Latest / PITSTOP With The Diers Ford/Lincoln Auto Amigos / Pitstop Episode 7: Fremont Health Foundation
Transcript
- Diers: Hey, welcome to Pit Stop with Deers for Lincoln Auto I'm Tony. This is Fernando. And we're joined today by Ali Green, who's the executive director of the Fremont Health Foundation. You got it. Yeah, and it was founded in 1976. what is your role with the foundation? As the director of the Fremont Health Foundation, I really work with ⁓ anything has to do with philanthropy and supportive health care in Fremont. So that could be grants, ⁓ working ⁓ donors business partners. ⁓ and just advancing what we do for healthcare. So that could be a new program or maybe a specific project or capital or technology, really any improvements that we're trying to make. We need philanthropic support. So that is really my duty within the foundation. And is that the mission of the foundation then also you included that in your- Yeah, ⁓ a roundabout way. The actual mission is to use resources and relationships to advance the mission of Methodist Fremont Health. Well, the reason we have you here today is we think what you do is so important for the Fremont community and not just the Fremont community, but the surrounding areas that also come to Methodist Health in Fremont. ⁓ I know your big support, know, a lot of what you do supports them. Yeah. And you just came from fill a truck ⁓ stuff a truck. Yeah. For a life house, Care Corps, Life House? Yes, that's a partnership with WWT6. So all the Methodist affiliates participate in it, but take donations for Care Corps Life House twice a year. We usually do one in the summer and then winter, it sounds like our winter one's getting moved up more to fall because it continues to get postponed due to cold weather and us having to stand outside. So it will a November event. ⁓ Well, Fernando I can tell you. Being in the cold weather is not necessarily a great thing. We did a Find Us This downtown and we were said we were going to be there Friday at 1. So we kept our promise. We were freezing. We sat out there for about two hours. I don't think nobody showed up. Well, people showed up, but nobody found the right stuff we were looking for. Oh, no. And it was it was cold. What time of year was that? Oh, was in the spring. Oh, gosh. That was freezing. Oh, no. One of us ran into the truck for about two minutes. Yes, one of us did. So how does the foundation help enhance and expand the Methodist Health of Fremont? Really the hospital and healthcare in general just needs support from donors and grants to make things happen. have great operating money, we just, in order to advance and to find new things, we need donor support and grant support. And so if we something great to come to Fremont, we might need the help of donors and otherwise that project could not happen. So recently I saw that you guys, well we were there, we visited the gardening project that you guys did ⁓ in of Sean. How ⁓ did come about Yeah, so Sean Shanahan was my predecessor in this position. I had the fortune of working with her on different events and projects previously. And after she had passed, this was prior to me starting this position, but I've heard stories that they wanted to honor her in some way, but they didn't know if that should be naming a room after her or a sign. Like they just ⁓ of thought about it for a while. ⁓ I truly don't know who exactly came up with this garden idea, but it turned out to be perfect. And her family thinks that it's perfect. And we think that it's a great way to honor her too. She loved flowers. It's near the cancer center and she passed from cancer and had spent time in that cancer center herself. And I've said myself that many of our staff enter through that entrance at the hospital each day. ⁓ so not only is it a healing garden for patients, ⁓ I think it's the perfect space to kind of just take a deep breath when we enter the hospital each morning. Well, it was a great event. Yeah. And I know ⁓ family had to be very happy. If you look at the number of people ⁓ were there, it was a great thing to be a part of. So I know also, and I want to say in the last year, I was at something where you had some, a new piece of equipment, the Cancer Center. Yeah. And was that a big part of the Health Foundation? ⁓ yeah, it was a huge, huge fundraiser that Sean had been working on for the past several years. was a capital campaign for the Cancer Center and ⁓ result of that was a new linear accelerator, which is the equipment that delivers radiation when somebody's doing radiation therapy to treat their cancer. is about a $2 million project. previous piece of equipment had been quite dated ⁓ there was many patients who were having to go to Omaha to get similar or the most effective radiation for the type of cancer that they had. And so ⁓ this in Fremont allows all of our patients to be able to get their radiation here. I don't know how much you guys know about radiation and I had to learn myself, ⁓ oftentimes radiation therapy is like, 10 to 30 consecutive business days of treatment. And if you can imagine having to drive to maybe Methodist Hospital or Nebraska Med or something for that many consecutive days, potentially this person is