Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Dr. Drema Hill & Cheryl Workman

In this captivating episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm, delve into the world of expert insights as Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm engages in a thought-provoking and informative discussion with Drema Hill, Ph.D., and Cheryl Workman about the Women Interested in Staying Healthy (WISH) program.

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This material was prepared by Quality Insights, a Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Views expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the official views or policy of CMS or HHS, and any reference to a specific product or entity herein does not constitute endorsement of that product or entity by CMS or HHS. Publication number 12SOW-QI-GEN-100424-GK

Transcript

Welcome to Taking Healthcare by Storm, industry Insights, the podcast that delves into the captivating intersection of innovation, science, compassion, and care.

In each episode, Quality Insights Medical Director Dr.

Jean Storm will have the privilege of engaging with leading experts across diverse fields, including dieticians, pharmacists, and brave patients navigating their own healthcare journeys.

Our mission is to bring you the best healthcare insights, drawing from the expertise of professionals across West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the nation.

Subscribe now, and together, we can take healthcare by storm.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Taking Healthcare by Storm.

I am Dr.

Jean Storm, the Medical Director at Quality Insights, and I am joined by two guests that I actually have been thinking about of getting on the podcast for a conversation for a long time, and it's finally happening, and I'm very excited.

Today, we are joined by Dr.

Drema Hill and Cheryl Workman, who are from the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Today, we are going to be talking about, I want to call it a project, but it is so much more than that.

The project is actually called Wish or Women Interested in Staying Healthy.

I was lucky enough to attend the first meeting of Wish, and I'm going to say, it was so magical.

The group of women who had gathered to start the journey together, were so passionate and excited to embark on the journey together.

I am just delighted to be talking about this project and all that it's accomplished.

So, Dr.

Hill and Cheryl, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you for having us.

All right.

So we're going to jump right in.

Tell us how you both came to do what you do at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Okay.

Well, I've long been in community work.

I've worked a lot with them, especially in infectious diseases around HIV and hepatitis C back in the day.

And so when I came to the school, at the Center for Rural and Community Health, and I've been here about eight years now.

But I've worked a lot, well, my entire career has been public health.

And so what I said to the president, Dr.

Nemitz, when I came here was I said, well, as long as I know what we need to do, to organize community and do true community engagement, I've just never found anybody who's let me do it yet.

So if you'll let me do it, I'll come there.

And so he agreed and he has certainly done that.

So, you know, our role was to get out and engage the school with the community and do those things that improve.

As part of the mission of the school is to improve the health of our community across the state.

And so that's kind of how I came to be here.

And now I'll let Cheryl tell you.

Okay, well, I am from a very rural area in Greenbrier County, the Renwick area.

And I'm the director of the Renwick Community Center.

And because of that, I was able to become a community ambassador through a program here at the osteopathic school.

And the ambassador's role is to be a leader in your community, to build relationships within the community, to network, bring resources back to the community and those kind of things.

And I was in a meeting one day that Dr.

Hill was actually facilitating and at the end of the meeting, she mentioned that she was looking for an AmeriCorps member here on campus.

And at that time, I wasn't working full time due to some health situations going on in my home.

So I approached her and then became an AmeriCorps member here where I served as four years through the AmeriCorps program before becoming a full time employee at the school.

So now, I'm still managing the Rennie Community Center and working full time here at the austin Pathway School with Dr.

Hill.

It's just wonderful.

And I know both of you mentioned community many, many times, which is just fantastic.

And speaking of community, are you both from West Virginia?

Yes, ma'am.

Excellent.

I feel like I will tell you as a, I'm not from West Virginia, but I practiced there for a long time, and it just has a special place in my heart.

I'm going there next week, and I'm very excited to get back.

So Drema, tell us about your weight loss journey.

And I know you were featured in Women's World.

So tell us about that feature in the magazine.

Okay.

So it's probably been about nine years ago now.

I went to the doctor and at that time, I weighed over 350 pounds, and I had always been one of these people who said, well, I was very active.

I was always a very active person.

But I said, my numbers are ever affected, which that's the wrong way to look at it, because of course they're going to be affected if you're carrying that much weight.

But I guess what I was saying to the world was, once it starts really impacting my health, I'll do something about it.

So both of my parents were insulin dependent diabetics.

And so when I went to the doctor and the numbers were bad, and they wanted to put me on insulin, I'm like, no, I can't do that.

