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Welcome to Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Chris Sosa,

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your host, and I'm thrilled to be joined

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today by Rob Wetmore. He is the director

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of digital health for Variety Care in Oklahoma

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City. Rob, thank you for joining us today.

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Thanks, Chris. Thank you for having me.

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Yeah. We're so glad you could be here.

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Rob, if you could please introduce yourself and

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tell our audience a bit about your background.

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Sure thing. As Chris mentioned, my name is

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Rob Wetmore. I am the director of digital

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health care at Variety Care. We are a

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federally qualified health center out of Oklahoma City.

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We

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have around 20 clinics within the Oklahoma City

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area and a couple into rural Oklahoma.

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And we currently serve responsible for,

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little over a 100,000 patients, So a fairly

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large system.

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My path kind of coming here into this

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realm

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is a bit different than what,

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is the usual. So I spent sixteen years

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working in inpatient mental health.

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Everything from utilization review and prior authorization

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into clinical program management. And then I even

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was working under supervision for my LPC licensure

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before my career kind of went off on

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a tangent

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and I ended up being on an epic

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implementation build

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as an instructional designer.

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And then that transitioned again into what we

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called care transformation where I was able to

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work with some physician leads

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to develop best practices for that health care

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system

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to standardize care and processes

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throughout the whole entire thing. And so that's

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really where I got a huge exposure into

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the transition between a clinical vision and operational

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reality and how those things worked for and

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against each other.

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That does seem a little bit like a

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meandering path through health. But but by and

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large, it just sounds like you've had

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a breadth of experience in in the industry.

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What got you what made you go into

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health care? What made you pursue that in

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the first place?

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So

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kinda going back even further, I entered undergraduate,

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with this whole idea of, like, I'm gonna

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be a business major. I'm gonna be a

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CEO and, you know, do all this and

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make all this money. And then those classes

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put me to sleep.

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And

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so I realized that probably wasn't the direction

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I wanted to go. And I took an

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intro to psychology class

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and realized that it was very interesting to

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me. It's very intriguing, the psychology, the social

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sciences,

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and I ended up getting a double major

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in psychology and sociology.

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Ended up in Oklahoma after

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undergrad and quickly realized that a bachelor's degree

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in psychology and sociology was gonna get me

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nowhere.

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And eventually got into a master's program at

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the University of Oklahoma and focused on my

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LPC licensure.

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At the time, I was working for the

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inpatient mental health facility, so I was able

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to translate that

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real world experience into the classroom and vice

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versa. So it was a really cool way

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of getting that accomplished.

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So that's how I got into health care.

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It just fell in my lap kind of

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a thing, and it's something that

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definitely

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is a part of who I am. It's

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in my it's in my DNA, really. I

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I I enjoy it. No one's in my

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family has been in health care, but it's

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definitely something that's just ingrained into me. It's

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it's really just I'm a helper, and

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I can't help but be in a helper.

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Even on this side in digital health

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and looking at the systems of things,

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it's in that helper role of, like, how

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can I better the system, not just for

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the system? I mean, sure. That's great. They

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they sign my paychecks.

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But to me, it's all about the patient

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and patient first, patient engagement, patient care. And

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that was driven in on the behavioral health

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side way before it was on to the

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medical side. So I feel I got a

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head start on that patient first mentality before

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it really got into the medical side of

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health care. And now in digital health, that's

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what it has to be about. There's such

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a divide

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between

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technology

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and the human experience

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that with me that I live on that

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divide, that that gray line between those two

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realms of basically anywhere in life. I live

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in that gray line. And so for me

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to be able to

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take digital technology

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and use it to transform

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the human experience

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in health care is just like

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a win win for me, I guess.

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Certainly,

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if there's any indication sure indication that you're

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in the wrong place, it's if it's not

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inspiring you and putting you to sleep. But,

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fortunately, you found your way into the WR

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now. I love the way you put it.

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That that's a a gray line. I hadn't

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heard that before, but it certainly, I think,

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speaks to a lot of leadership in health

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care that you as you said, you have

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to live between these two worlds of, you

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know, what

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digital and other technologies can provide and how

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you actually translate that to the patient.

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So along those lines, could you let us

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know what exactly are your top priorities today?

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Well, I mean, I kinda hit on it.

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My top priorities are really,

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serving the the patients,

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reducing those disparities

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and providing access to the underserved communities.

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That

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is always been true for federally qualified health

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centers, and it's really it's always been true

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for

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what I've been trying to do.

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But

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now it's even more so. The the pressures

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that are being put on us at the

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federal level,

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to perform, to

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do what we're doing with less funding,

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we have to figure out a way around

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this, and it comes down to access.