still working, maybe their family's still working, like that can become quite burdensome. So it was an important project to Shaun. It became a very important project for the hospital and the results have been outstanding. The last number that I saw as of a few months ago was that we have been able to treat 30 more patients than we would have been able to previously because our previous technology wouldn't have treated the type of cancer that they had. So that makes it worth it to me. I have been thrilled to share those results with some of the people that supported that project. Now after radiation, does that make them sick? Does it make them not feel well then after the radiation treatment? Not nearly like chemo could. of the patients that I've worked with that have received radiation ⁓ OK afterwards. Some have some type of burns depending on the type and the intensity of the treatment. Yeah, so I know that machinery and equipment was because of people donating and generating that for foundation. Fremont is wonderful in being able to donate and being generous and the community is just amazing with that. What do you think makes Fremont being that generous for those types of situations? I think that Fremont is near and dear to everybody's hearts and the surrounding communities. And if they can make something happen for Fremont that we then don't have to go into the bigger city for, I think that they're all motivated by making that happen and helping the people that are in the community so that they don't have to travel to get things like that. We're kind of a unique breed in that way. And our Omaha Methodist affiliates joke about it, but it's true. We kind of like to stick close to our community and our tribe that we have here. And I think that kind of spurs a lot of the generosity. So for someone who wants give to the healthcare and free bot, where's the biggest area they can make an impact? We have so different areas and really I tell people to give to what speaks to you. We have funds that support new babies. We have funds that support hospice patients and just about everything in between. We have medication assistance programs. ⁓ We have that just donate unrestricted. have people that want to support scholarships. so really, if there's just something that speaks to your soul and is meaningful to you or maybe has been meaningful to a family member or something, I think that in itself could be the biggest impact. Why do you think giving locally is the most important thing? I think that everybody wants to see their local organization succeed. kind of did an activity just out of the blue with Lutheran high school students that came to visit us a couple months ago. And the activity that I gave them was write a list of 10 things that you think would happen if our hospital closed tomorrow. I hadn't really thought of it too much myself, honestly, but hearing some of their answers were kind of jaw-dropping. I mean, we employ a thousand. people, not necessarily all full time, but you see something like that go away or not be as successful and it makes a huge impact on a community of our size. So motivates me to make sure that we're always doing the best that we can and offering the best services. So that motivates me to give locally and I think that motivates a lot of others as well. So what's the most rewarding part of your job? Being in the community and being able to share what we do. I have kind of a unique position in that I also have duties for the hospital and that is all community health related. So anything that we can do to spread information and education about healthy living, I get to be involved in a lot of that. So overall, just sharing the stories about all of the good that's going on inside of our walls, that's rewarding to me. I get to see it each day. I've been a clinician and so I've lived it but being able to share that with the community definitely fills my cup. Yeah, we see you all around the community and all the events. She plays great golf by the way, if you guys haven't seen her play. Did you see me play golf? You were at the tournament. What was that? Rebuilding together. I forgot about that. But that's coming from somebody who does not. Yes. I do the web golf. But he's just starting, you know, you've to give him a So what have you learned in your role through volunteers, other health care professionals? What are some of the things you've learned from these people? I'm learning every single day from them. This morning we had Bridges Out of Poverty training and so we were learning about the crisis mindset that some people in poverty are living in ⁓ how it is next to impossible to make ⁓ decisions when your mind's stuck in that crisis train of thought. That was a big piece of information and educational session that we had this ⁓ just morning. ⁓ daily, things like that. You know, I think a lot of people have a lot of misconceptions about healthcare ⁓ and and, you know, just any group in general. What is the biggest misconception that people ⁓ think they're thinking about the healthcare foundation that you guys run? I would two different things. first one would be why does healthcare need philanthropy and why do they need a foundation? Like healthcare