<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy and here with me is Chase Chase please uh introduce yourself hi everyone my name is Chase Myers I I use he him pronouns I'm currently an administrative fellow at Children's Hospital Los [Music] Angeles we're so happy to have you with us this evening or I guess it's a few hours earlier there in Los Angeles so this afternoon thank you for cutting out this time out of your day to to join us you have a varied career a lot of great experience and you started uh similar to myself in North Carolina you went to uh UNCW there in Wilmington and then you went to UNCC Chapel Hill and what's interesting about you as you and me were talking about is you have an mph not an mha or an MBA I want to know what led you and what made you make that decision to get that mph yeah no thank you Cole I uh just want to start by saying that I've always had a huge interest in healthcare especially you know being a young child growing up in a very rural environment I saw a lot of Health disparities that existed in my community and going Beyond like rural Health specifically you know Health disparities among queer folks so growing up like as someone who is gay and again ryal North Carolina during the 2000s it um was pretty tough and going and speaking to Providers and trying to be open with them and getting the care that I needed I saw lots of flaws in the system and so that made me want to pursue psychology and public health and undergrad so I did my years at undergrad I was in the Honors College there and ended up doing an honors uh undergraduate thesis and so I chose to do mine in public health and I looked at provider barriers to prescribing patients prep for HIV protection so essentially what I did in that uh paper was a giant landscape assessment a literature review of all the reasons why providers uh may not be prescribing prep to folks and for those know prep is pre-exposure prophylaxis it's supposed to protect you from HIV transmission and essentially from there I again saw lots of health disparities that existed looking at folks who are queer and gay and from there I just realized that I wanted to continue learning more about how we can better enhance Health Equity and reduce Health disparities across not only those who are sexual orientation minorities but across all marginalized communities and so with that I decided to apply to a few different mph programs I ended up going to UNC Chapel Hill for a couple different reasons uh if you grew up in North Carolina you know that UNCC is sort of like the the big school everyone's either a duke or UNC fan it's really fun getting to the rivals but my family grew up really cheering on the tar Hills and I felt it kind of in my blood to to go to that school part two is that they are number one Public Health you know School the number one Public School of Public Health in the country um so I thought it'd be a great opportunity to be able to learn from the bests and leaders in the field and then I'd say part three probably the biggest reason is because of the Der that I got there so my mph was in Health Equity social justice human rights and that you know again aligned directly with my interest from childhood through undergrad up until that point when I was applying um so I made the decision to applied to that program it was the last one I heard back from thankfully was accepted and yeah the rest of his history was able to move to Chapel Hill and have two great years there and it's impressive that motivation that you've had because you didn't just witness these things you've experienced them firsthand and so I think that's an impressive motivation why you choose to go into healthcare administration and why not you know a PhD or a drph which is you know the route a lot of uh Public Health uh individuals take so what was you know that you wanted to do differently yeah funny enough uh I actually wanted to go to medical school eventually so throughout undergrad I was Premed medicine so I did my psychology and public health degrees but had a preclinical focus so made sure I took all those hard bio classes Anatomy physics all that fun stuff and then thought that grad school would be a nice breaker segue I could learn more about you know advancing Health Equity more Public Health kind of focus here and then from their lead into Medical School essentially as soon as I got into the program I decided that that was not going to be the case anymore I was like okay I'm going to be done with school after these next two years I'm ready to you know stop spending money on loans and to actually be making money so I just I knew that I wanted to still work in a hospital or healthc care system and so I actually was speaking to my friend who was doing uh their mha at University of Washington in Seattle and they told me about Healthcare administrative fellowships and eventally how you can kind of be mentored into working for a hospital or a healthcare organization and the more I looked into it the more infatuated I became with just kind of like the concept the way that you're able to work on you know projects across the department you're able to interact with folks in the sea suite and Executives that are leading the institution that you're doing the fellowship with so I feel like all of those factors kind of came together and I decided that would start applying to healthcare admin fellowships uh come my first semester of my second year and when you decided to do that how many fellowships did you apply to and then what you know fellowships were you looking at was it all across the country was it in specific areas what did that look like yeah so as you noted born and raised in North Carolina so I was very much excited to kind of leave the um Southeast I have so much appreciation for that area and