Ken Huey 0:00

Welcome to The Voice of Hope, where bold leaders and healers share how they're building hope, not just talking about it. I'm Dr. Ken Huey. Let's meet the change makers transforming lives from the therapy room to the boardroom. Our guest today is Mark Alford, a seasoned healthcare executive with 25 years of experience leading hospitals and behavioral health organizations. He has extensive experience in behavioral health and specializes in operational strategy, growth, and patient-centered care, helping organizations optimize performance while delivering high-quality behavioral health care services. Mark, thanks so much for being with us. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Ken. Nice to be here. Yeah. So I'm always interested to know what brings somebody to this field. What is your why, Mark?

Mark Alford 0:45

My why goes back to, I think, some familial things. You know, I come from a family that it's almost a dichotomy. I come from a very religious family, in some ways, very healthy and very supportive. And on other ways, there are, I think, dynamic issues that create barriers. There is alcoholism in my family, not strong, but definitely evident. I lost a brother to alcoholism when he was not even 40 years old. So I think that there's a very serious element to my desire to kind of put out there what I can to kind of combat some of those struggles that others have. There's also some depression, I think, in my family. Some of it recognized, some of my family is aware of it, some of the family is not. That being said, when I started training 25 years ago, things were much different. There is much more risk to be a therapist. And I think when I say that, I don't mean that therapists are always a target, but I think you can't just have a practice at home and expect patients to come and see you in your home, know where you live. You know, many, many years ago, that's how it was done. And I think being a voice out there advocating for families, but more importantly, children. You know, child and adolescent development is my specialization. And I think if we can really continue to reinforce the process of identifying struggles for kids, then we can help get more of the masses on track and live a healthy, happy life. So I think, you know, just being able to understand challenges that my family had that, you know, maybe we didn't catch them. I think there's opportunity for me to kind of recognize, you know, opportunities that that you know families could utilize and and uh move forward in in health and psychological health and family dynamics.

Ken Huey 2:36

So you jump into the behavioral healthcare space. You've been doing this for 25 years, you know, launching programs and trying to match vision with kind of clinical integrity and strategy. What's been the biggest surprise that you've encountered when you've launched a mood and anxiety program?

Mark Alford 2:53

I think you know, the biggest surprise is that you'll have everybody collectively understand and recognize a significant need in an area. However, there's still red tape. So you might have, you know, swaths of children who need help, who need placement, who need, you know, different levels of care. You'll still have regulatory agencies that will go and make you go through hoops that take months. So these hoops that take months probably could be moved along quickly if that was really the goal. And so rather than recognizing what's in the best interest of a patient or a community, I think that that gets kind of pushed to the side. And, you know, there's more focus on, well, our facility or our process is A, B, and C. I've had state regulatory barriers that lasted for months because they didn't have the staff, because they couldn't get through the licensing. Meanwhile, you've got emergency departments, you've got facilities, you've got homes, families who have children who need help. So I think that there's surprising to me, there's more red tape than I think really keeps up with the need. So I think that the hope is that we can streamline some of these processes. Um, I'll use Texas as an example. Texas is one of the most difficult to get licensed in, I would say. Texas, California, some of those different states. And, you know, I've been states where you can get licensed within three or four weeks. But what really kind of shocked me was Texas was months. It took it took several months.

Ken Huey 4:26

You've got a background in clinical psychology, and you enter this term leadership realm. What has your background in clinical psychology done to influence the way that you lead?

Mark Alford 4:37

I think just understanding that being able to give hope, being able to absorb some of the anxiety, some of the tension that patients have, not internalize it, but also just the ability to be present and be, you know, visible so that patients understand that they're in treatment, for example, and the organization is there to help, not just that one staff member that they get along with. And I think you know, giving giving staff the tools to do their jobs. So if staff need gloves, then they've got to have gloves. If they're out of gloves, it shuts them down, increases risk. What that translates to is patients getting their needs met as well. So I think that patient experience is important, is vital. And from a psychological standpoint, there has to be a psychological safety, not only for staff, but also for patients. And if you don't understand that, then you may not get that patient to open up. You may not be able to encourage that patient to open up. You may not encourage that staff member to open up and bring concerns forward. If they don't feel safe, then they're going to basically avoid that conflict or avoid addressing those issues. So I think, you know, in my training, I learned about psychological safety, but also unconscious, subconscious protective factors that individuals have. And so when I develop a program, when I hire staff, I'm looking at where are they at in that program? Are they someone that needs some coaching? Are we going to, you know, have to provide extra training? Are they at the age where they're just starting to bloom and they're still new to the industry or to the field? And I think creating that synergy and that psychological cohesion is always important.

Ken Huey 6:30

You've built large healthcare teams. Kind of alignment and focus are huge. What's one leadership tip you have for others in creating kind of motivated, aligned employee teams?

Mark Alford 6:43

The biggest tip I would say is maintain boundaries and model health. Meaning, if it's fitness, you know, give the patients, give staff some outlet to exercise, to fresh air, yoga, music therapy, but model health. And that could be even modeling conflict, modeling how to look at how do you resolve conflict in a healthy way, whether there's agreement or not, and how to negotiate. So I think that all in all, it's it's modeling health. And I think also do that within the structures of quality and safety. Quality and safety have to be there regardless of the cost. You compromising quality and safety is bound to create an issue or create a program that fails. But I think that psychological safety, quality, modeling health, and safety are just key for a program of any s any type.

