Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Orlando Craighead

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 Orlando Craighead, Executive Director of the Kanawha Coalition for Community Health Improvement.

If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, reach out to us on our website. 

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-041224-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 back to Taking Healthcare by Storm.
 
 This is Dr.
 
 Jean Storm.
 
 I am the Medical Director of Quality Insights, and I am truly delighted to introduce our guest for today.
 
 He is an inspiration to healthcare in West Virginia.
 
 In just reading his story and how much he has done when in healthcare in West Virginia has inspired me, and he, I'm sure, will tell you all about the passion that he has for improving the health of West Virginians.
 
 So I would like to introduce Orlando Craighead, who is the Executive Director of the Kanawha Coalition for Community Health.
 
 Thank you for joining us, Orlando.
 
 Oh, hey, how are you doing today?
 
 I'm doing really well.
 
 So can you just tell us about yourself and your background?
 
 I will.
 
 You know, I've been in public health here for about 13 to 14 years.
 
 I got into it by when I was in Charlotte.
 
 I was living down there and I had just finished my master's degree, and I couldn't really find a job in the health industry and how I wanted it.
 
 So I decided to go back to school and I said, well, you know, I'm gonna go back and get a PhD.
 
 Well, and going back, you know, my ignorance and the disparities and the crime diseases that were affecting African Americans and thus really affecting all of the country, it kind of made me want to do something more than what I was doing.
 
 And I said, well, you know, I'm gonna start a nonprofit.
 
 So I started a nonprofit and I started working in the Charlotte area, working with a personal trainer, taking money out of my own pocket, and kind of led me down a path of going into different areas of crime disease, working with child obesity, and then I started working with adults.
 
 And then I found my way back to West Virginia, working at Rite Aid and thus end up working for the state for a couple years in different areas of immunizations, vaccinations, crime disease and obesity, and ended up at the Kanawha Coalition for Community Health Improvement.
 
 It was a journey.
 
 I appreciate every bit of it because it helped me to understand where people are and how I can meet them at their level.
 
 I think that is so important in healthcare to meet people where they are, to address their needs.
 
 So, are you from West Virginia?
 
 I am.
 
 I was raised here.
 
 I was born in Michigan, and at a young age, my mother moved to West Virginia.
 
 I lived here when I was seven, so I was pretty much raised up in West Virginia.
 
 So, you are just a native.
 
 Yes, I'm a native.
 
 So what is your favorite thing about West Virginia?
 
 Well, it's the terrain.
 
 Because I like to run, so the terrain is always keeps me in shape in terms of how I run and the things that are going up and down those hills and mountains.
 
 That's one thing about you.
 
 You can get your exercise here.
 
 Yeah, I would agree.
 
 There's plenty of beautiful, open space and a lot of hills.
 
 I also have logged many miles in West Virginia.
 
 It is certainly some hills.
 
 Can you tell us about the Kanawha Coalition for Community Health Improvement?
 
 This position has been around for a little more than about 28, 29 years.
 
 I'm the same person who did the organization.
 
 I came to this position in 2022.
 
 And this position was created at the time, it was called CAMC, now it's called Vendetta Health and W Medicine.
 
 They asked a joint venture and the position was created so that the person in this position can maximize the resources that are in Kanawha County with the residents and with the businesses, nonprofits and for-profit business.
 
 And also, it does the Kanawha County Health Assessment and the Kanawha County Health Improvement Plan.
 
 So it does a lot.
 
 I'm a one person, an army in this position, but I need to work with all the different organizations and different residents to see how we can better improve our lifestyle here, how we can model, live, learn, work, play in each of those areas and have an initiative based off of what is coming out of the health assessment.
 
 Yeah.
 
 So what is your favorite goal associated with the coalition?
 
 Well, I'm a public health person and I'm prone to gravitate towards the crime disease and obesity part of it because that's where I started.
 
 So I'm always working in that area.
 
 So it's always based around exercise and nutrition and education on our chronic diseases.
 
 So that's my favorite area to work.
 
 Big, very important.
 
 Can you tell us about what your personal viewpoint is about the general health of the population, the people of West Virginia?
 
 Well, you know, it's no secret that West Virginia is number one in everything that's not good when it comes to these chronic diseases.
 
 And I think that's more or less because of the isolation of West Virginia is not for a lack of knowledge and resources here.
 
 I think it's just isolation and, you know, we're not a meat, potatoes kind of state.
 
 So we were prone to stick to what we know, and this is a this is a whole modern state of work at one point.
 
 That was the main industry.
 
 So we haven't gotten away from those those habits of eating heavy and eating a lot of starchy sugary foods.
 
 So we have some work to do to change our viewpoints and how we see value in nutrition.
 
 So I will say I came upon the Spotted Owl Healthcare Association on social media, and I was just amazed at how many activities are going on in the association.
 
 So can you tell us about the Spotted Owl Healthcare Association?
 
 Yes, Spotted Owl, I created that once I found that I was aware of so many chronic diseases.
 
 I came up with this idea, I'm going to do this great nonprofit.
 
 I started off in Charlotte with it, and I was doing things in the community there.
 
 Then when I moved to West Virginia, I just moved on.
 
 A paperwork got illegal here in West Virginia and started doing exercise perhaps here.
 
 Just sticking to what I do best in terms of, I think people break down some of the barriers.
 
 Because a lot of people will say, they are costly.
 
 I work with some of the people here in Charleston to work out a deal where I'll pay so much of the fee and end up making it free for the community on certain days.
 
