AdventHealth Kansas City
Sam Huenergardt is the Chief Executive Officer for AdventHealth’s Mid-America Region. In this role, he provides executive leadership and oversight for the region, which comprises the AdventHealth Shawnee Mission network, AdventHealth Durand and AdventHealth Ottawa.
Sam’s career has included roles at multiple AdventHealth facilities. He previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer for AdventHealth Parker (formerly Parker Adventist Hospital) in Parker, Colorado. Prior to that, he held positions as President and CEO for Central Texas Medical Center in San Marcos, Texas, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer for Gordon Hospital in Calhoun, Georgia, and controller at Shawnee Mission Health.
Sam earned a Master of Business Administration from Baker University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Union College.
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-Transcript-
Brad Burrow (00:01):
Welcome to In a World With Real Media. I’m your host, Brad Burrow. In this podcast, we’ll dive into the lives of the most successful people in business. We’ll learn how they overcame adversity, took advantage of opportunities and learned from their experiences. Learn from our experts. Get inspired, then go live your story. It’s in a world with real media. Hello and welcome to In a World With Real Media Today I have a very special guest. I’m been so excited about this podcast because I have some experience with Advent Health. So I have Sam Huenergardt. Is that close? It’s close. Say it for me.
Sam Huenergardt (00:42):
Huenergardt
Brad Burrow (00:43):
Hugh. Hugh Huenergardt. Okay. Sam Huenergardt. All right. I got that right. You got it.
Sam Huenergardt (00:48):
We’re on track.
Brad Burrow (00:48):
Never make that mistake again. Anyway, Sam is the Chief Executive officer of the MidAmerica Region of Advent Health.
Sam Huenergardt (00:56):
That’s right.
Brad Burrow (00:57):
And so I’m very excited to have you here, Sam. It’s great to have you, and I’ve got a lot of notes and things I want to talk about with you today. Well, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for the invitation. I’m
Sam Huenergardt (01:08):
Looking forward to
Brad Burrow (01:08):
It. Yeah. So did you grow up in Kansas City or around this area?
Sam Huenergardt (01:12):
I did not. I was born and raised in western Nebraska
(01:16):
In
(01:16):
The rural farm country. A little small town called Kimball, 2,500 people. But my grandmother and grandfather lived here in Kansas City, so I grew up visiting Kansas City, especially in the summertime. So I have fond, fond memories of going to a bunch of royal games. George Brett was one of my heroes, and seeing them win the World Series when I was nine was incredible. So yeah, I’m very fond of Kansas City, but I did not
Brad Burrow (01:43):
Grow up here. So I was looking And you went to Baker? Did you go to Baker
Sam Huenergardt (01:46):
University? Yeah, I got my master’s degree from Baker.
Brad Burrow (01:49):
Okay.
Sam Huenergardt (01:49):
This is our second time through Kansas City. My wife and I lived here between 2002 and 2004 working at Advent Health in one go round in a
Brad Burrow (02:01):
Previous role. Advent’s really exploded in Kansas City in the last few years. It’s been amazing to see. We are
Sam Huenergardt (02:08):
Proud of that growth and I think it’s a testament to the kind of care that our team provides and allows us the opportunity to build things that fill up because people are seeking the kind of healthcare that our team is offering.
Brad Burrow (02:23):
Yeah, yeah. We’ll talk about that little bit. So why Baker? I was just curious.
Sam Huenergardt (02:29):
Well, as I did some research during that time, my first round through Kansas City, it came up as a great school, one that was conveniently located, and I had some friends, we were going through our master’s program together and it was just the right choice for us and what a great campus there. But we attended the satellite campus there in Overland Park. So unfortunately we didn’t get to experience the Baldwin City Baker University, but we did have a good time and got a great education.
Brad Burrow (02:56):
It is interesting. It’s kind of a little hidden gem. It is. It’s down in the middle of Kansas. It’s beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty interesting deal. Alright, so I wanted to talk a little bit about your faith background. If you can tell us a little bit about we’re faith-based here. I mean, God’s brought us through so many things. Me personally, our business, it’s been amazing and I like to kind of be out front with that as much as possible. But advent obviously is faith. Talk about your faith a little bit, Sam. Yeah, so
Sam Huenergardt (03:29):
I was born and raised Seventh Adventist, and that denomination stemmed off of the Methodist Church back in the 1840s.
(03:37):
And the main differentiator is that we worship our Sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday. But our family has had a very strong faith background, meaning that my parents felt it was really important for us to go to church school during elementary and high school. And that carried into my college experience at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska. It’s a seventh Adventist college, and been blessed to have had that be such a big part of my life and my family. And I think just that solid foundation allowed the comfort of really leaning into our faith with everything that we get to do. And it’s just a very foundational, comforting spot to be, I guess it’s important to me. And so that’s carried with my wife and I into our children, kind of taking on the same mantle and saying, this is important. This is how we want our family to live.
Brad Burrow (04:37):
So you came from western Nebraska to Lincoln to go to college,
Sam Huenergardt (04:40):
Huh? Yeah, we did.
Brad Burrow (04:42):
We did. So what was it that kind of set you up to be a leader in a leadership role? Oh, that’s a great question. Mean did you know that what’s going to be your career path? Were you planning on that or did it just kind of happen?