So I said, just give me three months.

And I can't show you that I'm serious about this.

So I got every resource I knew in public health to help me between nutritionists and dieticians.

And so I started, and it was hard, but the first three, six months, I started making progress.

My goal was to lose very, I didn't want to lose fast because I've seen too many people who lose a hundred pounds in three months.

And then they gained it all back.

And so I really didn't want to do that.

Well, about that time then, I started here at the school.

And one of the professors here, they, someone told me she had lost a lot of weight.

Well, when I went to meet with her, I saw that she really looked healthy.

Like she didn't really look like one of those people who, you know, usually you can tell when people have lost a lot of weight.

So I'm like, okay, this, this is for me.

So she gave me a book by Dr.

Mark Hyman called The 10 Day Detox Diet.

And so, and it was specifically for, it was for anybody, but it was specifically around diabetes and getting the sugar I can have.

So I started on that process that Dr.

Hyman, you know, had laid out in his book and boy did it work.

So, you know, I've lost about 25 pounds a year.

So now, well, it's over 160 pound weight loss where I'm at right now.

And so what happened was that I met him and of course, you know, just fell apart in his presence because he saved my life.

And and he then got an offer to Women's World Magazine to do an article.

And he asked me, he said, you know, I'd like to showcase somebody who's lost over 100 pounds because I want, you know, real people to know that you can do this.

You know, it's not just me sitting up here because, you know, he's just, he's just so kind and good.

And so he's like, I want him to understand, I want women to understand it.

You know, anybody can do this.

And so I got featured in Women's World Magazine.

And then of course, from that, it led to the WISH program that we're gonna talk about here today.

Excellent.

And I know we're gonna talk a little bit about Dr.

Hyman in a little bit, but I kind of wanted to give everyone a background about WISH and how just fantastic it's been.

So, I know we're gonna tag team some questions.

So, let's just start.

Why do you feel that obesity is such a big challenge in West Virginia?

Well, you know, having grown up in very rural West Virginia, I think a lot of it is, there's so many food deserts.

And so, you know, if you, for example, only have $5 to feed your four children and the place that you can shop for your food is the dollar general or the family dollar, then you are not going to get the healthiest food.

It's not that you're a bad parent or that you don't want to feed.

You think the chef boy or the ravioli is the way to go.

And not saying it doesn't taste good.

So I think that's part of it.

I think that people, it's a mindset really.

I mean, for me, I didn't feel abnormal.

So I know that a lot of things, reasons that people are motivated is if, maybe they don't feel like they're part of the norm or something.

But when you look around you and your aunts and uncles and sisters and brothers, and everybody has a weight problem, then you don't stand out.

You're not, it's not something that we're embarrassed by or feel like you need to do something different.

It's not a health issue.

Like I said, I was 56 years old when my numbers went back.

So if you're in your teens or 20s, you're not thinking about those bad numbers and how obesity is impacting your health.

plus, I think there are so many social determinants of health.

We know there are so many social factors that impact people that sometimes, if you can't make your rent, that's more important to have the roof over your head than to worry about nutrition.

So I think those are some of the reasons.

Cheryl, what do you think?

I agree with everything that you said.

I think a lot of it is healthy literacy.

People don't know what they don't know.

They don't know how to eat healthy.

They have never been educated in that, and they think they're doing the best they can.

They think that what they're doing is, they think they're eating healthy.

They think if they get a can of corn, they're eating a vegetable, but they don't realize all the added sodium and those things that they're getting.

I think a lack of physical activity also applies.

We don't work as hard outside as we used to, generations back.

Yeah, I'm sorry, Cheryl.

We did a community survey about health once, and this was real appealing to me.

It was in rural West Virginia, and we asked people about their health issues and say, are you diabetic?

Yes, I'm type 2 diabetic.

Have you ever seen a doctor for a party of askers into your heart?

All of these indicators of poor health.

So we asked the question, yes.

Most of them had seen at least three physicians regarding these severe health related issues.

But the last question was, do you believe that you're healthy?

How's your health?

They all ranked themselves very high.

They felt like they were healthy.

So that was very telling.

They had all these chronic diseases, but they still for them considered themselves healthy.

I would agree.

That is striking.

Do you feel that obesity has worsened during the pandemic?

I think it absolutely has.