 So I will have some people have yoga meditation, then I'll work with them at Charleston Parks and Recs.
 
 They usually have different activities too that are free that people don't know about.
 
 So I try to promote those out.
 
 Wherever there is a free activity, and I can work with people to break down the barriers so people can know that exercise is okay.
 
 It's fun, it's exciting.
 
 It's about what's going to work for you.
 
 So I can assume that your favorite goal associated with Spotted Owl is also exercise associated.
 
 Yes.
 
 Well, I said I'm a runner, so I don't expect everybody to run.
 
 I do my best when I'm in the community.
 
 I like to run through different areas in the Kanawha County area so that people can see that, hey, it's okay to run, it's okay to walk.
 
 We actually have biking events.
 
 We have a thing.
 
 We do kayaking events just to get people out on the water.
 
 I mean, we did a kayaking event not too long ago.
 
 I think it was in September.
 
 We had Bill Curry and it was a great event.
 
 We had about 30 people come out, and quite a few people had never been kayaking before, but it was fun, it was exercise, and people had a great time.
 
 I think that's fantastic.
 
 To do something that's fun that people don't know is exercise.
 
 Yes.
 
 Can you tell us about your work with the Kanawha Diabetes Coalition?
 
 Well, every month we meet.
 
 I meet with several either residents or with organizations that are doing something with chronic disease or surrounding diabetes.
 
 What we'll do is we'll get together and we'll talk about how we can actually work with different segments of the population, what we can do to improve the area, improve knowledge about diabetes.
 
 Right now, we are putting the coalition is working with a couple of churches to put information into food boxes.
 
 When I go out and we talk about diabetes, what things can be done so that we can get that traction back into the clinics that are near these churches so that they can talk to people about diabetes.
 
 Other ways we do this is I know next month, we are going to be doing our first in-person session with residents so that we can understand where are we going with diabetes.
 
 I know we have went from 16.2 diabetes rate to 17.4 diabetes rate.
 
 We have the highest diabetes rate in the country.
 
 I'm working with the Vendetta Health Systems and Vendetta Health to see how we can actually get information out into the residents.
 
 But also, we're looking at how we can talk to providers.
 
 Maybe something that providers can tell us that we need to do to get residents to maybe ask the right questions, maybe something that we're not seeing when residents go into the providers.
 
 So we're trying to curb this trend of this ever-releasing.
 
 Yeah, it seems like those events are just great and just trying to ask the right questions, I think is so very important.
 
 So how can people get involved with the coalition?
 
 You know, you go out to our page, our web page is kcchi.com and we can just leave a message.
 
 We will give it back to you or you can always go out onto our Facebook page and leave a message there.
 
 There are always events that will be posted on the Facebook web page or just in general in different locations, even with Quality Insights and there so that people can know what's going on with this coalition.
 
 So what makes you so passionate about the health of Kanawha County residents?
 
 Well, you know, it's really health in general.
 
 We're whatever community out there that I want to put forward, put forward a good spread of teaching people about these chronic diseases.
 
 Like I said, my passion came from my ignorance of not knowing how bad chronic diseases were.
 
 When I was, let's see, 2010, I had just started a PhD program.
 
 I had no idea what was going on.
 
 I just happened to be in a class and it was talking about the different chronic diseases and how they affect us and then I started doing my own research, looking things up.
 
 I was like, wow, obesity is really number one killer here in America.
 
 Then we look at the diabetes associated with obesity, heart disease.
 
 I was just like, what can I do?
 
 What is my role?
 
 How can I help educate people on these chronic diseases?
 
 So out of that group, my private organization, Spidell Healthcare Organization, and I've been going ever since.
 
 Whatever I can do to educate people and give people knowledge on how to help themselves, rather than waiting on somebody to tell them or thinking that it's a death sentence that if they give them a beating, they're just going to die.
 
 Well, if you've been in type 2 diabetes, you can actually reverse it.
 
 Just in eating your simple eating habits.
 
 A lot of people don't know that they think that, well, once they get it, that's the end of it.
 
 And that's not the end of it, you know, they just have to be, it just needs to be education put out there so that people can understand they've been, not doctor in times, but just lame in times.
 
 This is these are the things that I just I just feel real passionate about.
 
 Yeah, you have a positive, simple, easy to understand message, and that is rare and it's fantastic.
 
 So one last question, where do you see West Virginia in five years?
 
 In five years, if we can get things turned around, and I mean, I'm right now working with organizations to get out of their silos and kind of work together to maximize our resources here.
 
 So we can do that here in the NIC, really in the next year, in 2024, 2025.
 
 We can probably turn some of this around so that our numbers are not going upwardly.
 
 I kind of see us maybe going back the other way.
 
 We'll get a little healthier if we can get these organizations to start working together.
 
 And everybody pulling their own way, everybody telling the lie, making sure that we have all the resources that any other city in America has, like Charlotte or Cincinnati or Chicago, we need the same resources, the same tools so we can fight these chronic diseases.
 
 I love that, bringing people together to fight these chronic diseases.
 
 Orlando Craighead, thank you so much for joining us.
 
 Thank you for having me.
 
 Thank you for tuning in to Taking Healthcare by Storm, Industry Insights, with Quality Insights Medical Director, Dr.
 
 Jean Storm.
 
 We hope that you enjoyed this episode.
 
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 If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, you can reach out to us on our website.
 
 We would love to hear from you.
 
 So until next time, stay curious, stay compassionate, and keep taking healthcare by storm.