Sam Huenergardt (04:55):
Well, I will say when I started college, I started off as an engineering major because I was good at
(05:03):
Math
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Growing up. And that was something that I thought, well, if you’re good at it, then you’re supposed to do it. And after a year and a half of engineering classes, I decided, well, if I’m going to be an engineer, I want to run my own business. I started taking some business classes, something there just really clicked with me. I really liked the business environment, the entrepreneurial nature I’ve had in entrepreneurial spirit growing up. And so business religious clicked. And in one of our accounting classes in my junior year of college, we were visited by the CFO of one of the Advent health facilities.
Brad Burrow (05:39):
That was a moment. That was the
Sam Huenergardt (05:41):
Moment. And I remember where I was sitting, I remember the words that he said. He said his name is Jim Gravel, and I did an internship with him the year after, but he said, do you know what? You could actually use your business degree, your business expertise to do good work for other people, meaning that you don’t have to be a doctor or a nurse or a teacher or a pastor to do God’s work. You can take care of the people who are taking care of the people. And that just sunk in. And I was like, I’ve got to know more about this. And so I did a summer internship with Advent Health in Chicago at Hinsdale Hospital. And that was my first experience. And I remember coming off of that experience, the end of that summer talking with two or three people and said, tell me what I have to do to be able to work for this company. And then I was off to the races, but I knew that off I gravitated towards leadership positions in my past and it’s just something I get energized by. I like gathering people around me and coming up with good ideas together
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And
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Executing follow through together. And I love using imagination, that process. So that kind of just positions me, I think, in some ways to step into roles like that.
Brad Burrow (06:52):
That had to be quite a change going from Nebraska to Chicago in the middle of the city. Right?
Sam Huenergardt (06:57):
Yeah, it sure was that a shock? I’m not a city boy, but yeah, it sure was.
Brad Burrow (07:03):
Do you remember those times?
Sam Huenergardt (07:05):
Oh, I do.
Brad Burrow (07:06):
Like, oh, what about,
Sam Huenergardt (07:07):
My wife and I were dating at the time and she’d visit me over some weekends. I remember there’s this festival called The Taste of Chicago. Oh,
Brad Burrow (07:16):
I’ve heard
Sam Huenergardt (07:16):
About that. Yeah, it’s
Brad Burrow (07:17):
Incredible. Huge, huge deal.
Sam Huenergardt (07:18):
It’s massive. All the food vendors come out and you can buy tickets and taste all these great gourmet meals or street vendor food. And I remember my wife, she was just getting so frustrated. People were stepping on her feet and it’s just packed. And she’s like, I’m not made for this. And so it was just a snippet of an experience that it was a culture adjustment for sure in Chicago.
Brad Burrow (07:42):
Chicago is great. We used to do a lot of work with shed aquarium and did beluga whale videos and kind of behind the scenes. It was really fun. That’s a great place. It’s a really
Sam Huenergardt (07:52):
Neat city. I mean, the food scene is incredible. It is.
Brad Burrow (07:55):
Got to have some pizza.
Sam Huenergardt (07:56):
Oh
Brad Burrow (07:57):
Man. Yeah. What is your favorite one piece pizza? What’s the main, I can’t remember the name of it, but it’s the real, real deep. Yeah.
Sam Huenergardt (08:04):
Chicago downtown. There’s a couple that are my favorites. One is Gino’s East and the other that is more,
Brad Burrow (08:10):
It’s not. The other one
Sam Huenergardt (08:11):
Is
Brad Burrow (08:11):
Giordano’s. Yes. Yeah, both are great. Yeah. And I remember it just a little side story. So when my kids were younger, I used to take him on shoot sometimes. So I took my middle son Briley on a shoot to Chicago one time, and we were shooting, we were actually shooting the beluga trainers on green screen and putting together videos for that. And so he helped me. It was a summer and he helped me and he was kind of one of the guys on the crew. So he was teaching him. He got behind the scenes and all this stuff. But his favorite part of that whole trip is we went to, did Kiss. Nice. So that was his pay I took to Dike and
Sam Huenergardt (08:46):
He got, everything’s a la carte there, and he’s like, dad, can I have a steak? I just have whatever you want. So he’s ordering and the waiter’s coming on. This is amazing. Some of the best steak I’ve had is in Chicago. They do it. Right, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Brad Burrow (09:02):
Chicago’s an amazing place. So one of the things I wanted to ask you about was kind of pivotal moments, which you kind of told me. But as you’ve worked your way up, you’ve been at Advent pretty much your whole career. It’s been my entire career, and you’ve just kind of worked your way up. Was there a pivotal moment in there that kind of took you to the next level that you can talk about? I would say so.
Sam Huenergardt (09:26):
And early in your career, I think you are, your reputation is based on your own work product, meaning the work that you do, how you show up yourself, what do you produce. My first job was a resident, which is basically grunt worker, but you’re learning a lot of things in a few different different areas. And then my promotion came as my first accounting director, small hospital in North Carolina.
Brad Burrow (09:56):
So you came up through the accounting side then? I
Sam Huenergardt (09:58):
Did, yeah. My background’s in business, so I started in finance and accounting, and I was a controller of a small hospital there and learned, and it was a small team, so four or five. So my work product still mattered a lot. But when I moved to Shawnee Mission here in Kansas City 2002, it’s when I realized with a team of 20 leading a group of 20 people, I was sitting in my office one night and I needed to get something done. And I realized I don’t have all the tools to do this. My team’s too big. I can’t do this work alone anymore. And it was a switch for me because no longer am I able to produce the work myself, I am reliant on this team that I’m a part of or that I’m leading to produce the results, the things, the product that our organization needed. And that flipped the switch for me to say, alright, I need to spend more of my time investing in the people so that we together can produce what we need to produce.