We were locked down.

We were social distancing.

Our lifestyle became very sedentary.

I think in addition to that, there was so much stress and anxiety.

We didn't know what was going on.

I think that increased.

When you're stressed out, you tend to just, emotional eating is such a big thing.

When we seek comfort food, it's usually a high calorie, sugary, unhealthy kind of food.

I think to the access to fresh, healthy food, it became more difficult.

There were supply chain disruptions and people were afraid to go to the grocery store.

Even the farmer's markets, those things weren't happening.

People turn to just whatever they could pick up from the dollar store or somewhere they just weren't able with the fear and the isolation, they weren't able to get the kind of foods that were healthy for them.

I also believe that we sat down, we spent more time in front of screens.

We were working from home or children were going to school in their living room.

I'm sure there were more games played online, those kind of things, they're just so much less physical activity, more snacking, less healthy options.

I believe that the pandemic definitely played a part in it.

I do too.

I agree a lot on the exercise piece, I think we were all stuck inside.

But also, studies from the aftermath of the pandemic are showing that the depression rates increase.

I'm sure about 20 or more people are familiar with all that work that was done.

But when you look at that and you think about it, well, if you're in depression, you're not going to eat more.

It's most likely you want to eat more, you're not going to exercise as much.

That sort of disenfranchised feeling.

I mean, I would feel like I'm going to be away from everybody.

Yeah, I would definitely agree.

So today we're talking about, and I just, I'm not going to say, I do think it's a solution to the obesity epidemic in West Virginia.

Which is your project, Wish, which is Women Interested in Staying Healthy.

So tell us about Wish.

Okay.

Well, after the article came out in Women's World Magazine, of course I was a local celebrity.

because it's on the store shelves everywhere in here.

You know, I would go to the store and there'd be two or three women in a group and they'd be going, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Like I was some kind of celebrity.

So, but I got to thinking, you know, these people.

So, you know, and then women would come up and they would ask me about it.

The other thing that was interesting that happened about that article was women all over the country.

because, you know, I'm the vice president of a medical school, so I was supposed to be in engagement and that.

And I was the chief operations officer, so I'm on, you know, you can find me on the internet very easily.

And my contact information at work.

So women from all over the country were contacting me after that article to ask me and how I did it.

And sharing their stories, and I was listening to everybody and I thought, wow, you know, what we like here is a sense of community to help us do this, you know, because I'm very fortunate that I come from a, you know, my three brothers and three sisters, so I had a large family to support, you know, just good co-workers to work with and that kind of thing.

But, you know, everybody doesn't have that.

And I thought, well, so I sit down and I, and one of the things that I do is I create programming.

I like to create sustainable programs that support in public health and I created a lot of some public health programs in West Virginia.

So I sit down and I thought about it, I said, what is it that we need?

Well, what helped me the most was I had access because I'm in a health care situation, I had access to professionals who could help me.

I have physicians surrounding me at the School of Osteotropic Medicine, who are physicians in functional medicine.

So that's very helpful.

Then I found this book, the Dr.

Hyman's, that somebody had given me, I had access to dieticians, nutritionists, I had access to exercise, gurus, and anything that I wanted.

But everybody doesn't have that in small world communities.

So I'm like, how can we bring that to the people?

So I've designed the program, and I've got professors here at the school, who have worked with me on it.

So every time that, every session, they would get a didactic presentation from a physician that they could ask questions of.

He would just like sit there and talk to them person to person.

We had a dietician who would talk to them about healthy recipes and how to cook.

Fortunately, we had a kitchen here.

We could do that.

So in the industrial kitchen, so we would put the meal, at least one dish every time and we would all share it.

We had an exercise physiologist that we got on board to do that, to show us exercising and how to do that for our body types and our age, you know, age appropriate.

And then we had a certified diabetes counselor who came in and would teach us, you know, she would do groceries, do different things to teach us tips on, you know, how to lose weight.

Well, I took that when I wrote the claim for how I was going to do it was, there was fortunately Quality Insights had a 50 year anniversary grant program and they were going to fund it.

So I sent the application in with the idea and luckily, you know, it was funded.

And so what that did, it wasn't a lot of funding really.

So if you think about this, you know, a lot of programs, they cost a lot of money to to build out new programs.

This one, it was around 20,000 for a whole year.

I mean, we were very fruitful with how we did things.

