Episode 21: Kathy MacNeil on the Importance of Curiosity and Trusting your Wisdom

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From the early days of her career as a physiotherapist and now as a CEO, Kathy MacNeil was drawn to change work and learned that the best results happen when you’re ready to fail, ready to stand back up again, and reframing what the results might be from a change.

Today, Ellen Gardner and Philip De Souza, Communications and Marketing at HIROC, speak with Kathy MacNeil, President and CEO of Island Health in British Columbia.

Kathy MacNeil still has trouble believing the staff of Island Health now numbers more than 30,000. So when it comes to spreading the message of trust and accountability, she and her leadership team rely heavily on local leaders. A big part of Kathy’s learning journey has been getting comfortable with “heard enough, have to go” – making decisions with the information she has and then trusting her wisdom. Her natural curiosity and inclination to “lean into the questions” have been essential for building relationships with the Island’s Indigenous community and learning about cultural safety and humility. She and her team have declared their commitment to improved Aboriginal Health in a very public way and she is proud of the way the organization and their Indigenous partners have rallied around this initiative.

Transcript

Imagine you could step inside the minds of Canada's healthcare leaders, glimpse their greatest fears, strongest drivers, and what makes them tick. Welcome to Healthcare Change Makers, a podcast where we talk to those leaders about the joys and challenges of driving change in our complex and demanding healthcare organizations.

Ellen Gardner: Hi there. I'm Ellen Gardner. 

Philip De Souza: And I'm Philip De Souza.

Ellen Gardner: Today on healthcare Change Makers, we sit down with Kathy MacNeil, president and CEO of Island Health in British Columbia.

Philip De Souza: Island Health is a large and diverse region. On our episode today, Kathy shares how she focuses on a culture of accountability and building strong relationships in the community.

Ellen Gardner: When asked about her thoughts on HIROC’s new strategic plan, which is all about turning the corner on patient safety, Kathy talked about how together we can make an impact.

Philip De Souza: Be sure to stick around until the end for the lightning round to find out who would play Kathy in the movie of your life. We had so much fun chatting with Kathy today. We hope you love it. Leave us a review in Apple podcasts.

Kathy MacNeil: This year our vision, we're focusing on accountability. Accountability for resources, accountability for standards, accountability for quality, and accountability for engagement.

We've just rolled out, as of last year week, our strategic framework that we've been working on for the last year that has four goals in it. We use big words in it like promise and commit. And so, it's about our accountability to deliver on those goals.

Ellen Gardner: Have you been talking the vision up with staff quite a bit?

Kathy MacNeil: Well, we are huge, as you know. A huge organization. We started the implementation of the rollout back in the fall with formal leaders and our physician leaders. Last week was, what I would say, the release or the reveal to the whole organization. We're now 30,000 employees, physicians, and volunteers. My chin dropped when that number was given to me last week. But we continue to grow.

We recently assumed responsibility for home care services in the Southern Vancouver Island area that had been an outsource service. Now all of those employees have become Island Health employees – they number almost 1,000. We continue to grow. And so, as you can imagine, having that conversation in a way that's relevant for 30,000 people. It's really hard from a communications, planning perspective to get tools and messages that will resonate with everyone.

We felt that we needed to do a staged approach and engage our leaders. Again, in the theme of accountability, there's a strong accountability for our local leaders to translate those four goals and the strategies into language that resonates and that's relevant for their teams.

Ellen Gardner: It must be very challenging for you as a leader to pull 30,000 people in the same direction. How do you do that, Kathy?

Kathy MacNeil: We have a small executive team, or relatively small. We have to rely on local leaders. In order to ensure that we are all pulling in the same direction, we have to make sure that we're all aligned.

And so, using opportunities like we have what are called ‘Leaders Forum’ that happens on a quarterly basis where myself and my team travel up and down and across the Island to be face-to-face and have some presence with local leaders so that they can hear from us our ‘why’. Not only do they hear from us, we hear from them. I think that's all part of what allows people to work together as a team is knowing that it's not just a top-down approach, that the directions that we take are very much informed by what people who are treating people feel, see, and experience every day.

Ellen Gardner: What are some of the things that you actually hear from employees when they're talking to you? Are they honest about their concerns or are things going well? What is the tone of some of the things you hear?