Brad Burrow (10:54):
It’s a big change in thinking, isn’t it? Oh, it’s a
Sam Huenergardt (10:56):
Complete mindset shift for
Brad Burrow (10:57):
Me. Yeah. Even for a small business, I think a lot of small businesses, people are watching these podcasts. It’s even for me, it’s my whole career. I’m kind of in doing the work and it’s like transitioning from doing to leading is a whole different mindset and it’s really hard to do.
Sam Huenergardt (11:16):
And I think we gravitate to what we know how to do, and that can put us in a space where we get a little bit lost. I remember my economics professor, George Gibson, he said the president of the college could be the best typist in the college, but that doesn’t mean that he or she should be typing and they should be doing the things that only they can do. And it’s an important concept, I think for us as leaders to remember. It’s like even if you’re the best at sales doesn’t mean that that’s what you have to be doing. Do only what you can do, the things that only you
Brad Burrow (11:48):
Can do. You’re talking to me right now, but it’s very true. It seems harder for a smaller business, I guess for me. It’s like man’s hard to let go of stuff.
Sam Huenergardt (11:59):
Well, you wear so many hats anyways,
Brad Burrow (12:00):
Right? Yeah, yeah, that’s very true. One of the things I wanted to tell you about it and mention this, and we’ve talked about this before, and I had COVID in 2021 and it was the Delta variant and ended up having to go to the emergency room and went to the emergency room out south. We live out south, south of the park, the newer one out there. So they ended up sending me home, and I came back the next day and they’re like, okay, you need to go in the hospital. So they took me. So I went to the 75th Street side, and I got to tell you, I think that the virus had kind of already was done, but it had damaged my lungs so much that my oxygen levels were so low that
(12:50):
They probably would’ve put me on a ventilator, but I didn’t have any, and I’m actually thankful that didn’t happen. So I was in the room, but I remember the doctor telling me that you have less than 50% chance of surviving this. And that was kind of a wake up call for me. But the reason I tell this story is there was a nurse that watched the doctor tell me that, and that’s pretty upsetting to hear. And he came in and he said, look, you can beat this if we will do what I ask you to do. I’m like, I’ll jump out the window if you want me to jump out the window. So he told me what I needed to do, and I started doing this thing called proning, and I got better every day, but it took me 30 days to recover from that. I couldn’t go from my hospital bed to the bathroom without completely losing my breath. That’s how bad it was. But the staff was amazing, and I got to know everybody, and I watched because that was kind of in the middle of the COVID thing that was happening. And when they would come in to my room, it’s like they’d, they’d come in, put all their gear
Sam Huenergardt (14:00):
On,
Brad Burrow (14:01):
Take ’em like 10 minutes to put all the stuff on, and sometimes they would just be checking my blood pressure or something really easy, and then they’d go out and take all that stuff, throw it away, and then they’d go do it again at the next room. And I’m like, this is crazy. I mean, mentally exhausting. And I remember Phoebe, so I got this, Carly, I don’t know if you can show this note, but this was a note that I got when I left, and this was great. And my wife actually went out and bought cookies for the whole staff. She know thank you. She knew how much they took care of me. But Phoebe came in one day and they were short,
(14:39):
And I could tell I got to know everybody so well. And she came in and I could just tell something was wrong. And I go, what’s going on? She goes, well, I have to cover this whole floor today by myself. And I was doing fine. I’m like, don’t even worry about coming in. If I have a problem, I’ll push the button. You don’t even need to come in and see me. Don’t even worry about me. And she came back to me later that morning. She goes, that changed my day. And I’m like, that’s awesome. But man, they were so under so much stress and pressure and you could just see it. And I just, man, I just feel so much for them and what they went through. Those were times
Sam Huenergardt (15:20):
None of us had ever even come close to experiencing and hope to never again. And it put every one of those team members through the ringer, and I could see it every day. They were just doing the best they could with what they had and just relying on their source of strength for enough for that day. And it really took us back to our foundations. But I would say too that it really demonstrated to me the best of healthcare because I would say everybody who gets into healthcare gets into it for pretty altruistic reasons. They want to take care of
(15:59):
People,
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They want to do it for a good reason. There’s a lot easier ways to make money than in healthcare and to provide a living for you or your family. But so many times I’d see stories like what you described or where somebody took off, it’s their day off, but they’d call back in and say, Hey, how’s Brad doing? I want to check on him. Tell me. Or checking in with the family member saying, Hey, I just wanted to see how things are going. So while the shift ended, their care and being able to be a part of a team like that is incredibly rewarding. And you can’t say that happens with a hundred percent of your team, but a higher than normal amount with our team here at Advent Health. And I’m just so proud of that. And that’s the kind of culture we want to foster and cultivate. And it’s a blessing even though it’s really hard.
Brad Burrow (16:56):
Yeah. How do you lead through something like that? I mean, every day had a new challenge. I mean, that was, what am I going to come across today?