Ken Huey 7:39

Yeah. Mark, you mentioned that your own family, you know, had some mental health kinds of issues and drug and alcohol issues, or maybe just alcohol issues. Where did you grow up? And tell me a little bit more about your family and how that impacted you.

Mark Alford 7:52

Uh, where did I grow up? I grew up in a few different places. My parents are from Oklahoma. They knew each other since they were in elementary school, so they had been married quite a long time. But when I was seven years old, we moved to Michigan. So I grew up mostly in Michigan. And then at some point in my high school years, my parents moved back down to Oklahoma. So I was in Oklahoma for about a year and a half in high school. And then I think it was a different culture. So I ended up going back to Michigan for school. I went to undergraduate and graduate school in Michigan.

Ken Huey 8:25

All right. Where did you grow up in Michigan? What part of the state?

Mark Alford 8:28

Holl Holland, Michigan.

Ken Huey 8:30

Okay. On the east s east side?

Mark Alford 8:32

Uh yeah. Well, actually on the west side, over by Lake Michigan. So right across from Chicago.

Ken Huey 8:36

Oh, so good. And where in regards to say Grand Rapids or Muskegon or?

Mark Alford 8:42

Uh Grand Rapids was about an hour an hour east. Yeah.

Ken Huey 8:46

Okay. I grew up uh Stony Lake, Michigan, which is uh up by Shelby.

Mark Alford 8:51

Okay. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I I actually have friends there that I visit quite often.

Ken Huey 8:56

Oh, fantastic. And so you you go and get a degree. It's an interesting mix to be a trained clinician, but also a business person. What brought those two worlds together?

Mark Alford 9:06

That shows up quite often when people talk with me about being an executive and and having a background in psychology. When I was going to college, I wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do. I was going to be a teacher at one point. So I was going to be a teacher who taught psychology, and I was going to be a teacher that taught math. And then at one point, I was going to be an actuarian. So I really utilized both sides of my brain, ended up getting a master's in psychology, enjoyed that, kind of continued that path. When I was in my first role as a counselor, as an assessment counselor in a psych hospital, did initial assessments with patients, eventually started doing directorship roles and understanding kind of the PL and the finances and understand and realize that, you know, I was good at math and I really did enjoy the business side of it. But I enjoyed it because it was part of what I love, which is crisis intervention. I like seeing the progress and the ability to intervene when someone's kind of lost all hope in crisis and then kind of nurture them back to feeling hopeful and working towards their strengths and utilizing their own resources so that they're back out of the hospital, healthy, feeling good, and you see that progress. And again, I think seeing that in an adult is always great, seeing it in a kid and feeling like you know you're setting the pace, you're setting the stage for a healthy child who would have otherwise not maybe maybe not had help.

Ken Huey 10:43

Yeah. We're in an interesting time with a lot of technology entering the healthcare space and behavioral healthcare, AI-assisted note-taking and AI assists in all kinds of ways, you know, teletherapy, but technology in the field. Anything that's been exciting for you over the last three or four years with tech?

Mark Alford 11:02

Yeah, I think telehealth is great. I think, you know, it took a minute for the industry to warm up to it, patients to warm up to it, some more than others. I've done some work in rural areas and it's really tapped into helping access to healthcare. Individuals don't have to drive an hour and a half to see a therapist or to see a psychiatrist. So that's really been helpful for the rural communities, also the elderly population who find it difficult to get out of their home. If they have someone that can help them navigate technology, they can also do visits in the home. AI is is, I think, going to continue to be uh useful in the industry. I do think that those that are using it, the professionals that use it for mental health, have to ensure that it doesn't have a negative impact on the patient. And so that's first and foremost. It may help financial um efficiency, it may help processes for the hospital. But if it doesn't do what we really are aiming to do for the patient, then I think that's a that's a concern. And a lot of people are are not comfortable with AI. A lot of people, not to say paranoid, but just just untrusting of AI, rightfully so. And so I think that we have to make sure that we're just not throwing this on to individuals if it's having a negative impact, meaning that maybe they don't see kicker. So I think, you know, making sure that it doesn't push people away and take the time to educate them and uh just ensure that the AI is is helping towards better treatment, better programs when it truly is.

Ken Huey 12:39

Yeah. Mark, we're in a time of pretty solid pessimism. There's plenty of negative to go around. We're called the voice of hope. What about the behavioral healthcare space? Your job, what you're doing, gives you hope right now.

Mark Alford 12:52

For me, the biggest thing that gives me hope is that I think that the opinions, the thoughts, the pessimism, it's been there. It's nothing new. It's not a new development, but I think people are more vocal and more outspoken about it. So I think it puts it on the table. I think it allows us to really know what we're truly up against. But I also think that it brings about conversations. It brings about conflict that's probably there already. It's just not operationally visible. I think it brings the truth to the table so that we can, you know, look at avenues of improvement and avenues of forging forward. I think that even within families, there's conflict. But if if it's swept under the rug, it doesn't really allow the family to work through it.

Ken Huey 13:41

Yeah. Well, Mark, I appreciate that we kind of went wide-ranging and talked a little bit about personal stuff, a little bit about business, and I appreciate you spending a little bit of time being with us on The Voice of Hope. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ken. I've enjoyed it. Thanks for joining us on The Voice of Hope. If you were inspired, share the light. And remember, hope's not just a feeling, it's a force. We'll see you next time.