We, you know, paid each of the speakers, not very much, you know, a lot of the time, those volunteers, we paid them what we had in the grant to come and do the presentations and work with the ladies.

You know, so we were able to buy, you know, like stretchy bands for everybody to exercise with.

But what happened was, and you saw it Dr.

Storm at the first meeting, so these, we had over 50 women who came the first time from our, this one rural community.

So that showed us the interest in it.

And then we decided early on, because I wanted to prove, you know, I wanted an evidence-based, you know, and so we used to need a scales, and everybody, you know, was waiting for signature, this sort of fat and health age versus your chronological age and just all kinds of, just health data that we were gathering.

Then we did a survey of them coming in, you know, about their health and how they felt about that.

And then we collected the data midway through the year and then at the end.

And I'll let Cheryl give you the results, because what I did that was really smart was I asked Cheryl to come on as the project director and she did, because she is such a wonderful community organ professor.

And I'm more of the people that show up and dance around them and, you know, get people excited to be there.

And Cheryl is the one who just organizes everything and kept it going.

So I'll let you talk a little bit about that, Cheryl.

The program, it really was much more successful than we ever imagined it could be.

The participants that came that first time, probably about 30, 35 of those participants continued through the whole thing.

They were very dedicated.

And they were in it to see a difference.

They really wanted to see change.

So at the very last session, I asked those ladies, I think we had, like I said, about 30, 35 there at that last session.

And I asked them how many of them were there at the very first session.

And almost every hand went up.

So for us, that was huge just showing that they were dedicated to the program and their passion for the program.

So over the course of the program, the participants lost a total of almost, it lacked just 0.15 something to be, but they lost almost 200 pounds throughout the program.

And one participant alone lost over 42 pounds.

Several women lost between 10 and 20 pounds.

So they were very excited about that.

The body mass index score that we did, it dropped as much as 7.5 points.

And overall, there was a total reduction of 43.12 points.

The body fat percentage dropped by over 41% accumulative.

So that was a very big deal.

Skeletal muscle mass scores went up, as we hoped they would, because as they exercised, they built some muscle mass, so that went up.

The resting metabolism rates decreased.

They didn't require as many calories.

Their body age, which is what Dr.

Hill was talking about, many participants had a decrease in their body age.

I think one lady lost 19 years body age.

There was one that lost 18 years, 16 years, 14 years, several lost, you know, five to 10 years in body age.

Their visceral fat levels went down as much as 16 points.

And then as she said, we asked that their personal health ranking at the very first visit, you know, we talked about the program, what we were going to do.

We surveyed the ladies and we said, on a scale of one to 10, where do you rank your personal health?

Of course, one would be, you know, I just don't have very much confidence at all in my health.

And 10 would be, it's the best it could possibly be.

So at that time, the rating, the average rating was only 3.8, which we were kind of staggered by that, that they really didn't have a lot of confidence in their own health.

So we brought in all of these resources, we had all of the lessons, they were able to ask questions and get some personal coaching.

And at the last session, those personal health rankings went up to an average of 6.5.

So, I mean, they jumped tremendously and the ladies were telling us, you know, this program has made so much difference, I've learned so much.

And they thanked the individual instructors for what they brought to the program.

And it was just amazing to hear the results.

Yeah, it's just amazing.

You accomplished so much.

just in making people feel more confident about their health is huge.

Yes.

I know you talked about Dr.

Hyman, Dr.

Mark Hyman a little bit.

So, I heard that he kind of paid a visit to all the participants.

He did.

He did, isn't it?

So, yeah, I want to explain first how, so how I actually met him in person and got him to come was, I was on a, when they did the White house Hunger and Nutrition Conference, I was on a panel and I didn't realize he would be on the same panel.

So, when I showed up in DC and I walked into the room, we were going to sort of prep right before the panel.

There he was and I could not believe it because I mean, this was my career for seven or eight years.

I listened to his podcasts and all of the stuff.

I just sort of like fell apart as I said earlier.

I'm like, oh, you saved my life and so good to meet you.

That kind of thing.

He was so gracious.

I actually got to meet Senator Booker.

But anyway, with him.

So after that, we kind of got to talk and then so like once a month or so, we got to hear what was going on and Denise Morrissey, who is our Attorney General's wife in West Virginia, she was a part of the WISH program and she was one of the ones who had a big weight loss with that.

