Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Mackenzie Bean, associate vice president and managing editor of Becker's Hospital Review. And today, I'm so, so thrilled to be joined by two exceptional leaders from UNC Health who are really driving meaningful change in team culture and engagement. Katie Eimer serves as UNC Health chief culture officer, and Holly Bunn is the system executive director for culture. Katie and Holly, thank you both so much for being here today on the podcast. How are you both doing? Doing great. Thank you so much for having us. So I'm really excited for the conversation today. I thought we could start off sort of setting the stage for our listeners about UNC Health's broader workplace culture engagement efforts. So maybe y'all can start off there. Can you tell us a little bit more about, your one UNC Health initiative and then really what sparked this journey for your system? Sure thing. So, to start, I think it would be helpful if we told you a little bit about UNC Health. So, we are a public not for profit academic health care organization. We have approximately 19 both owned and affiliated hospitals across the state. We have, multiple physician groups and an outstanding nationally recognized school of medicine, which really anchors our academic missions of research and education. So as an organization, our mission is to care for the health and well-being of the people of North Carolina. And when we say one UNC Health, that is our way of describing our efforts to unite our system, which spans across the state, through a shared culture and strategy so that every teammate feels valued, recognized, and part of the broader UNC health system regardless of what part of the organization they're in. Our teams and our communities engage with us in many different ways, and it can be the care that they receive at their preferred location, can be the networks that they utilize when complex care is needed or arises, and it could be participating in cutting edge clinical trials. Our strengths as an academic medical center benefit our patients and communities through the research, innovation, quality, and safety. We're also preparing the next generation of health care professionals. So UNC Health is showing up for each other and for our community to support both the future and the current health care of all North Carolinians and those we serve. Wonderful. Thank you both, Holly and Katie, for helping us set the stage there. Let's zoom in a bit now to the UNC Health Culture team. Right? I know that's pretty unique in the health care industry, in terms of the model. So maybe you can tell us why it was established and really how it helps this broader UNC one, health effort and just your work towards driving towards, your organizational mission and vision? So this effort actually started back in 2019 with the, the vision and wisdom of our dean and CEO, doctor Wesley Burks. We were right on the precipice of rolling this initiative out to the organization, again, so that that all teammates across the organization and across the state really understood that they are part of of the UNC health system, and they felt valued and recognized as such. And then of course, like the rest of the world, we had to pivot pretty quickly at the start of the the COVID nineteen pandemic. Thankfully, as part of the work in 2019, we have launched our four organizational values, which, really, in many ways probably carried us, sustained us through the next several very challenging years. And then of course more recently last year, we were able to relaunch this one UNC health effort. And it was a very timely initiative when we created the, we like to say small but very mighty culture team to again carry this this initiative across the organization. Holly, anything that you would add or expand on? So it sounds like the team was created about a year ago to align with this reinvigorated effort to to launch one UNC Health. Yeah. As Katie said, you know, the work on this started in 2018, but in 2024, you know, we we really kicked it into high gear. Right? We've organized. We've created a culture team model, and we have five primary areas that we're focusing on, what we refer to as gathering and hosting, strategic change partnerships, building connections, demonstrating our values, and equipping and sustaining our teammates and leaders to move these things forward and have some real traction and longevity with this work. So some specific things that we've done in the past year include, you know, gathering teammate input through surveys and focus groups, really learning what's important to our teammates across the system and aligning our work to their asks. Convening our leaders. We have what we call, forward thinking conferences. We've had conferences for executive level leaders, conferences for all leaders at all levels, including, you know, inviting 4,000 of our closest friends to a convention center to make sure that we are, in fact, all moving in the same direction. We activated a system wide learning map experience so that we could create shared understanding and everybody using the same ideas, approach the same language, and really making sure that there was some collaborative energy across the system. We created actionable resources so that we can ensure teammates understand these actions, behaviors, and mindsets that lead to being able to live our system values. And now we're taking a deep dive into what we refer to as our culture shifts. These are the things the teammates told us that are the ways that we must operate in order to achieve our goals. So pretty comprehensive and broad, a range of initiatives going on. Katie, something else you wanna add? Yeah. I you know, one of the things that I