An Interview with Rachel Bomar, MHR, SPHR, SHRM-SPC Tidal Health and Jan Hailey, MHL, CMOM, CMC, CMIS, CMCA E/M
David: Welcome everyone, thank you for joining me. Today is a little bit different for Jan and I. First of all Jan, I believe this is now the PMI shorts number three and today is a little bit different because I'm typically talking and asking Jan questions today Jan and I are asking the questions. We are joined by Rachel Bomar. Rachel is with Tidal Health, a Health Care system in Salisbury, Maryland and Tidal Health has just recently made the decision to bring CMOM on board in house however we want to phrase that for some of their personnel and we wanted to visit about that today, so having said that Jan welcome Rachel thanks for being here!
Jan: Thanks David, good to be here with you today, and welcome Rachel.
Rachel: Well thank you both for having me!
David: Absolutely. Rachel, I wanted to start off by having you just give a kind of a brief overview of Tidal Health and then also your role within the company.
Rachel: Tidal Health is a regional health care system based out of Salisbury, Maryland with a footprint of about 60 miles outside of the Salisbury area so we have the combined areas in Delaware in Sussex County and we also go all the way down the counties in Maryland on the Eastern Shore to the Virginia line. It's a very large geographical footprint for a Health Care system and my role is the Human Resources Director and talent management director for our medical and ambulatory settings. We have two regional hospitals and then we have approximately 65 ambulatory primary care and Specialist Care locations in that footprint. We have offices all the way in Federalsburg, which is about 25 miles north of Salisbury, and then we have offices all the way down in Pocomoke, Maryland which is again another 25 to 30 miles south of um Salsbury the Hub the general Hub though is here in Salisbury.
David: Fantastic I Love the talent management part of that title I'm starting to see that certainly more and more. Rachel, during the planning of this one of the things that you said that just really struck me was that today Workforce Development is firmly on the employer.. can you talk a little bit more about that and explain what you meant?
Rachel: Sure, individuals that are entering the workforce whether they're seasoned or brand new folks right out of high school they're looking for opportunities for advancement and career Pathways in non-traditional means. What that means for the employer is that we identify folks that we feel like are going to be a good fit for our culture and then we have to present to them almost on a buffet dinner plate style an opportunity for them to have a career pathway with us.
There is a 18 to 24 month window of opportunity for employers to really firmly plant the seeds of growth and advancement within their organizations before people are going to start looking for opportunities outside of the organization. What that means is we have a very tight compressed window to select talent to identify where that talent can be best utilized in our Health Care system and to provide them the opportunities that look appetizing to them and enticing enough to where they're going to participate. and part of that for us we identified was the CMOM program.
Jan: Rachel can you tell us a little bit about how you came across CMOM and what made you decide to implement it in your health system?
Rachel: Sure! When I took my role approximately a year ago the actual hard copy curriculum was sitting on the desk when I came into the office. It was really fortuitous because I saw some modules anything that has HR in it peaks my interest because I'm an HR practitioner and that's where my expertise is, so I took a look at it and I peeled into it I just spent some time familiarizing myself with that material.
What stuck out to me the most was it was very compact, it was very direct, and it was very supportive to everything that happens in that medical office management atmosphere. I asked some of my leadership what was their experience with the CMOM program, they supported it they felt it was a very strong program at that point we probably had about a quarter of our leadership certified and through asking about the program, working with Michael Moore, and just understanding a little bit more about the structure what the process was we came to understand that that was a Fast-Track process for us to develop that medical office leadership for us and it was a successful program for competencies. It's a proctored exam so it's it's not a seminar you just attend the seminar and you get a feel-good certificate. This is a structured learning program that demonstrates competency by that proctored exam. An outcome for us is qualified competent leaders who can take our medical office into that next phase of growth for us and last fiscal year it was about 30%, which overall made it a smart move for us.
Jan: Fantastic, can you speak about both the immediate and long-term value of those taking this course?
Rachel: The immediate value is that they feel good about demonstrating those competencies. Whenever you can check a box, that is an intrinsic motivator for all people. Everybody likes to be able to check a box, so that's the immediate feedback they get. But what I hear from the practice managers and the supervisors that have completed the program, is that it gives them reference material to go back to as I progress throughout their careers. So our structure is that the practice manager oversees either a service line or a book of service lines, and they are given goals and opportunities to take that service line kind of like their own little market and make that growth happen in their service line and in their sectors.
Our success as a Health Care system to meet our mission is based on growth in those service lines, so the long-term benefit they get is they have this reference material, and they have the expertise now to go along with the experience they have in the front office. It’s that leadership quality that they get out of this material that helps them maintain their trajectory in the organization that's fantastic.
Jan: Rachel, do you have any specific examples of growth that happened with managers once they took the classes there's something that perhaps they gained a greater understanding that they didn't before. I know a lot of times with Health Systems they rely on other departments so can you speak to that a little bit?