Kathy MacNeil: I think we are probably very much like many healthcare systems across this country. I'm describing the experience as swimming in the gray tsunami. Many of us have talked about the demands that are coming at us with, I would say, the boomer age cohort moving into a more senior cohort and the impact that's going to have on healthcare delivery. I think we're there. Here on Vancouver Island, we are there. We're seeing that age cohort of 70 plus growing at a faster rate than our younger age cohorts.

And so, that has its own demands on the services that we provide. I hear those stories when I am in every community. The way we used to deliver healthcare doesn't fit what we're dealing with today. And so, it's the challenges that people are experiencing, I think, of modifying process, procedure, and quite frankly, our mindsets in real time. It'd be different if we could take a time out of time and take a year out and say, "Okay, we're going to hold, redesign all of this stuff and then go back in to assist them and do it." We don't have that because we have patients to see every day.

And so, I hear from clinicians and local leaders a lot of those challenges about trying to meet the demands and make changes at the same time. That feedback has been very helpful when we talk about our enterprise risk management framework and when we look at where we need to invest to get value out of the system. Things like investing in change management as a methodology to support leaders came through that two-way communication and taking us, as an executive, the next step to say, "Okay, how does that integrate into things like assessing risks?"

Ellen Gardner: It's been two years, Kathy, since you were officially appointed president and CEO. What were your top priorities when you stepped into the role?

Kathy MacNeil: I knew this organization. I've worked here for five years. I had a sense of who we were and how we rolled. That's my language, how we roll.

And so, I think for me, my priorities coming into this position on a permanent basis, number one, was to select ... First of all, I did some structural tweaking. I restructured a bit at the executive level and then when I did that, I did some executive recruiting. To get the best team that I could, and I'm really pleased with the team that we have. We got the wheels in motion around a strategic planning process. This organization actually didn't have a strategic plan.

We've been working along very diligently in alignment with the Ministry of Health's plans here in British Columbia. That's all well and good. But from my perspective, there was no opportunity for clinicians and for the experience of patients to inform what that plan needed to look like. We did that work over that year or so and came up with a plan that we can use that's an Island Health plan that's fair. It's still very much aligned with the Ministry of Health.

The other thing that I focused on really was around relationships. That’s my style of leadership – I’m very relational in how I work and I really believe that the impact we have is at the individual level. Each person has the ability to impact a whole system based on how they interact in a system.

Really working out relationships with our union partners, relationships with our physicians, relationships with the ministry, relationships with my other colleagues across the health system here in British Columbia, and relationships with our Indigenous communities here on Vancouver Island. Really focused a lot of time on developing those relationships and nurturing them over time so that we can have the trust we need to do the change work that's needed. And so, that was a priority for me.

The other priority, as I was coming into the role, we were preparing for our accreditation survey and just connecting that not as an event or a moment in time, but using that as a lever to embed more strongly as part of our DNA, our commitment to quality and safety.

Philip De Souza: Hey, Kathy, it's Philip. Since you said I can ask you a follow-up question, I have a follow-up question for you.

Kathy MacNeil: Yes.

Philip De Souza: I really liked how you talked about how you came up with those priorities and you worked with them in your team and you embedded into the culture. I'm curious, and I'm sure many of the emerging leaders who listen to our podcast are, is what did you tap in come up with that? Did you have a coach? Did you talk to other leaders? Did this just come to you? Did you read something?

Kathy MacNeil: All of the above. I've had coaches in and out at different times of my career. As I transitioned into the CEO role permanently, I did have a coach for that transition. I believe personally I've always benefited when I have career transitions. I've benefited from coaching during that time. That was really helpful for me to get clear on what mattered to me. I think talking to mentors and others in the system, I'm so fortunate.

One of my mentors and colleagues you're familiar with in your work, but I have mentors across the country. And so, I feel so blessed to be able to reach out and get perspectives. And so, that is helpful. One of the things for me, in terms of my leadership challenge in this role, was really to land on decisions and get clarity with the information I had at the time. We can always get more information and there's always new information coming in, but at some point somebody is looking to someone to get clear on a decision to get going.

I’m the person who loves consultation. I love to hear different perspectives and I like to get more and more. Really as a CEO, I had to get more comfortable with "heard enough, have to go." That, I would say, was my learning in that first, I would say, six months.