think it's important to to state is that, we we believe that there is a simple but powerful connection between the strength of our organizational culture and the care that we can provide to our patients, our communities, and as many of us know, our own loved ones. So we know as an organization, we are tremendously purpose driven, mission driven. And when we can tap into that purpose and that mission to care for the health and well-being of people of North Carolina and and others whom we serve, that's it's really been an incredible rallying cry for the work that we've been doing this past year and then intend to continue, of course, into the future. Mhmm. It all comes down to that purpose and mission. Right? Like, having that as part of your foundation can drive so so much. Mhmm. And I have a feeling listeners, tuning into the podcast, likely be interested in in more of the nuts and bolts of your actual culture team, Katie. I know you said it's small but mighty. Can you provide any more details on, you know, how many folks it's comprised of? What types of role? What what do the meetings look like or the strategy behind it? You know, if another health system executive was listening to this and interested in replicating it, what would they need to know? Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, that's a great question. So, Holly, keep me honest here. So, of course, there's there's Holly and and me. We were some of the early members of the team and then, built out the others that I'll talk about in just a moment. So prior to this role, I had spent five years as Doctor. Birx's chief of staff. And so I'm tremendously grateful for that stent for many reasons, but not least of which because I made some some really strong relationships with leaders across the organization. And I think that was such a helpful asset to call on in the early days of our work, when, you know, it's it's easy on the surface to sort of look at at this and say, well, we're a culture. What does that mean? You know? But when I can pick up the phone and call these folks and really help pitch the case for why this is important, you know, it it made all the difference down the line in in justifying the the need for a discreet team of folks looking at this and the tremendous partnerships that we have across the organization. So speaking of those partnerships, we have a communications an outstanding communications team as an organization, and we have two folks from that team support our work and culture. So they're they're embedded in everything we do and kind of up to speed and then can turn around and help guide us on how we tell this story to the organization. We we realize that, really, what what we do doesn't matter a whole lot if we can't bring our teammates along on the journey, of course. Similarly, we have a tremendous partnership with our colleagues in HR. Most recently, we have welcomed an HR teammate to again sort of embed in our team and help support the development of the toolkits and resources around the culture shifts that Holly mentioned previously. We have a new teammate, also helping us with sort of targeted support around specific stakeholder groups in the organization. So this individual has tremendous experience in our academic arm and is launching an effort. So we spent the better part of last year, our first year, getting our feet on the ground, if you will, hammering home this message of one UNC Health and of oneness and systemness. And we spent the better part of that year developing a strategy for the 45,000 or so teammates across the state, understanding that every local entity has their own culture and that's really important and should be that way. But there's a lot of common characteristics that you find in such a purpose driven organization like ours. So, so we are now working in this next year and beyond to figure out how we can provide more specific support to different stakeholder groups across the organization, starting with our outstanding school of medicine and the specific, cultural strengths that they have as an organization. We also have a program manager and will soon be, inviting a project manager to join us. We know with a lot of the gathering and hosting that I mentioned earlier comes a lot of opportunities for connection, events, conferences that we host. And this learning map experience that I also referenced earlier is something that we shared across the system. And without a program manager and project manager, Katie and I just can't reach 45,000 people. So what started as some, you know, really important concepts and a whole lot of passion on the part of Katie and I to to bring this work forward is building and growing and turning into a, again, a small but mighty team, that is making really making some amazing things happen across Absolutely. And it sounds like the the spirit of collaboration and teamwork that you're, you know, working to foster a hospital health system, like, you're really ambulating it with your own culture team, which is is great and such a, so reflective. Let's dive a little bit deeper into the culture and strategy piece, Kate. I think you hinted at this a bit earlier of how, you know, that purpose is really an important foundation of the organization's broader strategic goals too. But can you elaborate a little bit more on how do those come together to really support One UNC Health? Yeah. Absolutely. So in 2024, so last year, we had both the the formation of our culture team occur as well as the launch of our systems strategic plan, which we call for Together 02/1930. And speaking of extremely collaborative partners around the organization, we have a great partnership with our strategic planning team, and in particular, the subset of those folks