Sam Huenergardt (17:07):
We went through times where we didn’t know when we were going to get the next shipment of gloves, just basic or isolation gear. And I remember having some really difficult conversations that I’ve ever had to have with ICU staff that said, I didn’t get into this work to not know that I wasn’t going to be protected. And I just felt Sam felt so vulnerable. It’s like, it’s my job to get you this
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Stuff
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And I don’t know how I’m going to do it. Everybody was in shortage. All of our material was manufactured in China, and you just think through everything that was going on. We just couldn’t get it. But through the strength of our company, we secured what we needed and it was day by day. But one of the things that I found helped our team really is to increase the frequency of communication, increase the transparency of communication. So we said, look guys, we have enough gloves for the next three days. We have enough isolation gowns for seven days masks. Were a tremendous shortage. So it’s like everybody got a mask, they put it in this brown paper bag, we’d sterilize it, and then they could come pick it back up at their next shift. And so we just tried to keep it as real and upfront so people could hear us frequently. They could understand what’s going on, both the good and the bad. And I think that created a level of trust that enabled us just to get through because nobody was thriving during that time.
Brad Burrow (18:39):
It’s
Sam Huenergardt (18:39):
Just how do we
Brad Burrow (18:40):
Surviving?
Sam Huenergardt (18:41):
How do you survive and how do we do this together? And I would say too, that the camaraderie during that time, especially during the first 12, 18 months was really high. We’re in this together, and you can only do that for so long before fatigue kind of sets in. But I’m really proud of our team for leaning into that and creating that transparency through that
Brad Burrow (19:02):
Time. Well, it was clear to me that that was happening on my behalf. Good. And one of the things I saw is I was motivated to get better. It was like, I’m not going to let this beat me. So after I heard that first you’ve got less than 50% chance, I’m like, something welled up in me. And people started praying for me. I had people praying for me all over the world actually. I mean, it was crazy. And I saw God doing things and changing. My youngest son, he wants to be a pastor now, he’s at K State, but he went to the school that he goes to, it’s Kansas City Christian School
(19:40):
And went to the head of school and said, can we get some people together and pray for my dad? And that was a moment that still touches me because nobody told him to do that. He took the initiative to do that. And so it’s like, it talks about in Romans how everything happens. Good things happen from bad things at 8 28. I’m paraphrasing it, but that’s exactly what happened. It’s not a great situation. But God did so many things for me personally, but for other people around me too. It’s just really cool to look back and see all that.
Sam Huenergardt (20:16):
You don’t want to go through it again,
(20:18):
But you’re glad that you had those people around you during those experiences. I remember I had a similar experience when our daughter was born and she was born prematurely. Her lungs weren’t developed yet. And we were in Georgia at the time at Advent Health Gordon. And that team just came around and outside the department, there were just dozens of people lifting our daughter up in prayer. And just knowing that that happens. And clinically speaking, there’s to show that patients who are prayed for do better. And it’s not a mystery to us, but it sure is a benefit to our patients when people surround them
Brad Burrow (20:57):
With care. One of the doctors that I saw, we will move on after this, but his son went to KCC and I cannot remember his name now, but he was the second doctor that I saw because the emergency or where we were, they would rotate through. And it was just comforting that somebody that had a great demeanor, he was very understanding, answered all my questions, said, you’re going to be okay. He was encouraging to me, and I needed that so much at that time. It’s important to
Sam Huenergardt (21:32):
Us that some of the highlight reels for our life, so many of them are in a healthcare setting and being a Christian organization, a faith-based healthcare system, we believe strongly that every encounter has the opportunity to be a spiritual encounter. And we want to foster that and make it open and welcome for people to step in their faith and say the things that can make a difference and pray with their fellow humans and their colleagues and creating an open space for that. And it’s a blessing to be the hospital system in town. Who welcomes that?
Brad Burrow (22:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can say for sure that it did happen to me. So that was an amazing experience. I even saw people once, the whole proning thing. It’s like, Gary, what is that? It seems so simple. You
Sam Huenergardt (22:28):
Probably ought to describe it because,
Brad Burrow (22:29):
Well, maybe. Okay, your listeners might not know what that is. So proning is basically when the way our bodies are made, our lungs are in the back of the cavity of our chest. So heart and everything’s up here. Well, when you lay on your back, everything lays on your lungs, so you can’t get as much air in. So what the nurse told me that after that first meeting is like, you need to lay on your stomach for two hours a day or two times, two hours a time a day. I’m like, well, that’s not that big a deal. Well, then you try doing, it’s not easy to do. So they bring in stuff for me, my neck. So this is funny, but that less, more oxygen in. Well, the first time I did that, my oxygen requirement went down like 2% or something. There was immediate results.
(23:15):
I’m like, oh my gosh, that’s working. So I’m like, I’m doing this all the time. Well, it’s hard to do. So I did this thing where I’d get my cell phone and they’d set me up and I put my phone there and I called it drunk COVID dialing. It wasn’t drunk, but I would have people that I would call and said, would you just talk to me for a half hour? Yeah. Oh man. And so they talked to me and I’d have a conversation with my mom and dad, friends. I talked to a lot of people, but they helped me get past the time while I’m laying on my stomach. And every day I got better and better. And then pretty soon I got to the point where I could walk. And when you’re pulling in oxygen, I felt like an old man. But I have one of those oxygen things. So I come out of my room and just describe this situation on where every room is. There’s a monitor where the nurses can see what’s happening with you, wearing all of the stuff, all the wires, all
Sam Huenergardt (24:11):
The leads.
Brad Burrow (24:12):
So they showed me where mine was so I could see how my oxygen level was doing kind of in real time. Well, I had a full tank of oxygen.