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And to me in in my world view

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and, fortunately, my leaders as well, it comes

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down

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to things like telemedicine and remote patient monitoring.

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Any sort of tool that improves access, increases

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access, gets us in front of our patients,

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and help them have healthier lives.

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Along those lines as well, Rob. So

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to say that things change quickly would be

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maybe the understatement of the year with technology

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and health care in particular.

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And you've you've covered

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some of the challenges that you're facing with,

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respect to changes in the federal government and

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and the like.

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So

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could you take this moment to just say

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describe

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to the audience how you anticipate your role

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is gonna change and how the role of

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your team is gonna change.

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And lastly,

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how you work through you said you're really

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not alone in this. Not at all. So

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who are the people and and other

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systems, organizations that you're looking for to kind

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of collaborate with? And that's a lot, I

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so. So break it straight into it as

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as as you wish.

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No. That's a great question. So

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to start things off with digital health is

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the department of Rob. So I don't have

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a team to wrap around me, but,

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that doesn't stop me.

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Yeah. I talk to myself probably as much

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as I talk to anybody,

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and, we have good conversations.

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But

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I have a good relationship with my leadership,

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doctor Lydia Nightingale. She's our VP of medical

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affairs, and we have a good relationship and

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a good understanding of where we want this

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organization to go on that medical clinical operational

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front

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and really shift how we're doing things within

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the system.

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And she and our CMO

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and our,

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like, chief of population health and all those

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aspects. They're really working together with the synergy

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to kind of bring this together. So, internally,

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that's my team that I work with is

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is doctor Nightingale and her chiefs that are

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underneath her

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to just transform the way that VerityCare is

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doing care.

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Externally, I have a great partner with Evisit,

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Evisit Telemedicine.

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They have been an amazing partner from the

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first conversation I had with them. Gosh. It's

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been

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two and a half years now probably that

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I've been working with them. They've been amazing

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telemedicine partner. More than a telemedicine partner, they've

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really been a partner just in digital health

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and innovating and expanding what that looks like

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and how people get involved in that.

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So it's been a great partnership there.

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Working with other vendors to try to bring

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in

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cleaner, better, faster, more efficient ways of doing

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things.

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Novena AI is a company that I've been

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trying to work well, I've been working with

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a lot. I'm trying to get them into

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our ecosystem.

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They're gonna allow us to look at the

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medical record from a whole new level.

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Novena uses its its AI to

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not only comb through our record, and we're

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an epic shop. We go through Ogen instance

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of Epic. And so

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not only to come through Epic and Nexus

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or whatever you wanna call it, Care Everywhere

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platform, all that stuff, but it also looks

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out to the health information exchange and pulls

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in information from that on that patient.

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And so our providers right there in front

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of them are gonna have all of this

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information on

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on these patients that they treat

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and know a much more robust history than

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they've ever been able to look at before

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because it's pulling in information that we probably

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don't have in our health system,

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from records going way back. And the AI

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will then

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make suggestions

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towards

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what diagnosis the provider may wanna look at

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to look at and and run through and

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just kinda dive deeper into. So it's a

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really cool technology. I'm very excited to get

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it going. We have some internal

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barriers that we're looking into to make sure

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that once we decide to go forward with

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it, that it's gonna be clean

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implementation process, but it's something that I'm very

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excited about.

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I'm glad you mentioned that the excitement aspect

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because, you know, that's really what's gonna keep

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all of us going in in all of

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our jobs really, especially when things can be

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a little difficult as they are right now.

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Beyond what you just mentioned, and thank you

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for sharing all of that,

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is there anything else that you think, hey.

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This is really exciting, and I really wanna

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share this as far as your job is

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concerned?

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Just me personally, the fact that digital health

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care is isn't just like this side project

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now. It's really looked at as a key

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strategic initiative. It is one of our strategic

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initiatives here at Variety Care is innovation within

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that being the digital health innovation. So

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the fact that that is my realm and

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the fact that it's at that high of

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level of engagement is, pretty rewarding and exciting

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in itself. And

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I'm hoping to be able to take this

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from just, like, piloting tools and bringing some

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stuff on to really making this something that's

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sustainable

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and culture shift

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and

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just

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being able to make sure that we can

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scale it across the organization and that it

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sticks.

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Rob, thank you so much for joining us

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on the podcast today. I we're gonna see

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you at a a conference coming up this

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fall. And, you know, we can't wait to

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share these insights and until next time.

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Alright. Thanks, Chris. It'd be good talking to

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you.