My City Talks

00:01
Hi everyone and welcome to the Healthy Project podcast, My City, My Health edition. I am your host, Maya, and I am a health promotion student at the University of Iowa. My classmates and I are supporting the My City.My Health conference in Iowa City on April 28th, 2023. That brings the University of Iowa and the Iowa City corridor community together to discuss health equity programs and collaborations. Registration is open at mycity.health.

00:30
Today we're flipping the script. I get to interview a familiar face and fellow Hawkeye Corey Lewis. In other words, I've got Corey in the house. I had to add that in. I am super stoked for this conversation. And I think you will be too. Let's get into it. Starting off strong Corey, please tell me about yourself. What gets you up in the morning and how do you define health equity? Yes. Well,

01:00
First of all, thank you for interviewing today. I really appreciate that. So, you know, what gets me up in the morning is really knowing that I have something that I'm accomplishing within this space. So whether it be with the Healthy Project, My City, My Health, the work I do at Broadlawns Medical Center, really as corny as it sounds, knowing I'm like a part of making a change, which is exciting.

01:30
And just being around my coworkers and the people that I know that are also within this fight too, uh, it is just, it's just been, it's fun to be able to get up and do something like that. You know? Um, what health equity means to me, I have a, I have a long answer to have a short answer. Oh, so you don't health equity. It's, it's a, it's kind of a loaded question, simply, um,

01:59
when someone is getting services, that they get the same energy regardless of where they're coming at, whether they're from an underserved population, whether they're from the suburbs, they get the appropriate care they need, and they don't feel like they're being cheated. So that's what health equity means to me. So I read a little bit about you on your website, but-

02:25
Can you tell me again what inspired you to start Healthy Project? Yeah. So the Healthy Project, so fun, fun story. The Healthy Project started as a SmartTalk podcast. So it started as kind of a, a pandemic hobby, more like a pandemic project where I wasn't able to see patients. And I was just sitting there like, okay, what, what can I do?

02:55
I've always wanted to do a podcast. So it'd be kind of what better time than now when, you know, early 2020, I wasn't, I wasn't doing anything else. So I was talking to a, another health coach friend of mine, who's based out of New York and he was like, Hey, if you ever start this podcast, I'll be your first guest. So I started smart talk, which specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and right on time health and wellness conversations. That was a tagline.

03:24
It was a health coaching pod. So like I was speaking, if you go back a lot of like the first episodes were just with health coaches. But what happened during that time where personally, you know, my mom was going through health issues and concerns. Um, and the work that I was doing at Broadlawns working with underserved communities was really starting to get to me and I was realizing like.

03:52
I no longer cared about the conversations that I were having previously talking about keto or whatever the case may be. It just didn't really, I didn't care anymore. Just because the struggles my mom was having through the healthcare system and the people that I was providing health coaching services to that were struggling, not because they didn't want to buy fruits and vegetables or exercise.

04:22
because of where they're at. They couldn't, they didn't feel like they can afford it or it was something that they couldn't do or they felt unsafe in their area to go for a walk. So that really changed Smart Talk. And what I had to change the name, unfortunately, because everybody thought my podcast was about finances or about money. I don't know why, but- Interesting. Everybody thought Smart, no one knew that the Smart-

04:48
goals or whatever. I was like, no, it's smart goals. You know, like, nah, I don't, I don't get it. So which was good timing because the content was changing around the same time. I was thinking about changing the name. So smart talk changed to the healthy project. And that changed to talking more about health disparities, health equity, still with the prevention lens, but with more of a, you know, let's talk about

05:16
some real issues that are going on and how can we change some things? Sure. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Um, and again, I read about your education background on your website as well. Can you touch on your training experience with Johns Hopkins? Yeah. So that was a interesting experience. So I got that training, which was a beautiful training. So when I graduated from the university of Iowa, um, my first health coaching job was,

05:46
for a corporate wellness company called Healthways. And I was one of eight health coaches that were chosen to start this new weight loss program called the, it was called the Energy Healthier Weight Initiative. It was based off of a Johns Hopkins research study called the Power Trial, where they took this group of people for two years and they saw

06:13
a significant decrease in body weight over two years using this way that they, like, one week of coaching for eight weeks and then like, it just, it was a whole crazy thing. Well, through my work at Healthways, since we were starting that program through Johns Hopkins, we were chosen to get trained by Johns Hopkins in advanced motivational interviewing.

