and be able to really create that connection and foster that great culture.

Nicole Alvino: I love that. And I think that’s something to that’s blending the analog with the digital because I think that it’s, you know, we do need to do both especially health care. So I think that’s a perfect way to do those things.

Meredith Williams: Absolutely. Yeah, we’re really wanting to celebrate those positives. and then I also think how we’re, we’re looking at not just the going the extra mile, but when we think about building trust and being kind and doing those things that really help too, to think about how do we come together and putting that patient in the center of our universe around how we’re serving them on a daily basis.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, I know. I love that the patient centricity and saying, you know, or even higher that taking and putting all of our people at the center of everything we do, especially as technology continues to evolve around us. So, I think, especially in health care, and of course, I want to talk a little bit about AI and. how you are thinking about harnessing the power of, AI to help and preserving the human element there.

Meredith Williams: Yeah. AI is definitely something that’s on the forefronts of our minds on a, daily basis. When we think about AI, what I would want to point to is really how are we helping physicians utilize AI to give them more time to be with the patients. So one of the, tools that we’re, we’re utilizing in some of our businesses is a dictation tool A. I. So that helps to kind of eliminate hours worth of charting and just note taking and being able to simplify that. And that gives more time for the physicians to be with those patients as well as the pieces in addition to the physicians. giving those doctors more time to be with the patients. That’s what they love. That’s what their passion is. and giving them more time to do that certainly increases their satisfaction and certainly balance in terms of well being.

Nicole Alvino: And then how are you thinking about it to enhance the digital employee experience or perhaps help your HR business partners scale with what they’re able to do?

Meredith Williams: That is something that we are on, on a journey to, to be able to invest in ways in which we can not only think about intake in terms of employee concerns, like, how are we thinking about what are the, some of the themes that are going on with our employees and then bringing that into our people operations team that are pushing out answers to the multitude of questions for 20, 000 people that we have employed, that we are really conscientious of Of how we can get back to those, staff members and team members to be able to get them answers on what they need in order to do their jobs. So that’s, that’s an ongoing opportunity for us to be investing in and looking for opportunities to do that.

Nicole Alvino: Yeah, I think that that’s just a huge opportunity to take. what are the questions that people are asking? Or what are they trying to pull? And then how can we leverage AI to figure out what we can push them to get them exactly the right information at the right moment? Exactly when they need it.

Meredith Williams: Exactly.

Nicole Alvino: Okay, now I wanna switch to talk a little bit about some lessons learned as you’re thinking about the employee experience. You’ve obviously been on a journey you own all of the parts of HR and people experience. So what’s something that didn’t work like you wanted it to and what did you learn from it?

Meredith Williams: You know, on our journey of growth, Village MD. Started on this, on this path in 20 2013, and just, we have grown exponentially to where we are today of, just about 20, 000 people. And when I think about some of the times in which we have had those moments where we’ve, fallen down and, and skinned our knees or even more, how do we think about rebounding from that? When we integrated Summit Health, CityMD, and Village Medical at the beginning of 2023, we launched Workday to our entire universe of employees. And of course, Workday is the facilitator of how we pay people, how we are facilitating leave of absences. And we did have some bumpy moments at the beginning of 2023, but it was then really how are we as the leadership team reaching out to each and every employee to say. This was a mistake, making sure that they were paid quickly and accurately, turning that around very quickly, and then ultimately taking accountability for that, which I think is where again, you have to rebuild that trust because when you mess with people’s pay and you mess with people’s benefits, that becomes really a, a real challenge in terms of how you rebound from that. So Taking that accountability and driving that forward is what was really critical for us to, to rebuild that trust. Absolutely.

Nicole Alvino: just from, my experience, but I think that that’s right. And I, it’s, it’s a growth mindset too, which is a big thing that, I instill in, in our team is look, there were always going to be mistakes. There are always times where we fall down and what do we learn from it? And how do we handle ourselves in those moments? And, and that frankly, Yeah. It speaks louder and more than the thing that actually didn’t go the right way. So I think that that’s just a big part of your, culture and your employee value prop too. So,

Meredith Williams: Absolutely. Yeah, that building trust and that was pushed out in mid 2024 after some of the more early on challenges that we had. So really felt like that was a critical way for us to, to take that accountability and remind us every day.