So she actually works with Dr.

Hyman in DC.

So she was a great connection to keep us connected.

And then since she was in WISH and believed in the program so much, and so we just kept him updated on all the women are doing this and the women are doing that.

You know, I mean, while we didn't, because the purpose of WISH is for everybody to figure out their own.

So we presented all kinds of models.

Like we presented somebody who believed in just plant-based food, and then we presented somebody who believed in meat as protein.

You know, because we wanted them to be able to make an informed choice about what works the best for their body.

So it wasn't like it was a Dr.

Hyman program, but it certainly followed a lot of the tenets in his book and in books.

And then he donated books to every woman in WISH.

So they each got two of his books, the one that helped me and then the food kitchen.

And so that was a big thing for the ladies to receive such a gift.

And then he agreed to come in.

So he joined us virtually for one of our meetings, and he took questions from all the women and he talked about it.

He's very excited about this program and what it's meant in this rural community and what it could mean as we take it forward on a broader scale.

That's amazing.

I mean, what a great opportunity.

He got to see what he does working in practice, so that's great.

Yeah, he was very touched by it.

He truly was.

And the ladies, they really just loved it.

They really liked having him, because we feel like, not that he's anybody's mascot, but just somebody to look up to.

And then his new cookbook that came out, we presented that to our dietician who had made so many wonderful recipes for us.

So we bought one and we gave it to her for a gift, for all the work that she had done.

And that was very meaningful to her because she actually, the dietician that we worked with, Fanny Gottsall, she is really a follower of Dr.

Hopman.

So she has always, as a dietician at the Green Dryer, she worked at the Green Dryer Resort until she retired.

That was the work that she followed, and actually helped her clients to follow.

So it all just worked out really well.

Yeah, it did.

Yeah, so you talked about all the weight loss that has occurred and all the muscle mass that was gained.

Can you share with us any success stories from the program?

There were a couple of ladies that just really got our attention, I guess.

Well, let's go back to the first session.

There was this one lady that came in.

She was a large lady.

She could not get weighed on the tinnitus scale.

She weighed more than they were able to weigh.

So we made other arrangements to get her weight.

But when she first started coming, she would walk in the room with her head down.

She didn't make eye contact with anyone.

She was just very shy.

She didn't participate in discussion or anything.

As the meetings progressed, we could see a change in her.

I watched her at the very last session.

She come, I watched her come in the door, head held up, a big smile on her face.

She's talking to people.

She walked straight to those tinnitus scales.

She didn't slow down.

She didn't hesitate.

She was just happy to go get on those scales, and she had a significant weight loss.

But she came up to Dr.

Hill and I at the last session, and she had tears in her eyes, and she said, I just want to tell you all how much this program meant to me.

She said, I've been on a weight loss journey for some time, and I've lost a considerable amount of weight.

She said, but I was just stuck.

I didn't know what to do.

I couldn't lose.

I didn't know how.

She said, I was just about ready to give up.

This program came, and she said, it has made all the difference for me.

That was just to see the change in her and how excited she is now, that she's got these tools and she can do it now.

She knows what she's doing and she has the support, and that was really big.

We had one other lady that she told us two or three months into the program that she had been battling lung cancer, and she was having treatments at the time, and she would miss a session here and there.

And then about midway through the program, probably sixth, seventh month, she come up to me and she said, I went to the doctor.

She said, I had to have labs done.

And she said, for the past, I think she said, three years, she said, my lab work has been out of black.

She said, I've tried everything that I know, and I just can't get those numbers right.

She had gone to the doctor the week before, and I think the day of our session, she had gone in for lab results.

For the first time, she said, in three years, her lab numbers were all within normal limits.

And she was just so excited because, again, she had gotten the resources, the tools that she needed so that she knew what changes to make in order to get those labs back in range.

That's amazing.

Amazing to hear the impact that the program had on those individuals' lives and everyone's life.

Yes.

Well, the other thing to remember too is not all the ladies, like some of, probably I'd say half of them were not overweight.

They just wanted to be healthy or they just had a few patients.

They want, I'd say about half of them.

But what they wanted was to get healthier, to get more number, as they get older, they can get more someone who had osteoporosis, and they wanted to lose some, their lines and strength training, and ways to help them stay healthy, which is what it's about.