06:41
weight loss strategies, techniques, things like that to prepare us for starting this new program. So it was, it was interesting because you're dealing with, I'll tell you this, when we were in the training class and I accidentally said Johns Hopkins, like, this is so cool that, you know, we were able to do this with Johns Hopkins. They said, no, it's Johns Hopkins. Like they corrected how I said it. I'm like,

07:11
Okay. Like it was, and which was, which was really great because the information and that really, that took my coaching skills to a whole nother level. So it was, it was a great experience. Um, uncomfortable one at times, but still great. Um, you serve as a clinical health coach at a federally qualified health center in Des Moines. Can you tell me more about what that entails?

07:41
Yeah, so for those people who don't know what a federally qualified health center is, so pretty much we're recognized by the federal government as a primary care service for in underserved communities. So that's kind of who I serve and as a FQHC, if you provide those services, you provide them at pretty much you don't you can't turn away any patient for their lack or their inability to pay.

08:11
So they pay it kind of on like a scale, on like based on their income or what they can pay, things like that. So we can't turn anyone down. And so what I do there, as a part in our primary care clinic, I'm a part of a care team. So you have your primary care provider who's kind of the head of it all. And then we have a pharmacist, diabetes educator, and a health coach, case management, things like that. So I'm just a part of that team.

08:41
So whenever I see a patient for, I may see a patient for hypertension. And my goal is to help them improve their hypertension or whatever we gotta do to improve those numbers by the next time they see their provider, or whether it be their diabetes or just obesity. You know, some people just want to see me for weight loss. They may not have any other issues, but they just wanna lose weight. But my goal is to over...

09:10
improve our overall quality numbers, whether it be right now, one of our goals is improving our hypertension numbers. So I have an Excel sheet of 4,000 patients that have hypertension and it's reaching out to them, getting them in to see the health coach, helping them improve those numbers so we can improve our overall numbers for the clinic. Wow. That's awesome stuff. So how many patients, I guess, or clients do you have or see per week? How does that work?

09:40
Oh, it's, it's really is different each week. So I do have patients that I see weekly, uh, every two weeks or monthly. I have patients that I see just for like that one time. They may want just more information and I'll see them just one time. And then it's kind of like an open door policy. If they want to see me again, they can, if they have any questions. Uh, for the most part I'm seeing about.

10:06
I mean, it can rip on average in a week. I probably see about 20 patients give or take, depending on what I'm doing that day. Uh, outside of just seeing coaching patients, I do some other stuff too, within the hospital, but it is, it's one of those things where no matter, you know, how many people I'm seeing within the day. Like I can, I can see three people in one day, but it feels like.

10:35
so much more because these conversations are very long. We're like getting into the meat of issues sometimes. So sometimes if I know I'm scheduling somebody next week who I know we got a lot to work on, I may not schedule that many people that week. So I know this is not gonna be a 20 minute conversation. This is gonna be an hour. It depends.

11:03
Interesting and I'm curious. I'm currently in a health coaching class with professor Litton um What would you like what advice I guess would you give to? Somebody like myself who's starting out as a health coach What I would say one is give yourself grace because No matter how good you are in class or how much you pick up

11:28
whenever you get out there and you start seeing patients for real or clients or whatever space you get into, there's always going to be a curve ball. So the example that I give is, you know, in school you learn, you know, I was taught, you know, what A1C means, you know, blood sugar and diabetes and why it's important to manage and what it can do to the body, right? And I am

11:55
because of school, I am equipped to have that conversation. I was not prepared for the patient who thought diabetes was created by the government and wasn't real and he didn't have it. You're not. You're not prepared for that conversation. You don't, you can't really prepare you for that one. Yeah. Wow. That's happened twice. That literally just happened last week again, where there was a patient that was seeing the pharmacist for diabetes.