for North Carolina but I knew that I wanted to push myself and go somewhere that was bigger and different um and so I focused on applying to organizations that were in bigger cities so looking at Chicago and Los Angeles primarily and from there really kind of try to pull up each individual organization and see what it is that their mission vision and values kind of focused and centered on again I was a very big proponent and still am of Health Equity and doing what we can to minimize Health disparities and so that was a huge piece of me researching and looking at fellowships that I would be potentially a good match for and so I ended up applying to five different fellowships again kind of looking at those same areas in Los Angeles Chicago and then from there got three interviews and then was able to do F round interviews for those three organizations and ultimately ended up uh getting offer this position here at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and congratulations on that that's a great accomplishment uh what led you to want to apply to Children's Hospital of Los Angeles what was it that you saw about the organization that was meaningful yeah I would say probably the biggest piece is just the payx that you know we have here at the hospital so about 75% of the kids that we serve are Medicaid patients or medical as we call here in California and 25% is commercial insurance so it's not a money-making model by any means but I think that it just went to show that chla is not only you know putting the words on their website like oh we're committed to diversity Equity inclusion but they're also like walking the walk that comes along with that as well we are the number one Children's Hospital in California and so I think that you don't really get that that or those accolades you know without really putting in the work and putting the uh money where your mouth is if you will and so just seeing that you know they didn't only have this information listed on the website but the more folks I talked to the more I was able to investigate and hear from external um folks who worked at the Children's Hospital I really saw how ingrained they were to helping their community and to giving back to folks and going beyond that the community engagement uh pieces I saw on the website were very um touching I I've saw the hospital does a lot of groundw work here in Los Angeles so tons of different things especially given the uh population of Los Angeles is a lot of uh Spanish speaking folks and to see that they catered to the individual needs of their Community just really really stood out to me and I need I want to be a part of that that's really nice and then that does kind of tie in with your background as well in public health and that makes a lot of sense so since being there is it a one-year fellowship or a two-year Fellowship it's one year so you're getting close to being done then you have H what is it three months or so left yes yeah we wrap up around June or July so you know getting a kick start on that job search and you know how has your experience been and what did you do is it uh you know what kind of projects did you work on what departments did you work in what has that been like yeah I mean it's been nothing short of amazing I've grown to again love the work that we do here at the Children's Hospital as well as love everyone that I've been able to interact with and the executives and leaders who have been so kind as to kind of show me the ropes of how healthcare administration works again especially coming from that M background where I don't have a lot of um formal training necessarily in the healthcare admin space um but it is a rotation based Fellowship so you get to do up to six rotations throughout the year here about two months each some of the ones I've been able to do were in decision Support Services uh Clinical Services with our strategy team off of diversity equity and inclusion and I'm currently in the uh my rotation with the office of innovation and transformation and so again a wide array of uh rotations and departments that have been able to kind of uh work with during my time here uh done quite a few different projects uh some of the ones that are ongoing are maintaining our enterprise-wide leadership meetings so I basically help coordinate and run those meetings with another one of the executives do stuff like uh you know gather the materials make sure that folks are uh prepared to present I then take those materials and kind of triage them up to our CEO and coo have them look over it and uh do a review i' you know take any feedback that they have and relay it to the presenters to make sure that they edit their slides as need be so those are sort of some ongoing projects that I you know continually work on but um speaking to the different departments I mean I worked on like a kind of analyzing like a pilot that was done in Clinical Services with our Imaging Services team so examining how switching folks from the traditional 8 hour 5day a week work week to um doing 10-hour uh three-day work weeks um how that has impacted folks in that part of the organization and how that may have implications across other clinical areas that's probably one of the ones I'm most proud of I was able to also uh compile a medical Trends analysis for fiscal years uh 20 through 23 ended up presenting that to our uh Chief Financial Officer which was a big moment for me so yeah I've been able to kind of get my hands on a bunch of different projects all across the organization which has been uh really really cool what were the impacts from that work week you know the hour change that went on oh yeah yeah so that actually we found I was able to pull qualitative and quantitative data so uh quantitative data was thr behind the scenes so I was talking