(24:23):
I made it halfway around the deal and went through the full tank of oxygen. Oh my goodness. And halfway just walking halfway around, and I had to go right back to the room and get my stuff put back on. But every day it got better. But I got to the point where I could, okay, it’s dropping. I need to sit here and breathe. And then I’d breathe and then I’d go a little bit more. And every day I’d get to where I could do more and more finally to the point where I could go home. So I was focused on how I could do that. And how long were you in the hospital altogether? I think 25 days, something like that. And I just was focused on getting better. What can I do to get better? That one doctor and the nurse, that really pushed me. That was kind of my pivotal moment. And that whole thing is it just pushed me. It’s like, okay, it’s time to fight. And that’s what I did. I’m not sure that would’ve happened somewhere else. Well, I’m glad God ran you into those great people. Yeah. Yeah. They were. Awesome. So let’s switch gears.
Sam Huenergardt (25:29):
Yeah.
Brad Burrow (25:29):
Talk about, one of the things I really wanted to ask you about ai. Yeah. So we’re getting into AI here from a film production and media production side for lots of different things. What about medicine? You got to be looking hard at that, right?
Sam Huenergardt (25:47):
Yeah, we are. We’ve got a team of people at Advent Health who are going deep. They’re actually part of a leadership group saying, how should we as a healthcare industry look at AI and what should we use adopt, and what should we steer clear from? And so as part of one of a system of 56 hospitals in the country, I feel comfortable knowing that we’ve got really high-end experts making sure we’re looking at things appropriately. However, what I would say is some of the early adoption that we’ve implemented is just listening devices. So if you come into a doctor’s office, say, Hey Brad, we’re going to have a talk here and I’m going to put this phone here, and it is just so I can not type. And we can have a conversation. And what it will do is listen to the conversation and assemble that into a note, and then the doctor can go through and say, yep, that’s what I intended. That’s what I want in there. And it saves between two and five minutes per visit. And that saves our clinicians time. And our goal for this is to enable our team members to spend more of their time with our patients.
(27:02):
And so you’ve got a lot of things that are coming down the road with one of the things that we like
Brad Burrow (27:08):
Predictive type things.
Sam Huenergardt (27:09):
Yeah. Well, so what I would say is that when you come in to get imaging done,
(27:14):
We
(27:14):
Can have AI overread and say, Hey, is there anything that AI can find that our humans may have missed? And so it’s like a double check. You’re going to see that happening a lot in the radiology space and also in pathology. There’s a lot of hope for enabled over like catching cancer
Brad Burrow (27:35):
Before it’s happening
Sam Huenergardt (27:36):
Or catching things that us humans might miss
(27:40):
Because
(27:40):
We can do a good job at thinking and seeing things, but we can’t digest as much information as machines can.
(27:48):
And
(27:48):
Then it will enable us to do more with less. But healthcare is such a high touch industry, we’re not going to be able to replace much. But I think our goal is to maximize the humanness with AI assistance.
Brad Burrow (28:06):
And you think about chat GPT for example. Is it something like that that you’re using? It is. So we, I’ve written proposals with chat GPT, that saved me so much time. But the key is the prompt. So you’ve got to be very descriptive. I’m looking, I need this, I need this. We’re going to talk about this, I’m going to talk about this. And then it comes back with a really pretty good idea. And then I usually think I’m about 80% there and I’ll go and change it or update it properly. Talk about saving time. Oh, it’s true.
Sam Huenergardt (28:39):
And I think I’ve heard it described this way is you’re still the head. Let AI be the hands do the grunt work, assembling it, just kind of putting it together. And that’s actually another area where we’re using it is if you look at an electronic medical record, there are reams and terabytes of information. And if you imagine for your state potentially 25 days, every blood pressure that you took, every heart rate, every respiratory, all of that is in the record.
Brad Burrow (29:12):
I had over 350 shots.
Sam Huenergardt (29:14):
Oh my goodness. So you can imagine how much data there is to pour over. So we’re using AI to summarize information and pull the pertinent parts together so that during shift changes, you can be looking at the most important information as opposed to gleaning through 85 pages to pick up everything.
Brad Burrow (29:38):
I have some friends that are doctors that spend their evenings used to dictating what happened that day. I mean, they’re getting that life back right now. Right?
Sam Huenergardt (29:47):
Well, I mean, we’re in an era where we don’t have enough healthcare professionals anyways. The last thing we need is for people to get burnout. And anytime we can use technology, and actually what I described to you that note assembly service is one of the first times where I’ve gotten direct feedback from our physicians where they said, this technology actually makes my life better. Other times it might make the patient’s experience better or might get more complete information, but this actually saves them time and gives them some of their life back. Your IT
Brad Burrow (30:20):
People must just be whizzes, man, I can’t imagine. We’ve got a bunch of sharp people. Are all your servers local or do they
Sam Huenergardt (30:30):
No, we use the cloud for so much. We have the bulk of our IT services team in Orlando, but we also have a global services team in India that we rely on for some things. And we’ve got a great leader. Duncan Gro is the leader of that. He’s our CIO and he’s sharp.
Brad Burrow (30:53):
Yeah. Yeah. Understanding all that, just the storage it would take, we’re a small production company and I have a petabyte of storage. Oh my goodness. Because shooting six K and eight K cameras, it’s a lot for us.
Sam Huenergardt (31:10):
I’m glad that that’s not something I have to be the expert
Brad Burrow (31:13):
On it
Sam Huenergardt (31:14):
And allows me to stay in my lane.