I also have to say to all emerging leaders and to all leaders, I would say one of my lessons learned is you have wisdom that is inside you based on the experiences you've had and the learnings that you've had. If you're truly learning, something's changing after an experience. And so, that wisdom helps to provide you with clarity when you're in those times of transition. Trust that. I think in some of those setting priorities, especially as it relates to the relationships piece, I really listened to my own intuition because I know at the end of the day, healthcare is a human activity. It's about healing. It's about human-to-human interaction.

And so, you can't do that with without relationships. It's going beyond the transaction of the work to meaning. I think that was, I think, something that is inside of me based on the wisdom that I've accrued over the years that I've been at this work.

Ellen Gardner: That's a great insight just about trusting your wisdom and the fact that you've built it up over the years with your experiences. Well, our CEO, Catherine Gaulton, who you know well and I know you've worked together, she's told us that what she really admires is how you lead through asking lots of questions. How does this approach help you in decision making and making a plan for going forward?

Kathy MacNeil: I think I was born curious. I'll just say that. My siblings and my parents would probably say nosy, but I'm going to say curious. That's been really helpful for me to be a lifelong learner because I'm constantly inquiring more. I read a lot. I'm always looking to see what other people are doing.
But I think what Catherine is pointing to is, I really value different people's perspectives. I know I have one, but it's just my lens and it's my lens based on my lived experience. As I learn more and more about cultural safety and humility, I realized that my lens is very much a white settler colonial lens. And so, I need to make sure that I'm checking that perspective against others. And so, that's why curiosity is so helpful in terms of being inquiring.

The other thing I think I value about being curious is sometimes you can expose people's thinking just through asking questions so they can hear their own thinking out loud. I have seen insights happen when you probe a little deeper and you ask people, "Well, tell me more about that" or "Why do you think that might be that way?" They actually hear themselves and they start to challenge their own perspective.

I think it can be a tool as well if you're coming up against resistance or if there's a polarity that you see in terms of a perspective. Sometimes just continuing to lean into the questions helps expose what's actually underneath that thought or opinion.

Ellen Gardner: If you hadn't gotten into healthcare, you might've become a journalist.

Kathy MacNeil: Or a detective. That's what I'm thinking, yeah.

Ellen Gardner: I want to take you back a little bit and just ask you about a job that you've had in your life that taught you the most.

Kathy MacNeil: I have to say, it's funny today that you're asking me this question. My very first job, my very first manager passed away yesterday. He was 91. I've been thinking about him today. I worked for him in a grocery store. I learned a lot about people in that whole customer service role, just how people are so different. We are all so very unique. And so, you can't stereotype or think that you've already seen or predict the behavior because everybody is so different. I learned a lot in that very first job. I learned about work ethic and I learned about being part of a larger team. When you didn't do your part, the impact that had on others. I'm really grateful for that experience. I'm really sad to hear that he's no longer with us.

The other thing I think, in terms of positions or jobs that taught me a lot, as I said, I was a physio. I worked clinically for about 10 years and then I worked in a more administrative role. Then I got asked to do change work. I think probably because I was so curious, that's why I got asked to do this work. I found myself doing change work in areas that I had no content expertise.

I think one of the things I learned from that is, you don't need to be necessarily a technical expert to be a leader. You need to know how to hold respect for those who do have that technical expertise. But it's really about aligning to results and getting clear on what matters for people.

Ellen Gardner: In our last podcast, we talked to Zayna Khayat. Her focus is on, yes, helping healthcare organizations learn to think and act in innovative ways mainly because a lot of healthcare organizations, they are committed to that and yet they're still stuck in the old analog way of doing things.

As a leader, you said that you are committed to ‘courageous innovation’. I want to ask you, what exactly do you mean by that?

Kathy MacNeil: First of all, I want to say I am a big fan of Zayna Khayat. Good for you guys for interviewing her. I think our country needs her courage, her inspiration, and quite frankly, she needs to continue to challenge us. Courageous innovation, for me, when I came into this role, Island Health had been through a very bumpy implementation of electronic health record, in particular the computerized physician order entry component of an EHR.

We lost, I think, some of our spunk, for lack of a better word, because of the challenges in the technology, the challenges in the adoption of technology, the concerns around the change and the impact to quality and safety that the clinicians were experiencing.

For me, courage is about not being afraid to fail, but being able to pick back up again. What we've done subsequent to that implementation is we've not pushed on CPOE, but we've implemented other aspects of the EHR in the community in particular where we know it's not going to impact practice, in particular physician practice quite so much. We’re seeing the benefits now of having an electronic health record for community clients available when they come to an emergency department electronically. Now emergency physicians can see what's been happening in home care and home support. That's tremendously helpful to being able to make good care.

