frankly… Episode 99: Healthcare Complexity Requires Strong Communication

In this episode of frankly…

The transcript below is AI-generated and may contain minor inaccuracies. Tune in to the episode audio to hear the full conversation! 

Transcript

Rachel

Hello and welcome to frankly.

Dan

Welcome.

Rachel

We have Jeff Adkins joining us today, who is the Executive Communications Manager at Henry Ford Health System. He’s also president-elect of PRSA Detroit, so he is very close to starting his presidency there. And we do a lot of diving in today about what Henry Ford Health System is doing in the Detroit community, how he really works with his executives to strategically place them for speaking opportunities and making sure that he’s actually getting them to hit the right audiences, where they’re at and kind of what they’re talking about, how it relates to what they’re passionate about. And in general, just how to put people in the community to get them to understand what the health system is doing.

Dan

Yeah, and to feel part of it too, like engaging that community, which is really cool to hear about. And just so many fun, cool announcements coming in the next few years for them. It’s really exciting time over there. Talked with him about that a bit and then some more about some upcoming plans for PRSA and their upcoming conference, which we’ll link to in the description here if you want to check it out. With that, we’ll turn it over to Jeff. Hi, Jeff. Welcome to Frankly. Thanks so much for joining us.

Jeff

Thank you for having me here in your very cool downtown office.

Dan

Yeah, glad you could make it down. So We always start off, just talk us through a little bit of your background. What does your career path look like? How did you come to Henry Ford Health System?

Jeff

Path has been, it’s been, I’ve been really fortunate in a lot of ways. I will say that I’m one of the people that I think PR found me. You know what I mean? Like I went to college. I didn’t necessarily know what I wanted to do. I actually at first wanted to be a dentist and then I took chemistry in college. I didn’t want to be a dentist anymore.

Rachel

I feel like that’s a lot of people’s stories and anything science related.

Jeff

You either find out it’s for you or it’s not. And it was not for me. But writing always came very natural to me. I took AP English in high school and everything like that. And then I got involved with some student organizations at school. And one of the orgs I was in, the president said, you’d be a great PR chairman, to which I said, what is PR? I’ve never even heard of PR. So I got involved with doing some promotions for events and stuff on campus, took some classes, absolutely loved it. I decided to stick with it, declared my major. I interned at a few places. in school. I think internships are super important, getting some hands-on experience. Interned at the DMC, Henry Ford Health, and then a PR agency downtown. And from there, I went full-time in the agency for about a year. I came back to Henry Ford in April 2015. And in the time since then, I’ve been at Henry Ford continuously. So it’s been about 11 1/2 years now. Gone by super quick. I started off in internal comm specifically at Henry Ford Hospital, so managing newsletters, leadership communications, nursing communications, stuff like that. Spent about 8 years doing media relations. So I transitioned from there over to the media team. I worked with about 9 or 10 different departments in that time, but I spent most of my time leading PR for everything related to cancer and everything related to neuro. So anything from brain tumors to stroke to Parkinson’s. And then in December 23, I stepped into my current role, so now I’m executive communications manager. So I support our president and CEO, Bob Reining at anything from speaking engagements to his podcast to media to digital presence and social media. I also support our COO, Denise Brooks Williams, and then the other executives here and there a little bit with the same things.

Dan

Very cool. So what drew you into healthcare comms initially or how did you end up working with hospitals in this way? Was it something in particular or just kind of the path that happened?

Jeff

It started out as a path that happened, but I stayed because it feels meaningful. So my first internship was, I went to an internship fair and I got an offer from the DMC and I said, cool, sounds great. Let’s give it a shot. And then when I got to Henry Ford, I was doing a little bit of different work and events and stuff like that, a lot of fundraising. But over time, once I got into full time, I was able to see the benefit of the work and how it helps people. And it’s very rewarding. One of my favorite examples to share is I think around 2019, I did a story with three 10-year survivors of glioblastoma brain cancer. Glioblastoma is extremely deadly. The life expectancy is usually about a year to a year and a half after diagnosis. And these three were all celebrating 10 years. So we did a bunch of media on it and external storytelling. And to this day, actually this week, I got a letter, I got an e-mail about it this morning. I get probably one to three calls or emails about it a year still since I posted that. And one of my favorite examples of that is there was a guy who called me from Argentina because his dad had glioblastoma and he was looking to get him up here to Detroit to get treated for that.