is just expensive. I pay a ton of money. You guys a ton of money. ⁓ Why you need donations to support your projects? And in reality, I can relate to all of those things. However, if you think about a hospital and all of the people that work there, and all the work that goes into insurance and the money that we actually see back from insurance is, actually only retain about eight cents of every dollar that we make, which as our CEO Bill likes to say, that's a terrible business model. Most would not really survive on that. And so we can't do these projects and make innovative advances if we don't look outside of the box and try to work with ⁓ grants donors and philanthropic events and things of that sort. So that's the first misconception. The second one would be that we support things in the community or help pay medical bills. And while the is very generous in assisting with medical bills, the foundation, which is separate, is not able to assist with things like that. We can help support projects within the hospital. And scholarships is one exception of something that we support really outside of the hospital walls. other than that, really our sole purpose is to advance Methodist Fremont Health and the clinics. So am I correct when I say your slogan for Fremont Health Foundation is helping healthcare? Is that correct? If you could pick a different slogan, what would you pick? goodness. Remember, this is on record, of helping healthcare, I would maybe say advancing healthcare. Helping healthcare sums it up really well, but think the things that we do ⁓ are of the norm. We don't fund projects that are just the typical operational things. We're truly supporting projects that are ⁓ the latest greatest or things that we haven't had before. So I would say advancing would be the best way to phrase that. And that's a good answer. Yeah, that's good. Thanks. Now, I'm not from Fremont. I just moved here not too long ago. And I think that you you are from here, right? I'm not. You're not from here. You're not local. No, La Jolla, Nebraska. Yeah. That's pretty far away. That is far. So what is your favorite thing about Fremont since moving here? The people without a doubt. I try to shout out as often as I can Brenda Wilberding and I know a lot of people do but I am lucky enough to be her neighbor and I not met her and gotten tied in with the chamber community I think that my career trajectory would look completely different than it does now but not being here and being able to make connections with as many people as I have build friendships, community relationships, business partnerships. have honestly been blown away by the people. You know, shout out to Brenda because she is an amazing person. She's always looking out to connect people. Always. By far her biggest strength. So this is a question I didn't send you. to have to come up with that. ⁓ you ever see Ali at things, she's always got different shoes on. I think Ali is probably a shoe connoisseur. No, I my husband doesn't watch this. That could ⁓ Do you have, how many pairs of shoes would you guess you have? I'd hate to guess, because you probably don't even see a fraction of them. I also have a lot of sneakers and tennis shoes and things that don't really come out during the workday. I would estimate 40, I don't know. You know, one of the things my daughters would do when they'd have friends over at our house is take them to my closet and show them how many pairs of shoes their father had. And I would say they got that from me. So to their fiancees and husbands, sorry. How many pairs of shoes do you have? I more than 40. OK. Well, then I don't feel bad. least little Lugnut's not in there. He's got, that kid's wore different pair of tennis shoes every day since he's been here. I think this is the first time I've seen him wear a pair that I've already seen him wear. ⁓ the green and black ones. has so many shoes. He said that he could go for three months straight without wearing the same shoes. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah. You know who else has a ton of shoes? Dr. Selen. Have you guys met Dr. Selen? Yes. man has a lot of shoes. God bless him. That's my favorite thing. love when I go to the store, I want to go look at shoes. That's why Brenda doesn't let you go alone. I was going to ask when people see you, they usually think of the health foundation, right? And you're there for money and donations. Have you ever been somewhere and you have to explain to them that you're not there for donations? You're there to have fun. I haven't really been asking much for donations yet since I'm still relatively new to this job. So I have not ran into that situation. Thank goodness. So people don't walk the other way when Allie comes in. Not yet. ⁓ That's So looking what excites you the most about Methodist Fremont Health in the foundation and the direction we're going? We continue to and put in the most innovative technologies and things. We have multiple going on ⁓ as speak. And it's just making us such a great place to get healthcare. But I think that as technology continues to advance, I mean, I guess at what our next few projects could potentially be. But in two or three years with where AI is at, I could