Brad Burrow (31:15):
Yeah, that is very true. So how do you stay on top of innovation? I mean, it’s happening so fast right now in our industry, daily, there’s things coming out, new cameras, new ways of doing things, all that. How do you stay on top of that in your industry?
Sam Huenergardt (31:33):
Well, I would say it probably is based on individual effort of saying what is the industry doing? What can I read? But the basis of our operating model at Advent Health, we call it the bow tie model. And if you think about where decisions get made in the middle of that bow tie and the knot of the bow tie, but it takes one end of the market. What are we doing here in Kansas City and one end where you have maybe corporate services and deep experts in a field, but they aren’t taking care of patients every day? And we meet in the middle
(32:06):
To
(32:06):
Make decisions, to share experiences together where we’re taking, alright, closest to the bedside, they’re bringing, Hey, what have we learned from industry? What do we hear from industry experts and solutions experts? And we come together to form ideas and strategies where it might work best for the patients coming from both ends of the spectrum. So we have, during our corporate meeting weeks where the Advent Health Board meets, we bring our market leaders together with invitees from different where, which presents and stuff. We talk about a problem and we say, Hey guys, how might we approach this thing?
(32:45):
And we might take a couple of cycles to really beat up the problem and come up with a solution. But I think the important, and that where the magic happens is talking about it together from both ends of that bow tie and I think it creates unique and special solutions. Then you don’t have maybe industry experts designing solutions for problems that we don’t have or we have. They’re not boots on the ground and understand it. And we don’t have people who are implementing solutions that don’t make sense or aren’t adopting industry best practices. So it’s really, in my opinion, a very good model that I’ve seen work many
Brad Burrow (33:18):
Times. How often do those meetings happen?
Sam Huenergardt (33:20):
So from my peer level, I’m regional, CEO of Advent Health, there’s I think 12 regions or so in the system. But we come together on a little bit more than quarterly basis to have that sort of meeting. But also we have some of our service line people doing that work on a monthly basis, feeding that up, beating those problems up. So we might tackle it at a large level or macro view, say, what if we did it this way? And they hand it off to some of our specialized teams saying our consumer experience person in Kansas City. And they meet with the consumer experience people from across the rest of our company and they work on some of those solutions together. So there are multiple layers of problem solving, but it’s all still based on that model of how do we bring our vision together and it’s not so heavy handed in one end or the other where we can find a solution that really
Brad Burrow (34:18):
Meets the need. One of the things I’ve always told people, a lot of times we get asked to bid on projects and say, come to us with a creative idea. And I always hate that because the best creative comes when I can sit down with you and talk with you and understand what’s happening. And you might say something and that makes somebody on my team think something and then I think something and all of a sudden we got to a completely different place together that we would’ve never gotten to just by ourselves. And that’s the same thing you’re talking about. It is, it is
Sam Huenergardt (34:47):
Marrying the experts with the people closest to the problem and coming up with a great solution and getting everybody in a room.
Brad Burrow (34:56):
It’s collaboration. Sounds like a lot of fun. Faith in healing. I had that written down. We kind of going backwards a little bit, but I did want to get your thoughts on that and you did hit on it briefly, but I do believe that that makes a huge difference and mindset. Would you agree with that? I mean, if I’m down in the dumpsters, there’s no way I’m beating this. Well, you’re probably going to get beat. But if you mentally think I’m going to fight and I am praying for this, I got people praying for me, I’m believing that I’m going to be healed. Can you talk about that?
Sam Huenergardt (35:31):
Man? You just see so many times in the Bible where Christ has that same interaction. Your faith has set you apart here. It’s not that you just need the help that you’ve had. The faith in me to ask for it in the right mindset and with the faith.
(35:48):
And
(35:49):
Let me back up a minute because I wish I would’ve started out our whole interview by saying our mission statement at Advent Health is to extend the healing ministry of Christ. And that’s our greatest example. And we’re just trying to be some foggy version of Christ in his time walking this earth. How can we be that healer to the people in front of us and how can we encourage them? We’ve seen Christ, he didn’t just heal people, but he ministered to them. He healed their being in addition to healing their body. And it’s that mind body, spirit
(36:22):
Marrying. You can’t separate any of those three from the other. It all has to come together. And I think nurturing the spirit during the time, you’re trying to nurture the body that’s like magic sauce. And we miss that a lot. We do so many times and I think, well, we know so much now it’s all science. And that’s not true. It’s not true. We know a lot. We know a more than we ever have before. And you look at the knowledge curve, it’s just so steep. We’re assembling petabytes of knowledge we ever had before. And there’s nothing like being in a moment of anxiety and being prayed with
Brad Burrow (37:06):
And being prayed for. I’d be really curious. I don’t know the answer to this, but when you do have anxiety and things happen, it’s like physically you’re affected by that. I mean you can feel it. Yeah, a hundred percent. Having the ability to think it’s flipping. His force is be anxious for nothing and all things of prayer and implication with Thanksgiving, you’re thanking God for what he’s going to do. Exhibiting faith, that’s hard to do. It’s like we have to train our minds that, oh, this is coming. I need to battle it with this. That kind of thing. You’re very positive, I can tell. Can you talk about the power of staying positive? Sure. That every day you’re up against things that aren’t positive. I
Sam Huenergardt (37:53):
Would say if I could say I have a superpower, I’m a positive person. And that was one of the things that my mom instilled in me growing up. We listened to this probably be a throwback too, but Zig Ziglar
Brad Burrow (38:06):
On the way to, I got to spend a day with Z Ziglar.