Dan

Wow, that’s incredible.

Jeff
That was the impact.

Rachel

People look, especially in healthcare related things, to the everyday person, when you are diagnosed or hear these big words, it’s scary. And doctors can talk about it one way, but you tend to look for community, right? Like people that have been through something, whether it’s, hopeful stories or, just like, hey, has anyone else experienced this? What was it like? So being able to be that resource is huge because I really think in medicine, like, you know, you don’t initially think of like doing communications for a hospital. You find community, but it seems like you’ve kind of developed that a little bit.

Jeff

I think it underscores the power of storytelling, and especially in a field like that. Medicine is so complex. There’s a lot of work actively going on to make the experience more straightforward and easier for people, increase access, everything like that. But when you’re a patient going through it and you get a diagnosis like that, it’s extremely overwhelming. So being able to find resources readily available or connect with people that have been through something similar is just hugely important.

Dan

Yeah, just have more of that kind of realistic understanding of what to expect, what you can be hopeful for, and kind of the alternative even is good to be able to find that community like that.

Jeff

Absolutely.

Dan

So talk a little bit, you mentioned a few executives that you work with. That’s, I think. From the outside looking in, it seems like with Henry Ford, there’s a lot more to that role than probably communicating about the organization. Each of these executives has big visions for Detroit, for the community, for healthcare, for the future of what all health encompasses even. Talk a little bit about that, about how you kind of work with them to build out their communications plans or how they can be present in the community to kind of share some of those visions.

Jeff

Absolutely. So healthcare is going through a huge transformation right now. It has been for several years, but it’s really amping up when it comes to things like affordability. So for years, historically, healthcare was primarily funded by volume, right? Lots of people in the hospital, they get treated, they go out of the hospital, you get paid, there you go, right? Well, what’s happened is that it’s become increasingly clear that volume is not really solving the healthcare issues people have. They get seen, but they don’t get the results that they need. Their health doesn’t actually improve. So now things are switching to what’s called value-based care or high-value care. So reimbursement and payment and everything is based on outcomes, not volume. So we want to actually keep people healthier and at home or out in the community versus being in one of our facilities. There’s a lot of things that we’ve done to help make that possible and bring it to fruition. For instance, we launched a subsidiary in the fall of ‘24 called Populence. So a person comes in with a high-risk condition, something that could get a lot worse without management, diabetes, for instance. If you have diabetes, it’s extremely manageable. If you don’t maintain the care for it, then what you’re dealing with is a leg amputation and lots of recovery and lots of added expenses. So now we have this subsidiary where they actually proactively stay in contact with these patients and make sure that they’re able to get the care that they need, that they’re not running into walls and barriers preventing them from getting what they need, they have their medications, stuff like that. So I’ve been really fortunate, I think, to be part of that storytelling and helping people in the community and everybody learn about this. Because if you’re somebody with a condition like that, COPD, diabetes, there’s a whole bunch of them, that proactive care is just incredibly important. So, getting them out in the community to tell things like that is important. And obviously, the organization as a whole over the past probably three to four years has really just gone to a whole new level with projects in the city, investment in the city. You know, the biggest one by far, the most visible one, is our future of health projects with MSU and the Pistons, and so that encompasses a whole $3.3 billion project that is bringing a new state-of-the-art 20-story hospital. And when I mean state-of-the-art, I mean it’s being built for technologies that don’t exist yet. So we know we’re partnering with Michigan Central and a lot of this kind of development. It also includes a seven-story research building with MSU right next to our current corporate offices. And that’s going to hopefully, we think that these investments are going to not only benefit people in the city in terms of jobs and better health care, but also attract some of the top medical talent to this city, which is also going to help them. It’s going to bring more resources here for the citizens and making sure that everybody is able to get top-notch health care right down the street, they don’t have to go out of state.