to HR and finding uh what the turnaround rate has looked like since folks since they did Implement that change uh what the sick rates are looking like the time to fill a position after being posted now that it says that it's 10 hours instead of eight hours so I pulled that uh part of the data as well as did a qualitative piece as well so I actually took the time to come up with a standardized uh questionnaire and then from there interviewed some of the uh Radiology technicians who uh were there for the change and folks who got hired on after the change and so I gathered their qualitative feedback as well and kind of married the two the two together in a presentation and uh from there we saw that it was overwhelmingly positive I mean all of the the turnover rates went down the call uh calling in sick rates went down time to fill um went down as well and then you know that qualitative piece folks are really loving the extra free time with their family or to be able to go and uh get a second job if they want to you know kind of mix and match their work schedule to fit their own personal life again just overwhelming positivity across the board that is excellent good for you on that project that's really great and then so with that other one that you were working on was there any challenges working with you know anal analytics and financial data you know just because I'm interested in an mph as well how did that kind of unique skill set benefit you in working with you know financial data and and kind of analytics and things like that it was it was very hard I'll be honest and a big piece of that is that that was the first rotation I did with the fellowship and so I was you know coming into that very new fresh eyed like I said I don't have a formal Healthcare admin training I will say that a data analytics class I took my first semester of my M degree uh did help me some whenever I was kind of playing around with the data I was doing it in Excel whereas we had learned status so was a little bit different there but of course I've used Excel over the years so I felt very familiar with the software there it gave me a nice Foundation but I'll say what really brought me to the place I needed to be was my preceptor uh his name is Carl and he oversees DSS or decision Support Services uh department and he was phenomenal in working with me and getting me to the place I needed to be it sort of felt like I was in his uh little class I was his own student he had his whiteboard behind him we'd have our meeting every week and he'd say okay what are your questions for me and there just kind of shoot off what I have after looking at the data like I don't understand why the numbers are coming up to this what does this mean XYZ and he would always so calmly write it on the board behind him you know explain it to me in thorough detail like ask followup questions make sure I'm understanding and following along with him so I think having somewhat of a foundation from graduate school then paired with having a mentor who really wanted me to Excel and to learn in that space helped me to achieve the the results that I got nice that is excellent yeah so it is kind that that on the job you know training that that really helped you to to be able to to learn that and that's so nice that your preceptor was that supportive have you faced good support overall during your fellowship absolutely yeah I I don't know if it's just working at a pediatric center where folks are just you know super friendly but at Cha you know I've been I've had positive interactions with quite frankly everyone that I've I've spoken with uh and that ranges from folks who are team members like myself you know PMS or what have you all the way up to the COO CEO other folks in the SE Suite everybody's super super supportive and they're very supportive of the fellowship too if there's any meetings that I want to attend or there's any projects that I feel of are interest are of interest to me I know that I can reach out to folks and they'll do their best to connect me with the right people and connect me uh into the right spaces I need to be in nice that's great and then what has it been like working at a children's hospital I've never worked for one or experienced what that's like is it is it any different than things youve experienced in the past yeah it's very wholesome and just to be quite honest this is my first like full-time inperson or inperson job besides you know working in the service in stre during undergrad and grad school so you know bearing that in mind I love working at a shm's hospital I think that they're a lot more playful obviously than adult hospitals I you know was used to kind of just walking in and seeing okay everything looks very Sleek white clean clinical but you walk into our hospital it's very colorful there's interactive toys and games for the children to play with there's you know folks handing out Play-Doh and books to the kids lots of smiling faces and laughter beautiful outdoor spaces for the kids to play on the playgrounds and to be able to walk around and just enjoy nature and sunlight so they're not you know always just stuck underneath those you know florescent lights in the hospital space so I very much enjoyed getting to kind of be in that atmosphere and to really see our mission statement on the faces of the children and their families and parents who um are accompanying them you know to their visits that's wonderful that sounds like a really a really fun place to work sounds really nice so what has the culture been like in Los Angeles in general I've never been out you know that way before like as you know I'm from North Carolina has that been a nice place to live has it you know the the livability in terms of you know the salary and cost of living and like I said also the