Sam Huenergardt (38:08):
Did you
Brad Burrow (38:08):
Really? Yes.
Sam Huenergardt (38:09):
I mean, just one of the most entertaining positive people. And that had an impact on me. And it created me in me a mindset that I really believe that you’ll find what you’re looking for.
(38:20):
If
(38:20):
You’re looking for good things to happen, you’re going to find those good things. If you’re looking for blessings that have happened in your life, you’re going to find those things. And if you’re looking for all the negatives, you’ll find that
(38:28):
Too.
(38:29):
And both are happening in your life. It’s just what are you looking for? And sometimes somebody might say, yeah, Sam, be real. Right? You’re being a little too Pollyanna. And I would just rather approach things with a positive mindset. And I think that you’ll have more fun getting the heavy work done if you’re looking for good things to happen. And if you have a positive outlook on it. And I give some of my realists a hard time, they say, well, I’m not being pessimistic. I’m just being realistic. I was like, that’s what all the pessimists say.
(39:05):
Yeah.
Brad Burrow (39:06):
Yeah. That’s so true. I feel like the negative thing kind of, it’s like the spiral. If you don’t stop it, it keeps going and keeps going. And next thing you know, it’s out of control.
Sam Huenergardt (39:17):
There’s nothing more contagious than negativity. There’s just not, and as fun as positivity is, it’s not as contagious as negativity. And I find myself in that sometimes. And I think it’s important to surround yourself with people who can bring you up. And that’s one of my life’s greatest pleasures, is being in an opportunity a few times in my career where I’ve really gotten to choose the team that I get to work with. And I’ll tell you at this point in time, I’m so blessed with the team that I’ve got working
Brad Burrow (39:50):
With me. Yeah, it’s incredible. Yeah. The whole thing of being positive, I think we tend to default to negative. Yeah. I dunno why that is. Maybe that’s because of the fall human nature, but it’s like training your mind to not go there. And so you mentioned Zig Ziglar, I tell you a quick Zig Ziglar, please. A friend of mine’s, Joe Calhoun, I don’t know if you know that name. He’s an EOS implementer guy. Really been friends for a long, long time. He was a speaker for one of the big leadership companies. But he called me, he said, I want to go to Dallas. We’re going to spend a day with Zig Ziglar. Oh, I’m like, really? And I’m like, okay. So I shot the interviews and Joe interviewed him, but there were two things at Zig. So I got to spend a day with him and he is got God, he is got this, that kind of Ziglar, he’s got AIG voice. But he said, there’s two things he said. He says, if you want to be successful, help somebody else be successful. I’ve never forgotten that. And
(40:53):
It’s very true. It’s like you help other people be successful a hundred percent. And the other thing that he said is I used to make all the decisions myself and then I realized I needed to get the redhead involved, who the redhead is, his wife. So after that, any big decisions, I’m like, okay. I get my wife Tracy and say, okay, let’s talk about this. Especially hiring decisions and stuff. I want to get her because he was of the belief that his wife had discernment levels different from him. And I believe that’s true. I think God pairs
Sam Huenergardt (41:27):
Us up with people who give us a different perspective. And as so many times opposites attract and we have such different, and that causes friction too. But I think one of the powerhouses, or one of the most powerful lessons that I’ve learned is that that different perspective really is meant to be an additive. Not the earlier you can learn that. And I feel like I need to learn that every day. But wife stop happening. No, I don’t think it does. But my wife is very discerning and I’m blessed with that. She’s got insights into behaviors and people that me with my positivity, I give people the benefit of the doubt right out of the gate. And sometimes she picks up on something and says, I don’t know if that’s, that’s what that person is. I don’t know if that is who you think they are. So it’s helped me in my discernment as we’ve talked through some of the issues that I’ve encountered with various things in people. And it, it’s an incredible thing God’s given us is different perspectives.
Brad Burrow (42:29):
Yeah. Yeah. Spouse is an amazing thing. Yeah. We just had our 27 year anniversary, so just got back from Cancun, man. So it was
Sam Huenergardt (42:38):
Congratulations. Ours is coming up this week. 2026.
Brad Burrow (42:41):
Oh wow. Just a little bit before us. We were November 14th. Okay.
Sam Huenergardt (42:46):
Yeah. Awesome.
Brad Burrow (42:46):
Are you going anywhere?
Sam Huenergardt (42:48):
Not this year. Our son is coming home on Friday on our anniversary, so we’re just going to
Brad Burrow (42:52):
Hang tight. That’s
Sam Huenergardt (42:52):
A good present. And he’s his first year of college. Where at? He’s in Lincoln, my alma mater.
Brad Burrow (42:59):
Okay, awesome. That’s great. So that’s a two and a half hour drive from home. Yeah. It’s not too bad. No, it’s not that at all. Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. Well 26 years. That’s amazing. We’ve looked back on it. It’s like we’ve been through some pretty amazing ups and downs and stuff and made it through all that. And it’s just kind of when you look back after that amount of time, it’s like, wow, God’s really been with us through a lot
Sam Huenergardt (43:26):
During that amount of time. You can’t help but go through ups and downs. And I think if you can go that long, it is an incredible opportunity to see all that you can go through in a life. And if you can do that together, that’s not something a lot of people can say they do. Right.