Rachel

I think that’s important in the city itself too. Like you said, it’s the accessibility for a lot of people that is, I think, one of the hardest things. And I want to touch on a little bit of that value-based care that you were talking about. Where are you kind of putting your executives to speak on some of these things? I think that’s like, if you talk a little bit about strategy and getting the message out there to, I think that there’s different audiences that need to hear that, right? So talk just a little bit, like go into that a little bit of the strategy that you use when you talk about something so big like that, that’s I think fundamentally having to change how people think about getting healthcare or insurance or paying for it.

Jeff

Yeah, there’s a lot of different audiences. Like you said, you know, in the fall of last year, we started worked around a campaign that we were working on called Cost of Care. It’s really transitioned a little bit now, but in the fall, Bob did a bunch of editorial briefings with Crane’s Detroit Business, Free, the News, to basically help reporters and editorial staff better understand healthcare affordability and what drives different parts of it. So there’s an educational element there. Obviously, the healthcare industry, he does a lot of speaking with outlets like Modern Healthcare, Becker, stuff like that, reaching other industry people to be a thought leader in this space. And there’s just a lot of, he’s used his podcast to talk about it too. We’re increasingly doing that. So, it’s a multi-pronged approach. Right now, we’re focusing a lot on businesses, helping working with the MHA, Michigan Hospital Association, and local chambers of commerce to connect with business leaders and helping them understand the benefit to them of investing in healthcare for their employees, lowering absenteeism, better productivity, the employees are healthy and feel good, they’re gonna work better. You know what I mean? So there’s a lot of messaging like that too.

Rachel

Yeah, I was thinking about Chambers as you were talking about that and bringing top talent here. I’m sure they would be a great partner to onboard.

Jeff

Absolutely.

Dan

And that’s a big part of your role also is in partnerships, is that right? So kind of like working with some of those partners to tell that story on a bigger scale.

Jeff

Oh yeah, definitely. Partnerships like that, partnerships through Future of Health and Destination Grand, our partnership with MSU Michigan State Health Sciences. That’s the driving force behind our research center. So I’m deeply embedded in a lot of them.

Dan

Yeah, and tons of people. I mean, there’s tons of benefit to just getting that message in as many places as possible because, you know, we talked about how complex, you know, a diagnosis can be or healthcare in general, but like to be able to hear that from your employer, from your education system, from the hospital itself, like I feel like that’s a message that needs to be repeated. as many times as you can get it out there to help people understand.

Jeff

Absolutely. And it’s like any message, that you have to say it more than once for it to stick and in different channels. And there’s a lot of repetition and overlap in communications like that. But that’s because to get that message home, you have to be consistent with it.

Rachel

It’s the reinforcement. Some channels to push it out there and some to reinforce it. Talk a little bit about your work with some of the other executives that you’re working with. What are their passions and things that they’re talking about? Where are you kind of placing them to show up and talk about their stories?

Jeff

Yeah, so Denise Brooks Williams, I’ll say this before I jump into that. The executive team at Henry Ford Health is absolutely phenomenal to work with. I feel so fortunate to be in this role at this organization because they all are– they’re not only brilliant and great leaders, but they’re all they also value communications and they value being strategic. You know what I mean? And it’s so refreshing to work at an organization where you don’t have to wonder whether your council is valued. You know, like they’re very, it’s very clear that they do value it. She’s really a vocal voice on, you know, being out in the community and connecting with community members. So, you know, especially around our campus, Northwest Goldberg, those neighborhoods around there, really passionate about making sure that they’re included in what we do, that their voices and input is included in our projects. For 2 years of my role, the first two years of this role, now I primarily support Bob and Denise. At that time, for the first two years, I just directly supported everybody.

Dan

Seems busy.

