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This is Scott King with the Becker's Healthcare

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Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by

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Kevin Binta,

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chief information inclusion officer at Evergreen Health New

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York. Kevin, thanks so much for joining us

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on podcast day. How are you doing? I'm

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doing well. It's great to join you all.

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Appreciate you jumping on. I, you know, I

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think we're gonna dive into a lot of

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the big opportunities and challenges in health care

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today. But before we jump in, can you

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please just tell us a bit more about

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yourself and your background?

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Sure.

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I'm yeah. Like I said, I'm the chief

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information inclusion officer here at Evergreen Health.

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Maybe a little bit about Evergreen. It's a

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FQHC look alike. It actually started forty years

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ago as an organization that provided

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social

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services for people living with HIV and AIDS,

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and it's expanded since we expanded service delivery

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to provide things like housing, transportation, behavioral health,

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dental, harm reduction services, like our our syringe

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exchange program, as well as primary care.

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We have about 10 locations throughout Buffalo and

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and a Western New York area.

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As for me, I started actually about 25

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ago here at Evergreen.

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I started in that social

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care space, and then

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maybe about ten years into it, I switched

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over to technology and data and, really built

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the team

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from there. So that's been my background as

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far as providing support here and the services

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I do.

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What accomplishment

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in the last year at over at Evergreen

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Health New York are you most proud of?

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Honestly, it's the, it's probably the the and

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in my title, the the and inclusion officer.

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Last year, I would say

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we had some changes in the DEIB space

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with our leadership, so I stepped up just

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to help support,

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the CEO at that time.

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And,

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honestly, it was really just setting up some

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infrastructure with that team and improving process.

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I would say we we found ways to

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track success,

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through both qualitative and quantitative metrics.

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We identified three priorities for that team.

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We called it employees, patients, and community.

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And then in about

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towards the end of the year, about q

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four, I handed that oversight over as we

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brought on, new team members on board to

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support that work. But for me, it was

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honestly that work.

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The CEO felt like I

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the way I ran my team, the way

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I supported my team, he wanted he felt

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like I could handle that role, and it

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would be a natural fit. And I I

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honestly really enjoyed doing that work.

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I appreciate you sharing. It's nice to hear

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about the the personal journey there. What are

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the big organizational goals you've set for 2025?

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Big organizational goals,

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probably gonna

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focus a little bit more on the technology.

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I would say, generally, it's optimization.

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We purchased

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different technologies,

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throughout the organization, and now we're we're circling

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back. You know, we're about year three, four,

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five on some of these

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different technologies, and we're circling back to those

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teams to kinda look at areas that we

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can provide some optimization,

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things we can do better.

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The way I kinda describe it is, you

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know, we we bought something that can do

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10 things, and we we started out and

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said, well, we wanted to only do three

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things until we get a good handle on

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it. So now we're gonna look at what

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other things besides three things that we wanted

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to do that, we can turn on and

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and see if we can get moving forward.

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So those are some of the bigger growth

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opportunities for us,

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as far as the organization.

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And then, I would say the other thing

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that's public that we announced,

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recently is that we're

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putting up a new building,

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over in another part of Buffalo,

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and,

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we're pretty excited about that. It should be

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opening,

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mid twenty twenty six.

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That's great.

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What headwinds do you anticipate for the next

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year or two?

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For me, in particular, my team,

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I think the biggest thing for my team

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is is leadership development. Honestly, not even technical,

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it's just, leadership. I think we've got folks

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who are excellent at their technical training, their,

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where they stand. But,

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as they continue on their career path,

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we've just identified that there's there's a few

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folks there that

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want to be better leaders for their teams.

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And so I part of my role, I

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feel like, is to make it my responsibility

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to find the training, the resources,

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all of those opportunities for them to support

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their development and growth.

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And so that's something that I've always done.

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I've got 70% of my leaders on my

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team are women.

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About 60% of them in in the overall

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team are women as well. So I truly

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try to make room,

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and standing up for them. And,

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especially in the technology space, it's it's not

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normal

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for you to hear, you know, having so

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many women in that space and being empowered

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to grow and learn and take leadership roles.

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You're talking about the the leadership team there.

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For you specifically,

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have you evolved as a leader?

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I think it's for me, I I know

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that

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two things. One is,

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how do I support my team?

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I think for me,

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there was definitely a shift in in my

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approach.

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You know, first, you you start out kind

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of feeling some of that.

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Maybe it's imposter syndrome, like, maybe I'm not

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fit for this. And it's it's totally self

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focused.

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I mean, what what can I do for

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myself?

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What can I do to be better or

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to grow?

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At some point along the way, just in

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talking with some of my friends, peers, and

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and mentors,

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I realized that if I focus on my

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team, I really enjoy that. I really enjoy

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spending time thinking about them and their development

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and how I support them in getting in

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getting the work done. So that I I

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think that was a big shift for me

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as far as, my own development

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and,

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I guess, taking a different perspective on how

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I lead the team.

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Kevin, thanks so much for joining us on

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podcast today. I thought it was a great

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conversation. I look forward to working with you

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again soon.

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Yeah. Thank you so much.