Also, avoiding admissions if you know what the home support services are available to them. There's another application of the electronic health record. It wasn't necessarily how we went down the road of implementing EHR around CPOE and minimizing medication error. But it's actually another benefit that we can use. Courageous innovation is not being afraid to fail or being ready to fail and being ready to stand back up again and reframing what the benefits might be from a change.

I think the other thing I notice about our culture in healthcare is we do talk a lot about risk. We talk a lot about the risk of this, and our organization still does this, too. Any change initiative, any new program, or initiative we take on, we do a very robust risk assessment about the ‘what ifs’ and how are we going to mitigate. But what we don't talk about are the risks of staying the same. And we don't do a risk assessment of that necessarily. And so, if you only have the foibles and fear of the ‘could be’ instead of the foibles and fear of the ‘what is’, it's pretty easy to stay where you are.

I think that's the other thing about courageous innovation is to be transparent and to talk about the risks of staying the same. I try and have that balanced conversation when we talk about change because without the balance, the change part looks really scary. It looks like it's fraught with big minefields. But there are lots of minefields around the current state. We need to have that very balanced conversation.

Ellen Gardner: We know that large part of Island Health's work is happening in the community and you work closely with Indigenous people and your partners and you’re really focused on improving health and wellness for those populations. How are you and your teams strengthening those ties?

Kathy MacNeil: It's a great question. We're all called to truth and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples across our country. When I came to British Columbia I became very aware, I would say, probably because part of the impact of residential schools is still so acute here in the population. We had a very large Indian hospital on Vancouver Island. The experiences of Indigenous peoples going to that hospital were tragic. And so, those stories live on in these communities. We have a long way to go as a health system to reestablish trust where hospitals are safe places to go.

We're very lucky in British Columbia to have a standalone health authority, First Nations Health Authority. It was established I think about seven years ago through partnership with the province, the federal government, and the local First Nations, the assembly of chiefs where the Health Canada funding for on reserve, as they say or at home care, healthcare was allocated to the First Nations Health Authority. So we work in partnership with what we call FNHA. Relationships there are really important and we basically co-lead. We come together around any work that we do in Aboriginal health.

We also have relationships locally. With local First Nations through chiefs, council, our board chair, and myself as part of our engagement work. We meet with chiefs and council. We go to First Nations communities. I participate in the regional caucus with chiefs so they know who I am, they know who our board chair is, they can put faces to names, and so can we.

We can actually have relationships where we can talk through things. When a member of their nation has an experience that's not what we want with our health system, that doesn't sit and fester – we can talk that through, we can do our quality reviews, and we can get underneath what some of those issues may be.

We have three cultural families on the island: Coast Salish, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Nuchatlaht families. They each have their own ceremonies, customs, traditions. If you're working in a hospital in one of those family territories, it's important to know what those traditions and customs are, what are the death ceremonies, what are the birth ceremonies so that we can respect that culture as part of the healthcare experience through First Nations Health Authority.

We have made a commitment that all formal leaders will undertake our cultural safety and humility training program, which is a three-part training program. We're hiring an executive lead who is Indigenous and who can work with the three families around Aboriginal health so that it's not, again, a settler's approach, but it is self-determined First Nations speaking for their health and care needs.

I'm very proud of this work. I think that we have a lot to be proud of here on Vancouver Island. We're lucky that we're an island. We can wrap our arms around that and I think declaring commitment in a very public way has been a very powerful way to rally an organization behind an initiative.

Ellen Gardner: Were Aboriginal issues something that you've known about your whole life?

Kathy MacNeil: Wow, that's a great question. I am a transplant here. I have been here on Vancouver Island for five years. I am actually a Maritimer through and through. I call myself a fifth generation settler. My family came to Nova Scotia five generations ago from Scotland. I have to say as an adult, I've been wondering since I've come here, how come I didn't know this before? I know I'm not alone as a Canadian asking myself that question, but I know also colonization happened from East to West.

In Eastern Canada, the Miꞌkmaq people were the first to be colonized. And so, the loss of language, customs, traditions as I grew up as a Maritimer, I was not exposed to any of that. And so, not surprising I didn't know about it. At the time, there was never an Indigenous student in a class that I took in elementary, junior high, or one that self-identified or that we knew. There was no exposure to this history of Canada that I had.