Jeff

And then with the launch of our joint venture, in ‘24, we started bringing some people over from Ascension, Michigan, and things got moved around a little bit. And so now, although I still support them sometimes, I’m more directly involved with Bob and Denise. But they all have similar interests, but they diverge a little bit in some areas, like Adnan Mankar and Steve Calcanis. Adnan is our chief physician executive, and then Steve Calcanis, he’s our CEO of Henry Ford Hospital, Henry Ford Medical Group. They’re hugely passionate about getting the stories out there about the care that we provide, but also the research, and just the fact that Henry Ford Health is a research powerhouse, helping people realize that. And then also the fact, Steve mentions this all the time, every major leading city in the country has sort of a premier health system. You know what I mean? And Detroit needs to be more intentional about that. And I think that’s really, that’s a big part of why this investment is taking place because Detroit, as a city that’s big time on the up and up. I went to school at Wayne State and got there in 2009, and the city couldn’t be much more different now than it was at that time. I mean, I used to run by vacant lots and now there’s new buildings there and everything. It’s amazing to see. But as the city keeps growing, the need for that really premier medical presence is only going to get even greater.

Dan

And you can tell, I mean, I feel like whenever you see Henry Ford folks out at speaking things, whether it’s business community or other types of events, like you can kind of see those values, that vision kind of combining and coming through and whoever’s speaking to that, you can see that real vision for the future of Detroit, which is nice.

Jeff

Yep, and it all comes from a place of authenticity, and that’s really the best part of it all. You know, the leaders are very authentic. They are very dedicated to the city and its residents, and I see it all the time.

Dan

So jumping over a little bit to your other role, so you also serve on the board for PRSA Detroit.

Jeff

Correct.

Dan

And you are incoming president next year.

Jeff

Yeah, I’ll be president in two months.

Dan

All right, coming up sooner than we got there. So, congratulations on that.

Jeff

Thank you very much.

Dan

I guess talk a little bit about why you feel it’s so important to be involved in organizations like that, with that professional development group, with that network. What is it about PRSA that drives you to get more involved and stay involved to that level?

Jeff

I think when I found out about PRSA through PRSSA in school, because I quickly learned when I was in school that PR was just not one of those fields where you get a bachelor’s degree and walk out the door and then there’s a job you just go to it. PR is a very hands-on industry. Networking makes a huge difference, and I learned that early on. That’s why I got involved in PRSSA and then switching over to PRSA was sort of a natural transition. But understanding the benefit of it and what a difference it can make in your career to build connections and to network and to continue learning through these panel discussions and these events and stuff like that, it’s something I wanted to help the next generation learn and appreciate and benefit from as well. And so that’s been a big driving force for me. And as I step into this presidency, that’s going to be a thing that I really focus on this coming year is helping students learn about how beneficial this is. PRSA National does an associate membership that’s way cheaper. It’s a full membership. And I think it’s available for the first two years post-graduation. I want to say a year of national membership is like $70 or something like that versus when you become, beyond that, it’s like 300, I think, maybe a little bit less than 300 a year. But I mean, you get the full membership, and it’s something that students should absolutely take advantage of. It can make a huge difference in your career. You meet all these people at these networking events, you stay connected. Five years from now, a job opens up somewhere and guess what? You know someone there. You know what I mean? They can vouch for you, they know how you work. Versus reaching out, not knowing anyone and hoping that the process works for you.

Dan

And ultimately, I mean, this business is a relationship business. It’s so driven by all those connections that you make that, even just that kind of networking is good practice for the future roles too.

Jeff

Yep, absolutely.

Rachel

What are you guys, what kind of what’s coming up with PRSA? What are you walking into for your first couple months of your presidency?