Rachel: What our CMOM certified managers are able to do for us is to see the overall business aspect of what they're doing. It's very easy for a clinician to get stuck in medical assistant world or they get stuck in the front business office world and that's where they really focus all of their growth for their practice. What this the CMOM does is it gives them an overview of the whole business model. It gives them structure in not only the financial aspect, but the people part of it and the HIM part of it so they're able to move that practice to a different place. Where we see the most success with that is going to be in our family practice offices. Our family practice offices are structured to carry family practice general care, Endocrinology, and some of them nephology. You get some of this multi- specialty groups enclosed in these family practice offices because it just makes sense. However, those managers have to be able to accept a larger scope of practice because now they've got specialty and family practice. Specialty medical office management takes a little different focus ,but without having that structured approach to learning and having completed those the modules in the CMOM certification they wouldn’t understand how to take that business from just one pipeline into these three service lines now but still maintain focus on the medical office overall.
David: Interesting. You know Jan, in several of the interviews I've done, just two recurring thoughts keep coming up. 1) is CMOM gives a great foundation to build from and 2) it gives people a sense of confidence.
Rachel: Right, the proctored process really cements that in because again it's one thing to go to a seminar you get a certificate and okay great you know I finished that let me check that off the list. But with the CMOM program it's module by module, and little success by little success. What cements that learning is when you have to be able to remember module one, two and three when you're completing and taking that proctored exam. We celebrate those successes as an organization. Through our 'Grow with me' program, we celebrate achievements like Melissa's journey from being a Rad-tech/med assistant to becoming a supervisor and now a certified CMOM. Currently, she's looking to expand her managerial responsibilities either by overseeing more locations or broadening the scope of her current practice."
David: That's fantastic! I know in the planning of this, I remember you talked about that the overall system really supported this and you just made reference to how you really celebrate these people's successes and their accomplishments.I think that's fantastic.
Rachel: Two ways that we do that is as a system we pay for the entire program and the exam. We support the CEU requirements because we know that you know that's a cost and we benefit from them continuing their education. So why wouldn’t we pay for that?
The other way that we really support their continued growth and development is by the layers that we offer. When somebody comes into a supervisor position, during orientation we start talking about CMOM. We discuss outline of the program, it’s benefits, and how it will set them up for the next layer of development within the company.
It also gives us a pool of practice managers that are competent and ready to move to that practice manager position. I really want our practice managers to all have the same understanding of operations within that first year and that's a lot for a brand new incoming practice manager who may not be part of our system. But again we feel that foundation sets a consistent expectation for our group and its consistency across the management field, and that's what we really want to see in healthy organization.
David: Well I think that is just amazing, Jan did you have something?
Jan: Yes. I know in the last few years Health Systems across the country have stated they are having a hard time finding qualified applicants and so forth. So by offering the CMOM to the supervisors and up-and-coming managers and so forth. Have you found that is filling those open positions that you're able to promote within rather than look to the outside?
Rachel: Absolutely and that was our intent in moving it to that supervisor level. We aim to enhance the pool of managers familiar with our system and operational foundations at the practice level. Our goal is to nurture their leadership qualities and elevate them to the next level. That helps us identify practice managers for the next set of practices. We have an aggressively growing graduate medical education program here at Tidal Health and it's super quick growing. Those GME clinics are generally in the practice realm. The GME has our internal medicine and our community health clinics and without us having a pipeline of practice managers to almost match the growth of the GME growth I'm going to be really looking you know for practice managers consistently. It’s smart as a health system for people who fit our culture to just help them grow. They already know what the front-end operation supposed to do, and they know what our backend ops look like. Just grow that other piece of it and take the mystery away from “What does it take to be a leader at Tidal Health”. There's no mystery here, the CMOM is the pathway and it's very upfront and very visible. The lead MAs and even the front-end business operations people see their leaders, supervisors, and managers completing this program so they know what that pathway looks like. When when you start peeling that back even further, they know that that's how that they get to the next level.
David: That’s fantastic!
Jan: Rachel we've learned so much from you and how you've implemented CMOM and I think it's great and kudos to you for recognizing up and coming leaders within your organization and giving them a pathway to reach those goals.
Rachel: Well it really was Michael did a great thing here when he sent me the hard copy manual of the program. If it hadn't been sitting on the basket literally on the desk right behind me I don't know that we would be here.
David: We need to hire a group of minions and start sneaking those manuals into people's offices all over the country.
Rachel: It spoke very well to me. It’s not a little manual, if you've ever held the hard copy it's big, has lots of information and robustly explains the program. I think Michael and I had talked before it's been around for a number of years so it's not just this very startup brand new let's throw this out there.
David: We're celebrating our 25th anniversary of CMOM this year.
Rachel: Right, in accordance with that it's a tried and true and validated means of getting expertise into the medical office and we it's worked very well for us. Our staff feel empowered and they feel ready to tackle the business needs and the demands that they see in in operations. They feel equipped and like Jan said that's very empowering.
David: Rachel I can't thank you enough for participating in this today. I'm sure a lot of people will find Value in just hearing your story and what you all have done and accomplished. Jan thanks so much for sitting on this side of the proverbial electric table front with me I hope both of you have an amazing day.
Rachel: Well again thank you for the opportunity to highlight our health system um and thank you for the opportunity for us to promote the product for you guys.
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