be totally wrong and there might be some new wonderful medical thing that comes out in the next few years that maybe we're fundraising for instead. So I think the unknown's a little exciting. Who knows what comes next? Do you guys use AI a lot? In a roundabout way, our physicians just... started using a technology. I'm not sure if you've seen it yet or not, but our medical record system rolled an app with AI for our physicians. And so with patient consent, of course, they record their visits and it allows them to give full attention to their patients because the AI is listening to the entire conversation. The physicians love it because they don't feel like they need to be taking all these notes and everything. And then after the visit, it prompts them with things like, you mentioned a new medication, would you like to order it? And so maybe something that they would have forgotten previously, this AI is reminding them, hey, you talked about this, is this something that you wanna do? And then it really puts together a draft of the note for the chart for that patient. And our physicians have said that it's saving them over hour a day. of maybe time that they were having to stay after they were done, or maybe now they're being able to add in a few more patients to whittle down their wait list a little bit. So our CEO, again, Bill said that he's never seen physician adaptation of a new technology like he has this. They love it. Well, that's great. I always remember, as a diabetic, I got to go for checkups quite often. And I remember I'd walk out I would see the physician on a recorder, his visit with his patient. And then they would go back later and put it in their notes ⁓ from recording, but it was quicker to do that. ⁓ So imagine that saves a lot of time. yeah. ⁓ I mean, still can use a dictator to fill in the gaps. So that would be like voice to text. ⁓ But this overall just puts their note together and they can edit it as they see fit. Okay, Ali. And now, so if listeners home or wherever they're listening to could take something out of this podcast today, what you want that be? I would want people to know that we can't continue to have the latest and greatest and best things without some sort of donor support. And sometimes that's really small and it's ⁓ really and all of it is important. And I think that will continue to be a really amazing healthcare provider in Fremont with philanthropic support. You know, I had said earlier today, I was telling you our service department offers people a roundup and that money goes to ⁓ life care core. And when we were doing our Amigos on the go today, I was talking about giving. we like to give back to a lot of things in Fremont. And thing I was telling people is you don't have to just give big dollars. ⁓ Even smallest amounts help ⁓ because all add up. ⁓ And you up all those small ones become big ones. definitely. ⁓ We are doing fundraiser month during June. It was a partnership with SAP brothers. They're doing a cancer fundraiser across all of their locations. And so I thought, how perfect. ⁓ Everybody needs gas. And so they're donating 55 cents on every gallon on Wednesdays during June on pump number seven. But yeah, all of those people that are getting their gas. With the intent of making a donation, that's all making such a big impact, I think that. All of those little fill ups are going to end up making a big difference. So if you guys want to take anything from the podcast is that any little donation counts, it helps them and go pump gas and sap rose this month every Wednesday. Right. Yep. I'm seven. Don't forget. There is our logo on it. It says supporting cancer. It's pretty easy to find. So it is fifty five cents for every gallon. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. That was a great partnership. They reached out to us. I'm grateful that they did that. Well, as a resident in Dodge County, I want to thank you for your work for the foundation. We appreciate what you do and we're glad you could be here today to get to talk a little bit about the Fremont Health Foundation. And if you're looking to help, it's just a great organization to give back to because they do so much for ⁓ surrounding area in Fremont and a ⁓ valuable to help. Do you guys have a newsletter or something that people can sign up and, you know, search for your next thing? We don't have a newsletter, but we keep our Facebook pretty up to date. Both ours and the hospital's Facebook. We're always posting our events like the Stuff the Truck and things of that sort. But I want to thank you guys for everything that you're doing to bring awareness to all sorts of things in the community. It's very much appreciated. Well, thank you so much. So make sure you follow the foundation on Facebook so you guys are up to date on anything they're doing and you guys can go donate. And don't forget to tune in to Pit Stop with the Deersford Lincoln Auto Amigos. We record once a week and we put our out on Tuesdays. So you can catch us on ⁓ Spotify, YouTube and Facebook. Or anywhere you guys listen to your podcast. Yeah, there you go. Well, thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you for being here and we'll see you guys next time. Take care.