Brad Burrow (43:44):
Yeah, that’s
Sam Huenergardt (43:45):
Exactly right. It’s powerful and I’m grateful for it, for sure.
Brad Burrow (43:47):
Alright, just a couple more things. Tell me, what’s the future of Advent Health? I know you just expanded out in Lenexa. I saw the ribbon cutting for that. That looks like an amazing facility. It is an amazing facility.
Sam Huenergardt (44:01):
Advent Health Lenexa. It’s a community hospital there that shares a license with Advent Health Shawnee Mission. So they are on the same hospital license. It’s a site of Advent Health Shawnee Mission. But I say all that to say that that place has just taken off. The community has embraced it. Mayor Mike Bam was one of the early proponents there saying, Hey Sam, we’d love to have Advent Health here. So we worked on it together and it opened up just three and a half months ago. And it is just exceeding all expectations. So for Advent Health in Kansas City, we expect to continue to grow. I believe that as we continue to expand our brand of faith-based healthcare, people keep filling it up.
Brad Burrow (44:45):
So
Sam Huenergardt (44:46):
One of our biggest challenges, hiring enough people to staff this space. Boy,
Brad Burrow (44:49):
That is a challenge right now, isn’t it? It really is.
Sam Huenergardt (44:51):
It really is.
Brad Burrow (44:52):
Yeah.
Sam Huenergardt (44:52):
But we’ll continue to grow in concentric circles and we’re really grateful to be able to serve this community. It’s an area that Advent Health as an organization looks at Kansas City and says that this is a spot where this is a big place for us and we want to continue to grow in it. And as much as Kansas City will have us, we’ll continue to grow in it.
Brad Burrow (45:13):
Well, there’s lots of opportunities to grow here, I bet, huh? Yeah, there are in Overland Park now, Lenexa and 75th Street here probably. Can you go into
Sam Huenergardt (45:21):
Missouri? Yeah. It’s a different process. Missouri has what’s called a certificate of need. So you have to apply to the state and say, do your people have need for a facility? Is it close enough or far enough from an existing facility? And can you create a sustainable business plan to make sure that that’s a viable entity? A
Brad Burrow (45:41):
Big process you have to go through, huh?
Sam Huenergardt (45:43):
Yeah,
Brad Burrow (45:44):
It is. Do you have teams working on things like that? We do. We do. Don’t have to disclose secret things, I can tell you, but I got to kill you.
Sam Huenergardt (45:50):
No, none of that. We do have strategy teams that bring industry best thinking, looking at what our demographics, what our business experience is, and putting it all together into a plan.
Brad Burrow (46:04):
Yeah. Alright. So last thing I wanted to ask you is if you could have anybody on your team or somebody looking up to you read a book, what book would that be? Oh, that’s a great question. Just one. If it was one book that you could pick, I put you on the spot a little bit. Yeah,
Sam Huenergardt (46:23):
No. I’ll tell you one that I read more recently. And I’m a big fan of Patrick Lencioni because I think he boils it down into parables that simple minds like mine can absorb. And I think the best way to summarize it is where the book’s name is the ideal team player, and he describes someone who is humble, hungry, and smart.
(46:50):
And
(46:51):
Those are the only three things that you need. And what he means by humble is that they’re looking out for others first. They’re hungry, they go get stuff done.
(46:58):
And
(46:58):
I think that that’s undervalued in some of the earlier generations that are coming up. You’ve got to hustle and you’ve got to work hard and you’ve got to produce execute. I agree. Just execute. Then smart. Really, the intelligence part is smart, but how do you relate to people? How can you operate in a way that’s collaborative and smart about getting things done with other people? So if I could tell somebody to read that book and really adopt those principles, those would be things that would really probably help. It’s got to be part of your
Brad Burrow (47:29):
Onboarding process now, right? Right. A hundred percent. Well, so thank you for joining me. This has really been awesome. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you today.
Sam Huenergardt (47:38):
Me
Brad Burrow (47:39):
Too. Thank you. This podcast is called In A World With Real Media, so I’ve had lots of different people. Lisa Gin has been on, do you know Lisa? I do. She’s fantastic. She’s awesome. We do a lot of work with Community America, but I have everybody do a movie voice at the end. So this is a curve ball for you, but it’s called In a World with Real Media. So it all started with me doing in a world with real media. Yeah. So do you think you could do the movie voice for me and what you want me to say in a world with real media? Yeah. And so you get really close to the I can hear it. Alright,
Sam Huenergardt (48:11):
I can hear. And you go in a world.
Brad Burrow (48:13):
Okay.
Sam Huenergardt (48:13):
Are you ready?
Brad Burrow (48:14):
This could be your, you might want to get an agent after this.
Sam Huenergardt (48:16):
I might. I’m going to sum it up. My best optimist, prime Voice for
Brad Burrow (48:20):
You. Okay, great. Perfect.
Sam Huenergardt (48:22):
In the world with real Media.
Brad Burrow (48:26):
Perfect. Hopefully that doesn’t embarrass the family. No. Oh, it won’t embarrass me. Maybe yours actually, I might just send that out for you. You can just have that as your ringer on your phone there you. I love it. Thank you, Brad. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it. And feel free to, I mean, share this podcast, subscribe and get this out there. There’s a lot of great information in here and we thank everybody for watching and listening, and we’ll see you on the next time. Thanks. This has been in a World with Real Media. Thanks for joining us. And be sure to subscribe on iTunes and follow real media on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. So you never miss an episode.