What does it take to grow an organization by more than 25% during one of the most challenging periods in healthcare?

In this episode of the Coleman Associates Innovation Podcast, Amanda Laramie talks with Eloisa Perard, CEO of Gracelight Community Health, about the leadership journey behind Gracelight's remarkable growth. Rather than focusing on expansion alone, Eloisa shares how investing in leaders, embracing accountability, and creating a culture of healthy conflict laid the foundation for lasting success.

Eloisa discusses moving beyond what author Patrick Lencioni calls "artificial harmony" to build greater trust, candor, and collaboration across her leadership team.

She also offers an honest look at her own evolution as a CEO, sharing lessons on self-reflection, resilience, and the importance of caring for yourself while leading others.

Whether you're leading a team, an organization, or your own leadership journey, this episode is filled with practical insights on how investing in people drives sustainable growth.

Book Referenced in the Episode:

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

Throughout the episode, Eloisa references Patrick Lencioni's concept of artificial harmony—the tendency for teams to avoid difficult conversations in the name of maintaining peace.

Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team explores how healthy teams embrace constructive conflict as an essential step toward stronger commitment, accountability, and results. It's an excellent resource for leaders looking to build more effective executive teams and create cultures where honest dialogue strengthens relationships rather than threatens them.

If you're interested in developing stronger leaders, building healthier organizational cultures, or creating operational excellence in community health, learn more about Coleman Associates' leadership development programs, including High Impact Management Program (HIMP™). Coleman's own book on leadership is called "Mastering Leadership the Coleman Way" by Melissa Stratman.

Guest: Eloisa Perard, MS

Host: Amanda Laramie

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In this episode of the Coleman Associates Innovation Podcast, Amanda Laramie sits down with four leaders from Cherry Health in Michigan to discuss their organization's journey toward truly integrated, whole-person care.

What started as an effort to better connect medical and behavioral health services evolved into a broader transformation of workflows, culture, patient access, and team-based care. Cherry Health shares how they redesigned operations, embedded behavioral health consultants, community health workers, nurse care managers, and other team members into primary care workflows, and created a more coordinated approach to serving patients.

The results have been significant. Listen for their No-Show rate reduction improvement, how they organically improved their patients per hour as a result of lower No-Shows, how they expanded integrated care to offer patients more services during one visit, and how that impacted their quality and financial stability too.

Throughout the conversation, the Cherry Health team discusses both the operational and cultural changes required to make integration successful, including redesigning workflows, clarifying team roles, creating accountability systems, and moving away from a permission-based culture toward one focused on finding ways to meet patient needs.

Guests:

Bill Joure, Chief Operating Officer

Julee Geib, Director of Practice Operations

Cynthia Wagenhofer, Chief Financial Officer

Anna Gerard, Director of Behavioral Health

Host: Amanda Laramie

Resources Mentioned:

The 4 Disciplines of Execution

Bill Joure references The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling. The book's concepts around focusing on lead measures, creating visible scoreboards, and establishing a cadence of accountability influenced Cherry Health's approach to performance management and operational improvement.

Learn more: https://www.4dxbook.com

Mastering Leadership the Coleman Way by Melissa Stratman

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What happens when nurses are empowered to practice at the top of their license?

In this episode, Amanda sits down with Maria Durazo, RN and Isabelle Lunsford, RN, PHN, MSN, of Open Door Community Health Centers in CA, to discuss how they transformed the nursing role to improve access, support providers, and strengthen patient care in a highly rural environment.

Learn how Open Door built a Tactical Nursing model, developed nurse-led flip visits, created career pathways for nurses, and more than doubled the number of patients served through nurse visits through innovative nursing workflows.

Whether you're a clinical leader, nurse manager, or healthcare executive, this episode offers practical lessons on change management, workforce development, and maximizing the impact of your nursing team.

Guests: Maria Durazo, RN, and Isabelle Lunsford, RN, PHN, MSN

Host: Amanda Laramie

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