It really, which isn't really about weight loss per se, it's really about just being healthy, being as healthy as we can be.

But their lives reported that they were losing.

Yeah, I mean, that's the right, it's like ripples in a pond.

Thinking that's like an unexpected result, right?

So did you learn anything else unexpected from the program?

Well, I think, that's what I thought about was that you don't realize how important the community and business people can have in the city.

I mean, just like we couldn't meet for Thanksgiving, but they fell on the Thanksgiving property.

They didn't want to stay up.

So we had a bowling night and invited them out to ball and then on Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

I have one of them tell me that she always goes every summer to visit her daughter for a month, but this time she was only gone for two weeks, so she wouldn't miss a inch.

I mean, that really, that was unexpected when people will embrace this feeling of community and support the way that they were.

It was fun.

Well, you saw the close-knit, but as it went on, it just kept getting in the way.

I mean, it really was just that sense of being able to be comfortable about being able to talk about your issues.

Cheryl would always have an ice break when she'd ask a question, and then anybody who wanted that and it's a question, could.

So we got a lot of interesting things out of that.

Cheryl, what was most surprising for you?

I think one of the things that impressed me, and maybe was a surprise, was just the different food dishes that Connie made.

She talked about what she was preparing, and some of the dishes she prepared there, some she prepared ahead of time.

But sometimes she would be talking about the ingredients in the dish.

For instance, let's say it had mushrooms, and there would be ladies in the rooms like, oh, I don't like that, I don't like mushrooms.

But because of that community that you talked about, when we went through the line, everyone tried whatever she had made.

That's great.

They learned that they liked this.

I can't tell you how many times I heard someone say, I didn't think I would ever eat this, but this is really good.

It was that since we went through the line together, and everyone tried it, and it was just impressive to see them willing to do that, and learn that they like more stuff than they ever thought they would.

Yeah, I feel like that's a great lesson.

But you've never seen a better dish than one of the members of Cheryl's Podcast.

Made a watermelon cake.

I mean, it was shaped like a birthday cake, and it had, wasn't that fun, Cheryl?

And it had-

That was hilarious.

All the fruit and everything, the decorations were different colors of fruit, you know, she had placed on there.

But I thought that was really fun too, and really interesting to see that we've come a long way, that nobody thought, well, it'll be okay to cause it.

But you know, and I'll say this, you know, as somebody who's always had a weight problem, any excuse to eat something sugary is fine with me.

And so, you know, it was good to know that they were, had trained themselves enough to know that it was not okay to use the excuse of Cheryl's birthday for us all to eat a piece of cake.

Right.

But they realized that, you know, that would be the wrong thing to do, and so they brought in something that, you know, worked with the program.

And I just love that, you know.

It was messy to eat, but we all got in there.

Creative.

Yes.

So you've accomplished so much with the program.

So what are the next steps in moving forward?

We're actually going to transition to a support group style program.

And our first support group meeting is this evening, actually.

So we're going to shift from hiring the external educators to a more collaborative thing.

We're going to take turns, the participants are going to take turns leading lessons, or maybe inviting a community volunteer in to lead a specific lesson.

We're going to take turns leading exercise classes.

We have some DVDs and our exercise physiologist has left us with tons of resources, tons of exercises.

He even has an app that we've been able to download on our phone that has all of the exercise, the routines that he's developed for us, and he's going to continue that with us.

And he's even willing to show up, to volunteer to come as he can to just keep us on track.

But we're just going to go now more as working as a team and building on those relationships, that community that we've developed, and keep the program going there.

The ladies are very excited about inviting new members and we're just going to keep building and going farther with it and bringing in maybe some new topics.

One of our members is, there's an article in the local newspaper from the recycle lady.

She takes and answers questions.

That lady happens to be in our program.

So we're even going to do things like that, different topics that are important to our ladies and ultimately do have an effect on their health.

So we're just really excited to get this new support group teamwork thing started, and we'll get back to you and let you know what we're doing.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

When we asked the lady, well, we're coming to the end of this.

Does anybody want to continue?

Cheryl gave out the survey so they could decide how we, if they wanted to continue and if so, how every single one of them wanted to continue.

I mean, there was nobody who didn't want this thing to keep going.

Well, that led me to believe is we've really got something here and looking at the results.

What I'm doing is writing it up as a, now it will be one of our professors will be doing a, based on the data that we have, we will be doing a write up in a professional journal, a health journal and then I'm going to try to spread this statewide.