I think fast forward to today, I think especially as we, as healthcare leaders, become more and more attuned to this and certainly our Canadian College of Health Leaders have taken a leadership role in bringing cultural safety and humility in Indigenous health issues to the forefront. We're learning more about our history as a country and how that's impacted all of our institutions, our educational institutions, our justice institutions, and our healthcare institutions. The work to get it right going forward is not the work of Indigenous people. It's the work of all of Canada. It is all of our work to do. For me personally, that's been a bit of a shift because when I came here, we had an aboriginal health team and every time there was a question, we just went to the Aboriginal health team.

That was all good. We had a team and it wasn't until we started to become awake to the fact that there's no way one small team in 30,000 people is going to indigenize the Island Healthcare system. It's going to take all of us to become aware of, what are the underlying factors of our history that have gone into bringing us where we are and then how do we need to change that at the systematic level, which is my role as a senior leader, and at the local level, at the care delivery level?

That's the work of clinicians as they interact with patients, clients, and community members every day. It's going to take all of us to do our part, and it's going to take time for all of us to a) learn the history, become aware of it, and then do the go on the journey. As one of our board members has said so eloquently, "The longest journey is from the head to the heart."

Part of it is the learning part, the head, and then part of it is the change part, which is the heart. We all need to go on that journey in our own way.

Ellen Gardner: In 2019, Island Health along with the BC Emergency Health Services, SOLID Outreach, and the Lookout Housing and Health Society, you received the Gold Apple Award for collaborative solutions. Can you talk a little bit about that project and what the recognition has meant for you and your staff?

Kathy MacNeil: Unfortunately we're not alone, but we were the first to be struck by this wave of what we call the opioid epidemic in British Columbia. It was an epidemic. We were losing this cohort, this age cohort out of our population due to unintentional opioid overdose. Our Chief Medical Health Officer here in BC called a public health emergency.

And so, we all pulled together to say, "Okay, what needs to change” and really used an emergency response approach. What started to crop up were things called Overdose Prevention Sites. They cropped up in many places. We had, I think, eight here in Vancouver Island, two here on the South Island where people who use substances could actually go into these facilities and use and be observed. If they did overdose, either volunteers or paramedics that manned these overdose prevention sites could intervene with Naloxone.

But we knew that wasn't going to be enough. We evolved to this supervised consumption concept where supervised consumption, yes, people can come and use, if you supervise, can have some more hands-on assistance, but also we can wrap around services. And so, we all know that how important the social determinants of health are in terms of the health and well-being of our populations.

When you have vulnerable people who live on the margin or on the fringe, poverty plays such a role. Mental illness plays such a role. Access to food, housing, those are such key contributors to the overall health and well-being. And so, we created in the supervised consumption site, which is called the Harbour, this wrap-around program through partnership. And so, the Gold Apple Award, the collaboration in this award, was really about the partnerships that were created with the emergency health services, so the paramedics.

With people who use substances and the group here in Victoria is called SOLID. They're peers who use and then the Lookout Housing and Health Society. They are a non-profit who are set up to work with those who are marginally housed, who are at housing risk. And so, all four of us co-exist within the supervised consumption space. The award is really about the partnerships, about coming together, seeing a need in a population not necessarily getting too hung up on where we begin and they end or where they begin and we end, but actually coming together around the needs of the population.

What I'm proud of, first of all, is its true partnership. Not letting the bureaucracy of the organizational rules get in the way and really putting our patients or clients at the centre of what's needed to be designed. It's truly client-centered design of a program.

Ellen Gardner: Like most healthcare leaders, Kathy, you probably work a lot. I'm sure you're a person who's in the office pretty early in the morning and works late. I wanted to ask you about your life outside of work because we wonder what do you do, what gives you enjoyment in your life outside the office?

Kathy MacNeil: Vancouver Island is a beautiful place to live, and I live right on the ocean. We, my husband and I, have a routine where we walk basically the ocean front whenever we can, on weekends for sure. Then we go for our walks in the evening. I really appreciate that decompression time.

I'm a real water person. I love the ocean and I can't imagine not living somewhere that's close to water, coming from Nova Scotia. We also have a summer place in Prince Edward Island. Again, right on the water. I love being close to the water. It's just a very grounding place for me.