12:24
He said he didn't have diabetes and it wasn't real. Then he had to come see me and was like, no, I'm good. I'm not, I'm not going to do this appointment. And he just left. So those things, you're not really prepared for that. There's nothing you can say. Sure. You know, now I have some things to say, but I've been coaching for over a decade. So I, you know, I know what a little bit to say, but I would just, you know,

12:52
Give yourself grace, be curious. You know, that's something that's really helped me not only with my coaching, but also with podcasts. Just being curious about people and you know, conversations I have. I find myself more now asking more questions when I'm having conversations with people, just so I can be, you know, learning and be able to navigate different conversations on the go. Sometimes you're not gonna have the right answer. So it's good to always practice

13:22
and just learn different techniques. Motivational interviewing isn't the only thing either. There are other ways to connect with patients, to get to the answers that you're trying to, positive psychology is another one of those that I use a lot within my sessions. So just, those are the main things. Those are the main things I would do. Okay, gotcha. Thank you, thank you for that. So in terms of health equity, what...

13:48
Changes have you seen in the last five years? If any and what what do you hope to see happen within the next five years? Right, so Now there may have been a lot more changes Than I know of right like From my perspective. I will say if if I'm if I'm looking at the light if I'm looking at this as a glass-half-full situation

14:18
Um, the conversation has been stronger lately, like within the past five years, um, social determinants of health, health equity, health disparities. These aren't new terms. These aren't new things. These aren't new problems that we're just now trying to find solutions to. But we it's, we're just now, the conversation is not going away. Right. Like, and that's a good thing. Like we're constantly because of the work. That.

14:48
know we're doing with this conference because of the work other people are doing as far as collaborating with looking outside the box and collaborating with other organizations is keeping health equity at the forefront. So I feel like that is that's a great thing, you know, but also where I would like to see health equity in the next five years is to go from that strong conversation to what are some of the solutions that we're doing.

15:16
You know, what's the impact that we're seeing? And I'm sure there are plenty of, are there are plenty of stories out there of, um, health equity conversation, health equity problem solution. And these are the results. I'm sure they're out there, but I want to see more, you know what I mean? I want to see, um, really tangible things that we, that we're doing as a community to him, to make health and wellbeing and the access to healthcare.

15:45
uh, just better for everybody. What are you looking forward to most with the My City My Health Conference? You know, what I'm looking forward to the most, Maya, is the energy that you students are going to bring. Like I can only, the energy that we had here in Des Moines was just, was amazing. Like it was great. Um, and the one, the one.

16:11
goal I had for everybody, and I said this in the opening kind of speech was, as we're having these conversations, everybody should leave here with one idea to change, one goal, one idea. If you leave with one idea, that's a success. And I believe with the energy around this and the students that are involved and just looking at health equity and just

16:41
just what you're doing right now in the human health and physiology department from a different perspective. Hopefully that encourages some more conversations, but also get people thinking of different ideas of what they can do, not only at their school, but you know, what can they add to their profession when they leave Iowa? What can they do while they're there? What projects look like? Like that's what I'm most excited about is having that young energy and in hearing what these ideas and what comes from from you guys.

17:10
Absolutely. I'm speaking for myself. I'm really excited to get to hear from professionals and learn more about health equity so that I'm able to take what I learn and implement that into my future careers in health care. I think that it's going to have a lot of important conversations. I'm sorry I didn't mean to cut you off, Maya, but I think that's important too, is to hear from these professionals, like you said, that are doing work in the community.

17:39
Like you're getting, you're getting, you're right there up close with these people who are doing the things that maybe you want to do. Um, or even they may be doing something, uh, one way, but you may come to it with a fresher idea, the fresh in a different perspective, just because right now, Maya, you're a student. Doesn't mean that she don't have a great idea that can help somebody who's been doing the work for decades. You know what I mean? So.

18:07
Um, I think that I think those two energies are going to be great. And I'm curious to see how that, how that works out. Yeah, me too. Um, yeah, definitely really excited to count down to April 28th. Looking forward to it. So what are you hoping to accomplish with the conference then? Yeah. Um, so with the My City, My Health, uh, series in general, that the goal for My City, My Health is to have.

18:36
a health equity conversation in every major city in the country. Uh, so that's, that's the overall goal, but really for Iowa city, the same as Des Moines, I want people to go into this with an open mind and to be thinking about what they can do to improve their community. If you don't leave with one goal, we didn't do our job, right? So I want people to have one idea, one goal that they can take from this conference and implement it into the work that they're doing. And.

