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This is Scott King with the Becker's Health

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Care podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined

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by Garrett Olin, chief information officer at Shasta

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Community Health Center. Garrett, thanks so much for

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joining us today. How are you doing?

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I'm doing well. Thank you for the invitation.

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Of course. I think we're having a great

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conversation about a lot of the big opportunities

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and challenges

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in health care today. But before we dive

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in further, could you please just tell us

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a little bit about your background?

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Sure. I've been in, technology. I've been the

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CIO for, oh, about thirty five years now.

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Been with Shasta Community Health Center for about

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a year and a half.

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Shasta Community Health Center is a

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a federally qualified health center.

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We're the largest in Northern California. We're located

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in Redding,

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about halfway between Sacramento and the Oregon border.

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What are some of the accomplishments

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over at Shasta that you're most proud of

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from the past year?

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Well, last year was a busy year for

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us.

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We actually opened a a new building

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and unexpectedly

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bought a a second building,

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both of them around 35,000

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square feet.

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And in doing so, we consolidated

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a number of our locations that were leased

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and and basically relocated about 75%

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of our staff,

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over about a six month period.

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So it was just good for everyone just

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working together as a team,

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getting everything up and running and

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and everything, you know, working properly.

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And then the other thing is just

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we

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when I came on, took a look at

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what we had and

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developed a,

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stand alone,

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cybersecurity,

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department

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and have been increasing our security posture.

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I believe we we've been hearing more and

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more about cybersecurity in these interviews. How much

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is of an undertaking is that to kinda

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just make sure everything's updated and current in

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your system?

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Oh, it it's never ending. I'm sure,

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you know, it's it's one of those things

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of,

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you know, not a question of if, but

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when.

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We have,

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you know, started with

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a department of two. We're on to three

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this year.

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Our spend is, you know, increased.

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We are

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looking at just, you know,

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best practices and and securing things down to

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to the best of our ability.

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It it's been an effort. It's always ongoing.

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So, you know, we'll we'll see where it

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goes, but we we feel we have a

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a a pretty good standing at the moment.

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What are the big kinda headwinds or challenges

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you're anticipating for the next year or two?

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Cybersecurity is always number one for us. You

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know, we need to protect our patients' data,

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obviously.

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Like, I'm sure that you've heard from any,

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you know, artificial intelligence machine learning

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looking at that.

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How do we, you know, implement it and

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do it ethically,

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the security around that also,

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of patient data.

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And then just,

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finding the talent,

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for both of those when you're in a

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more rural area.

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In terms of

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finding staff to to kinda monitor things, like,

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especially like cybersecurity, is that is there a

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growing need for that? Is that, you know,

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more employees than it it would have taken

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just a few years ago?

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Not necessarily more, because a lot of things,

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you know,

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can be more automated nowadays.

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And,

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more and more of the cybersecurity is also

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implementing artificial intelligence.

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You know, you you use it to

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not only are are we using it to

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secure ourselves, but, obviously, the the threats are

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using it to try to break in.

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So

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it it's more

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figuring out those gaps. So like I said,

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you know, we went from two to three

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this year.

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I don't anticipate

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that department needing to grow more as we

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just utilize more,

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and and better tools.

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You mentioned some automation.

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Obviously, with AI now, so many things are

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benefiting from that to be automated.

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How's your health system using AI, and and

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do you have a lot of people kind

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of consistently

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checking? Yeah. We're still kinda just dipping our

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toes in it. You know, we we've used

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it on a digital health side of things,

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you know, implementing chatbot and

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and, for patients to answer some of those

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easy questions that that they may have, more

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common questions and things.

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And and starting to integrate into our EHR,

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we've been looking at the ambient technology to

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create notes.

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But we're we're kinda unique in the fact

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that we have live scribes for our providers.

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So they the the live scribes do more

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than most of the Ambient technology can do,

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like entering orders and making referrals or or

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at least entering referrals for the providers to

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just review and and,

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authorize.

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So it's a little more challenging

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because if if our provider uses the Ambient

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tech,

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they actually have to do more,

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or there's an increase of expense of utilizing

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the Ambient technology and still having the LiveScribe.

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So we're trying to balance that. We we

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do think that we have found

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a product that can also include the order

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side of things. So it will be more

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like a a LiveScribe at that point,

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and we're starting to test that now.

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When you look back at your career and,

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you know, at the time you first started

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in health care up to now, how do

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you think you've evolved as a leader?

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I guess it's just understanding that

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every provider, you know, every specialty has its

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own

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needs.

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They're very unique about how they they need

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things done.

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And just working as a team and and,

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you know,

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working to people's strengths. Right?

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If you have a gap, trying to fill

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that gap in your team with that strength

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and just,

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really building relationships.

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You know, I think I've done that my

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entire career, not just within health care, but

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having those relationships so that that I can

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trust who I'm dealing with and they can

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trust dealing with me.

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You know, that's that's the big thing.

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How how important is

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trust in a health system setting versus, you

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know, just like you know, I don't know

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if you know if you ever had, like,

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a regular office job, but you just kinda

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talk about a regular office job versus the

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trust that's needed in in health care when

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you have, you know, obviously, patients depending on

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you.

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Yeah. I think the the the difference is

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the type of data that you might be,

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dealing with. You know, I I've had, you

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know, if you pull the the regular office

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job and and things like that,

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where the the data may not be as

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sensitive

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compared to, you know,

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having access and and knowledge of,

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patient's diagnosis

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and medications

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and,

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insurance and and what have you.

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You know, it

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it it really comes down to

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the the level of trust that you need

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to make sure that, you know, we're all

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taking care of things the way we need

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to.

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You know, we we had mentioned the the

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cybersecurity of things. Right? So

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the, you know, our end users are the

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weakest link,

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in in any chain,

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around a a potential breach. So, you know,

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we we need to make sure that we're

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training staff properly

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and

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that, you know, we can identify those areas

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where we may be weak and strengthen them

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and,

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and and have that trust in each other

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to do the right thing.

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Garrett, thanks so much for the great conversation

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and for joining the podcast. Look forward to

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working with you again soon.

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Alright. Appreciate it, Scott. Have a good day.

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You too.