I think the other thing that's important for me or that keeps me grounded and that I enjoy is, I love music. I love to sing, I play guitar. I probably don't do enough of that now, but I still love to do it. I have fun doing that when I have the chance. I love family. And so, because we have family coast to coast on weekends, I love to FaceTime and stay connected with my family. My oldest daughter's still in Halifax. My parents are there. I have siblings in Ontario and I have a daughter here in Washington State and one here in Victoria. There's lots of people to reach out to and stay connected with.

Philip De Souza: Before Ellen gets to the lightning round, I have one other question for you as well. HIROC just launched its new strategic plan. One of the priorities is turning the corner on patient safety. If you could just think of one thing, what one thing you think that we, as a healthcare community, need to do to turn the corner on patient safety?

Kathy MacNeil: I'll tell you, Philip, the first thing that comes to my mind is somehow, and I don't know how, but I think the thing we need is, we need patients to have the tools to either self-advocate or have an advocate for safety. I think when patients know how they can advocate for themselves for patient safety, I think that will change our system.

Again, going back to my theme of accountability, I truly believe, and I know we've tried this in many different ways and times around hand-washing, but man, it is so much more powerful when the patient asks, "Just before we start, did you have a chance to wash your hands before you came in?" That changes and is such a powerful reminder. Only one patient has to ask a clinician and that stays with clinician. What are the other ways that patients can do that? I think that's really a helpful tool. And I often think about these change things from the micro to the macro. That would be a micro, one thing.

At a systemic level, how do we turn the corner on patient safety? One hundred per cent from my perspective, it's about transparency. We need to talk about it more. And so, that means, making it safe to talk about when we haven't, it hasn't been safe. So when we have failed in terms of a patient safety, either, a trend or on an aggregate level. When I use the term patient safety, I'm also capturing in that envelope standards like choosing wisely because quite frankly, too much care is unsafe care. All of that goes into that bundle as well around transparency.

Kathy MacNeil: It's time, Kathy, for the Change Makers lightning round. It's six quick questions and just tell us the first thing that pops into your mind. What is the best piece of advice that you've received?

Kathy MacNeil: Be yourself.

Ellen Gardner: What's on your nightstand? What are you reading?

Kathy MacNeil: Right now I'm reading Collective Wisdom from High Performing Women from the Judy Project out of UFT.

Ellen Gardner: What music or podcasts are on your playlist?

Kathy MacNeil: Right now, on my playlist is Jim Cuddy because he was here two weeks ago. I went to see his show. Pulling the old Blue Rodeo and his new stuff. But I'll tell you, my playlist has everything from Lizzo to Andrea Bocelli. Don't be surprised.

Ellen Gardner: In the movie of your life, who would play you?

Kathy MacNeil: This is a hard one. I think probably Meryl Streep, and the reason I would say her is she can be warm, she can be kind, and she can also be hard and clear. That's why I picked her.

Ellen Gardner: What's your favourite thing to do on the weekend?

Kathy MacNeil: I love to go out for dinner.

Ellen Gardner: If you had one superpower, what would it be?

Kathy MacNeil: I think it's probably reading minds. I think we get so confused in communication that it'd be really nice to read lines.

Ellen Gardner: We really get the sense, Kathy, that you love being a leader, that you embrace the challenges of it, and for you it's a learning process, but it's also jump in and ask the tough questions and just deal with the challenges as they arise. What is it that you love about the job?

Kathy MacNeil: Here's a secret, and I say this to a lot of emerging leaders when I'm mentoring. I said, "Don't worry about the title, just be aligned with who you are." For me, I don't feel like I have any other choice but to be this way, it would be so hard not to be this way.

I completely lean into the work that I do because I think it's a part of my vocation. It's just who I am. If you can just park titles, hierarchy, structure and all that long enough to do really good work just where you are, I think the rest comes. I think those titles and accolades or whatever come, but it's really about doing the work, leaning in where you are, and having the impact exactly where you are by being aligned with who you are.

Ellen Gardner: Well, we really want to thank you, Kathy, for talking with us today. It's been a real pleasure.

Kathy MacNeil: Mine too. Thanks so much for inviting me.

Thank you for listening. You can hear more of our interview on our website, HIROC.com. Follow us on Twitter at @hirocgroup or email us at communications@hiroc.com. Healthcare Change Makers is recorded by Ellen Gardner and Philip De Souza and produced by Podfly Productions for hiroc.com. Please rate us on iTunes.