culture has that been something that's been nice yeah it's so funny I um had never been to Los Angeles or California either until I did one of my first administra Fellowship interviews and U you know I came to California and I saw it for myself and I thought wow I I need to be here you know not saying that I will live the rest of my life here but at least for the next few years I you know first and foremost think southern California is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been being able to see palm trees everywhere driving and seeing the mountainscape uh you're able to go to the beach from where we're at in like less than an hour just very very beautiful place to be but speaking more to the culture here i' I've been loving that as well North Carolina is definitely more calm and slow PAC as I think that a lot of places in the Southeast are so it's kind of fun to go to like a busy more lively City area um and being here in Los Angeles again kind of speaking to my past as somebody who grew into their queerness and being a gay man myself it's nice to be surrounded by that type of diversity there's so many other queer folks here in Los Angeles and not only that but folks who are like openly themselves aren able to to be that way without having any sort of fear is is really great to see and it's been very enlightening for me and has made me feel even more proud to be you know a gay person to be a gay person from where I am so it's just been really great all around in terms of cost of living of course it's definitely more pricey every here than where I grew up um but thankfully I'm compensated uh pretty well with the fellowship so I'm able to make doe and I live in a house with my partner we have a housem made as well and we're all you know really enjoying our time here trying to build a community with folks you know both at CA and outside of uh you know the healthcare space as well it's wonderful I'm glad that they're you know compensating you well and then you've been able to you know make friends in the area and and enjoy it that's that's wonderful I know that you know in North Carolina it's definitely interesting because the cities are one thing you know within the city and then once you're out of the city it's a drastic change of the culture and I mean same thing in in here in Philly you know it's a it's a nice Enclave in Philly people are very open people are usually very very supportive and then you're get outside of the city especially when you go further west and people tend to be a little bit different so it is very interesting yeah yeah and I do want to clarify too I know that of course like there can be judgment and like harshness like all across the country too so I know even here in California you can you know Drive outside of La even just like an hour or so and there's other places where folks aren't as accepting so I think it's just about finding spaces where you feel like you can be yourself it's that is very very important whether it's race issues you know homophobia you know whether it's you know ethnicity like anti-semitism M things like that it seems like it makes it harder even if the medical community isn't that way it seems like it just makes it harder for individuals to access care and to be open about things in general yeah how do you feel like we can fix that because it seems like you would almost have to change the culture and you don't really want to have to you know change the culture of of a community but at the same time some of these things need to be adjusted and overcome you know how would how do you approach that situation absolutely and it's a tough question that is very complex and has lots of uh Solutions and answers I think I think that some of the biggest would definitely be education and uh literacy around these types of issues there's a lot of misinformation that goes around these days unfortunately a lot of political parties trying to pin um American people against each other uh folks who have a lot more in common than they may think um you know it's based on identity politics or what have you so I think the biggest piece is just kind of that education component making sure that folks understand like hi like we're a lot you know we have a lot more in common than you may think and you know us folks who are working class have a lot more in common than the people at the top who are you know profiting off of the work that we do so I think that there's really that piece to to speak to and you know alongside that I'd also say just like more exposure I think that a lot of people are afraid of the unknown and so you know to them like you know gay people or a gay person may just seem so outlandish or scary because they've never actually communicate with someone who's gay or you know they've only on TV so it feels so farfetched to them so I think that kind of pushing people out of their comfort zones whether that's you know them leaving their areas to go to places that are more diverse or offer more diversity or kind of like encouraging people to be themselves in those spaces I think that uh that exposure pieces is very important as well because people aren't going to be able to accept what they don't know and that's meaningful coming from you specifically because you've seen the Spectrum you've been across the country you've been around you know what that exposure and what the education can do different scenarios thank you so much for sharing that with us I really really appreciate having you on and I just I the journey that you've been on from North Carolina I really love seeing it because I'm from the same area so it's it's wonderful to see and and thanks for sharing all of your wisdom with us absolutely well thank you so much for the opportunity Cole I very much appreciate it of course thank you</p>