My idea for that is that we will put it online.

The pieces like what I'm trying to do is because we have the resources at the Osco Catholic School to do this, and we have an audio visual department, so we're going to video, so all of our speakers have agreed to come back and be videoed.

So we'll have like 10 or 12 sessions with the diabetes educator, we'll have exercise sessions, we'll have a physician talking.

So all the things that we did in person, I want that to be online, and then as communities sign up, they'll have to be a leader in that community, an ambassador like Cheryl who agrees that they want to lead their community through the WISH program.

And then when they do that, they'll sign up with us and we won't charge them anything, these communities, because the cost will be in building all the videos out and getting all of that together.

But once we get the program together, it won't be any cost to anybody.

And that's what's amazing about doing suicide.

It is such a simple concept, but it has such a powerful impact.

So we could take it around the state.

I mean, it is my goal to offer it statewide and then anywhere in the country, it doesn't matter where you live.

If you have a group of women who want to participate in this, we can make that happen.

I mean, what you would have to do on a community level, it would change a little bit in that each community would have to figure out their food.

But the women would have to agree, well, we'll bring in the healthy foods and we'll give them recipe cards and the things, every dish that the dietician prepares on the video, so that if their group wants to cook it themselves, while she's cooking like we did, they could do that, they would just have to pay for the food.

But other than that, everything else would be free to them.

So we're excited about trying that.

We'll pile it to the in a few, once we get it on video, then we'll pile it to the in a few places and see how it goes, and then we'll just open it up and see what happens.

I am so excited to see how much success comes in the future, because I mean, you already have tremendous amount of success, so only can go up from here.

Dr.

Drema Hill, Cheryl Workman, thank you so much for joining us.

I just have one last question.

And I asked this of all my guests.

If you were in charge of healthcare in the United States, what is the first thing you would do?

I think if I were in charge of healthcare, one of the first things I would do would be to mandate that healthcare professionals be trained to understand and educate their patients about diet and exercise choices, specific to their age, specific to their diagnoses.

I feel that it's crucial for improving patient outcomes and promoting long-term health.

If they could offer these tailored recommendations that address the unique needs of their patients, they may be managing a chronic diagnosis, they may be recovering from an illness, or maybe they just maintain their overall well-being.

But I think that this should be a part of routine health care.

If health care professionals did this, it could help prevent even a lot of these diagnoses.

It may prevent, if you have your A1C is borderline, if these patients were educated about diet and exercise, it could prevent that condition from developing.

Heart disease, obesity, so many things that are affected by lifestyle choices.

I think just having that education from a health care provider that you trust it, the physician, the nurse, whomever.

If they were equipped with the knowledge to provide that information, I think it could empower patients to make informed decisions about their health.

And that would lead to a better adherence to a treatment plan and healthier lifestyles overall.

I think it really should be an integral part of just regular routine health care across the nation.

Common sense makes complete sense.

Definitely.

And I think for me, to me, that the public and public health has always been people.

And so in order to be funded, I would require state agencies, if you know, if I were to be in power, to listen to the people, meet with the communities, listen to what people have to say.

People know what their communities need.

They know what the problems are.

They know what they need to do, really, because we all do.

So our role in public health is to help them find the resolution and the resources and the partnerships that they need to make the changes that they know they need to make.

So I think, you know, they really, people have to invest in their own health.

They all know that we need to do that.

You know, just like I did, just like you do.

And we need to help them be able to do that, just like we did with the WISH women.

I mean, that's what they did.

They were empowered and they took it upon themselves to improve their health.

Yes.

The community is powerful if we listen, most definitely.

Dr.

Drema Hill, Cheryl Workman, thank you so much for joining us today and talking about WISH, Women Interested in Staying Healthy.

If someone wants to find out any more information, how would they do that?

Call Cheryl.

They can call me.

You want to give them your information or you can call me.

Absolutely.

You can call me at 304-647-6330, or you can email me at C Workman, the number 1 at osteoosteo.wvsom.edu.

Perfect.

And we can link those in the podcast.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I wish you continued success in the future with Wish.

Thank you so much, Dr.

Storm.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thank you for tuning in to Taking Healthcare by Storm, industry Insights with Quality Insights Medical Director, Dr.

Jean Storm.

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