Jeff

Well, we’ve got our annual meeting coming up November 17th. It’s going to be at the Detroit Athletic Club. That’ll be exciting. You know, it’s a really interesting, it’s an awesome, you know, historic venue. And I think people are going to have a great time. That’s our big marquee event that we do every year. We usually have about 100 to 125 people there. Awards, where we’re currently we’ve got our awards open. So if you just go to our website and then check out, I think it’s under, if you look at the about section, I think you’ll see the awards listing there. But people should totally submit nominations for them. You know, I think when you get into, I remember this from being a student. It’s like, well, why am I going to apply for that? I’m not going to win. You have a better chance of winning than you think you do. You really do. And people should absolutely do that. But so we got our annual meeting, obviously. I think we’re really lucky to have a pretty dedicated board. Everybody’s super helpful. Everybody’s interested in giving back and carrying the mission forward and connecting with students and new pros and even seasoned pros. I think just having that well-rounded network, everybody believes in the value of it. And I think it’s going to be a great year for the chapter. I’m focusing a lot on trying to drive home that message to the new pros and the younger generation about how valuable it is to network. That’s going to be a priority of mine and growing membership in general, even older people. I mean, you don’t have to be a new pro. It’s never too late to get started.

Rachel

Can anyone attend the annual meeting or do you have to be a member?

Jeff

You can buy a non-member ticket.

Rachel

There you go. That’d be a good place to start, right? If you’re listening to this and you’re thinking maybe you want to get involved, that’s a good place to start then. Check it out. What are you excited about? So that’s kind of PRSA side. Give us one thing you’re looking forward to for Henry Ford Health Systems next year.

Jeff

Oh man, it’s hard to pick. I think I’m really looking forward to the opening of our research center. So in 2027, this brand new research center, if you drive down the Lodge, you’ll see it right in front of our corporate office. It’s kind of kitty corner from the new hospital tower. So that’s going to open in ‘27. The new hospital will open in ‘29. But this new research center is going to have about 500 people working there. There’s going to be 80 principal investigators. The Nick Gilbert Neurofibromatosis Research Institute will be there as well. So, Dan Gilbert’s son, Nick Gilbert, he had a very rare condition called neurofibromatosis, which causes tumors to grow on the nerves throughout the body. So this will be the first brick and mortar facility in the world dedicated to researching that disease.

Rachel

That’s incredible.

Jeff

And that is not exclusively that disease. So that will be in the center, but the disease will also, but the center will also focus on, other conditions as well. But that center will be in there and we’re excited about it.

Dan

Yeah, what an opportunity, I mean, to really grow the workforce here in terms of engineering and research in this field. Like there’s just so much potential for that. I’m excited to see that.

Jeff

Absolutely.

Rachel

Yeah, love it. All right, to round this out, we always like to ask What would you tell yourself at 21, maybe going into that first internship, that first job, based on what you know now? What advice would you give Jeff back then?

Jeff

I would give the advice to myself back then to speak up and understand that my ideas are valuable, even as a young professional like that. I think as a young professional, you can find yourself in rooms with people that are decades into their career and sometimes you can be hesitant to speak up because you’re like, I don’t know if I know more than that person does. And it’s not necessarily that you do, but different perspectives I think matter a lot. And a young person will look at an issue a lot of times differently than an older person will, and both perspectives are important. You know what I mean? So I think I would have told myself that. I think, you know, over time I learned that, but I think if I had, you know, the confidence in myself at that time, I would have probably spoken on more in some situations. So I think that’s something that younger pros and newer people should keep in mind.

Rachel

I like that. I do think it makes a difference. And you mentioned perspective, but life experience, right? Everybody, no matter how old you are, has had different life experiences. So you don’t need a ton of life experience to offer opinions and perspectives.

Dan

And very rarely does your audience fall into that single age group or backgrounding group also.

Jeff

Right.

Rachel

Yep, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming.

Jeff

Truly my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Love the office. Always great to talk to you guys.

Rachel

Thank you. Of course. Well, after you get a couple of these really awesome projects completed, I would love to talk about opening some of these things, great openings and what’s been going on.

Jeff

That will be our life over the next few years, no doubt.

Rachel

Perfect. Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff

Thank you.

Dan

Thanks again to Jeff for joining us today. Really enjoyed the conversation here. So much to look forward to with what Henry Ford Health System is doing here in Detroit and just some exciting times. So, we’ll link more information on both PRSA and its conference as well as Henry Ford Health System if you want to keep up with what they’re doing in the description below. And in the meantime, we’ll see you next time.

Rachel

Bye.