that focus specifically on change leadership. And so, we like to say and often say together that the strategy is what we are going to do into the future and our culture is how we're gonna do it. So we always try to keep those two sides of the coin, if you will, together in the same breath, both when we're talking with groups, in in any of our our locations across the state. And we really do have a tremendous culture today. As I mentioned, we are purpose driven, we are collaborative, we're compassionate, we're caring, and we have some areas too that we know we want to change just like any organization. And so by the sort of, I guess, guidance and leadership of the culture team related to our culture shifts, we can deploy those specifically as it relates to some of these changes coming out of the strategic plan. Of course, our strategy is always to improve things for our patients and our teammates, care, experience, etcetera. And we can help by shifting some of these things as it relates to our culture, and strengthening those areas that are already very successful. Yeah. We're actively engaged with our colleagues, as Katie mentioned, and, you know, we we jokingly refer to it as the three c's. It's more than culture. It's culture, change, and communication. And, really, more specifically, you know, we we started with a group of folks called our leading change team. Right? And when we refer to these three c's, we're talking really about the entire organizational culture, strategic change, and our marketing and communications efforts as they specifically impact our forward together 2030 work, again, our strategic plan. And these newly formed groups, the collaborations, the partnerships, you know, they they range from everybody from our human resources colleagues, our strategy colleagues, communications marketing, but we also have folks from business integration, care redesign, and then, of course, our culture team. And we come together weekly to make sure that we are, collaborating, thinking innovatively, making sure that we're considering all of the needs, and really being able to to collaboratively dive in so much deeper than we ever did before into the culture work. Speaking of diving deeper into the culture work, I know you mentioned 2024 is really about, you know, spreading that message of unity system wide now starting to hone in a little bit deeper. Maybe we can end on hearing from you both. What are your overall goals or vision for this effort? Perhaps any other additional context for what's coming in 2025? Yeah. You know, Katie and I have often referred to what we are doing in the culture office as as a start up. Right? We didn't have a road map. We didn't have someone else's, you know, guidance or example to to learn from. So there's been a lot of, you know, testing and and trying and exploring. And, of course, I mentioned we've done a lot of surveying and, you know, that survey and that data that comes from our teammates is really what's building and shaping. When when you hear Katie and I refer to the culture shifts, every element of that, including the words that we're using, has come from our teammates. Right? So we've devoted ourselves and our work, to organizational culture, and we know that's unique. So we're building this team. We're building opportunities and partnerships, and and we learn every single day. We round. We get out across the state and continue to refine, learn, inquire, ask, tweak, make all kinds of things, available in ways that we couldn't have really imagined when Katie and I were sort of talking about, dreaming about what this could be back in 2024. We've been invited to participate in a lot of really engaging conversations across our system and the possibilities, you know, that of the things that we could do that benefit the organization, benefit our teammates. We're really leaning in. You know, the most, immediate next step for us is taking the experience that our leaders had back in 2024 and cascading that and bringing it out to every single teammate. It is so important to us. It became one of our organizational goals this year, and it really is our most pressing priority. But going back to that that road map that we built, that three year road map, that's guiding us and helping us with some next steps. One of the things we've talked about a few times are the culture shifts and taking that from concept to a practical reality and something that everybody could could understand, how they fit into it, what that would require of them, what they do, and frankly, how to hold ourselves and each other accountable to them is really where our focus has been turning this year. We got the feedback. We know what people are asking for, what they would like to do. We know what's resonating, and now it's time for us to really build build out this concept and and build out these capabilities and skills across our system to ensure that we we can be successful in achieving our goals. So for my part, I I would just add that, it really comes back to the idea of the the connection between the strength of our organizational culture and the care that we can provide to our patients. So we we really want every teammate to feel like they're working exactly where they belong, where they're proud to work, and which enables all of us to bring their very best care and experience to our patients. Well, it's clear, Justin, your responses today of the passion and dedication you have for this work, and I think it's clearly paying off for UNC. And we're so excited to continue to follow this effort and, you know, see what further benefits you all see in 2025. But thank you both so much for your time today for joining us on the podcast. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.