Nicole Alvino: And I think that that’s just change. I think if there’s probably one, one constant now is change, especially in healthcare. You talked about bringing systems together, as you know, we’re, we’re, we’re not done with, doing that. And so I guess what, what’s something else that you’ve learned just as far as. Integrating different systems or different groups of people that you could share with our listeners.

Meredith Williams: Bringing groups together that are coming in kind of this acquisition world that we have been in over the course of many years, bringing people together and building that connection is paramount for people to stack hands. work together and, and really eliminate kind of an us versus them. And that to me is, has really been paramount in how we think about our HR team, but how we set the stage and set the example for the rest of the organization. It’s that tone at the top. And I feel like HR is really that at that center stage and how do we foster that? How are we driving the great connection and collaboration efforts that we see across the organization? And so when we think about that, and in a way that we’re fostering that and bringing groups together, whether that’s our HRVP team, that is a collection of all of those organizations that came together. Thinking about and letting go of kind of what you think should be the right way to do that, or what you have done in the past, that growth mindset is something that resonates with us and how we drive forward and let go of perhaps some of our, previous ways of working and think about new ways that we need to establish together.

Nicole Alvino: I love that always going forward and learning and evolving. Um, And obviously it’s, it’s worked really well for you. So that’s great. So now I want to switch to um, what we call our, smooth landing of the program. So, cruising altitude planes cruise at 30, 000 feet for me personally. That’s the place where I do my best thinking it’s a heightened sense of clarity and perspective. So what is the place where you have extreme clarity or heightened perspective?

Meredith Williams: Such a great question. And I, I think that giving yourself the space and grace to really step back when you are so like caught up and kind of a swirl of like, how do I dissect a problem? How am I going to respond to this leader? That’s that’s really kind of challenged with feedback that I’m giving or wants to do something that I really, from an HR standpoint, really disagree with. How am I going to show up? And so stepping back from that is to me, I find It’s critically important for me to be able to deliver and it’s, giving yourself the space and grace in order to do that. So whether that is just jumping on my treadmill because I don’t want to go out in the Chicago weather and, and brave the elements or just going to yoga class, it’s really giving myself that, turning the switch off for a minute so that you can come back to your point with additional clarity.

Nicole Alvino: That’s great. And is there something that comes to mind that you can share of kind of trying to solve something or you are stuck and then you, you are able to give yourself that space and grace and, and come out with the right solution.

Meredith Williams: So it goes back to bringing teams together. So one of the steps that I’ve taken on my journey with village has been bringing a team together. That was really just challenged with kind of. Stacking hands and how are they going to do that because of the history that they bring or they brought to kind of the moment of time that we were in. And so really thinking about how do we do this in a way that we’re suspending kind of thinking about that idea of suspending judgment in the art of the possible. So really thinking about it in a way that really got people out of their own head. But I needed to kind of get there through really some really. Just wide space that I needed to give myself.

Nicole Alvino: I love that. Okay. So the last question and how I always end this, so our listeners can take some of your wisdom with them. Can you share one thing you never do and one thing you always do?

Meredith Williams: you know, as an HR person, guess I’ve always been more of an operate in the gray. So it’s such an interesting question to kind of talk in absolutes. And so I love this question because it’s really breaking me out of my comfort zone. But when I think about one thing I never do. And it’s just a little more of a life mantra is I never go to bed angry. I feel like whether that is in my personal life, whether that is in my work life, you really want to kind of get yourself out of being, angry or just kind of frustrated about something. You really need to give yourself that way to, to go to bed and not go to bed angry. And something that I always do is. Is he have gratitude? I just I’m so grateful for what I have in my life. I’m grateful for the amazing team that I’m surrounded by and and what what I am able to do every day and just the gratitude I bring is I always have that I’m I’m never without just appreciation for it.

Nicole Alvino: So gratitude and never going to bed angry. If we could take all that, then life would be better for everybody. Well, Meredith, thank you so much for joining us um, and sharing your, your stories.

Meredith Williams: It’s truly a pleasure. Thank you so much, Nicole. It’s really been an honor and a pleasure. Thank you.