19:06
Um, I don't think that's a, I don't think that's a crazy ask, you know, so yeah. And we're seeing some of the Maya, we're seeing some of that, that stuff already coming to fruition. I'll tell you one story. Uh, so in our prevention panel, we had, um, a dentist, uh, Dr. Harvey, fantastic dentists, uh, public health background. Um, and whatever she was saying within the prevention panel.

19:36
it sparked an idea from someone who was in the audience who has a connection to a nonprofit organization called the Spark Foundation. The Spark Foundation gives books to schools and underserved communities. And she was able to connect with Delta Dental who was there as a sponsor and they had a booth. She was able to connect with them to be able to get a grant to get...

20:05
inclusive books around dental health care to read to these elementary schools, right? Wow. That may not seem like crazy, like, oh, she's just reading books. But I mean, that idea was sparked at My City, My Health. We have these inclusive books for everybody. That could, that one thing, if she could be reading this book to a little black girl or black boy in one of these classes, that could...

20:33
spark them to want to become a dentist when they get older. You just never know. So that little like, oh, I want to do this. And then having that person there that you can do it with. And then that's what this is about. That's what improving healthcare access, improving health equity, that's what it's about. And thinking outside of the box to get there. Yeah. That's a great story. I got chills.

21:00
When you were saying that, I think that, yeah, that's awesome. I love that so much. So did you have any big takeaways or aspects from the Des Moines conference that you're hoping to bring to Iowa city? Yeah. So, you know, looking back at the Moines, one of my, one of my biggest takeaways is, hmm, there, there was a lot, I mean, there were, there was a lot to digest and to really, that, that came from the Des Moines conference.

21:29
But if I were to have to choose, my biggest takeaway is this conversation means more to people than I had expected. Um, I knew it was a conversation that I was passionate about because I am in the health equity space, but I didn't realize how many people it actually affected. So one of our sponsors, uh, the mid Iowa health foundation

21:57
They gave me this link to, it's called the One Iowa Report. And it's a bunch of statistics on different social determinants of health and how it's affecting Iowans. And you're looking at these mental health stats and you're looking at these healthcare access stats. And it's like, oh my gosh, it's like eye opening on what's going on in the communities that we live.

22:26
So that was kind of the biggest thing for me is like, there's a lot that we need to do, but also it was kind of heartwarming that so many people were ready. They were willing and ready to like tackle this huge, this huge problem. So that was the biggest takeaway for me. And what I took from that takeaway is, yes, we may just be having conversations, but this is a need.

22:55
we need to have the conversation. We need to keep doing it so we can eventually somebody, it may be Maya, it may be whoever else, somebody will come up with that one idea that can change the game completely. So that was the one thing. What was the other question you asked me? Sorry, I went on the tangent. No, that's okay. You answered it. Yeah, just like your biggest takeaway that you're hoping to.

23:22
Hoping to bring to Iowa City and I think that I have confidence that we will have, you know, a good crowd group of people who are, who are ready to start change and taking action. Um, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Uh, what are some tangible ways people within the community can get involved with your work? Yeah. So, I mean, tangible ways. I mean, right now.

23:50
It's just, you know, check out the podcast, check out the podcast and just connect with me. You know, I'm willing. I would love, it doesn't have to be through the healthy project or my city, my health. But if there are any ways we can improve communities together, I want to be, I would love to just help, you know what I mean? Um, there are processes that we have been able to do here that we put together that really helps bring organizations together to

24:18
collaborate and to improve health equity in their communities. So whatever I can do just to help, you know, they can always reach out to me. That's totally fine. Yeah. Okay. Finally, Corey, you are clearly a very driven, passionate and accomplished person. Who or what has instilled these qualities in you? In other words, what's the source of your inspiration? Man, I saw that question Maya and I was like, woo, that's a deep one.

24:48
Okay. Where, where do we start? Man hit me home. Hit me right in the right in the heart. You know, there, there are so many different pieces to me is it's my, my ambition in my, my ambition, my stick to it, this or whatever, and my, you know, my dreamer type of mindset is.

25:17
I'm almost like a transformer. Like there are so many different pieces that go to that. You know, there's not only the, the, uh, confidence that I'm able to get from, you know, mentors that I have that are not, not family members. I have, uh, my uncle, who's a huge mentor of mine and father figure, uh, my mother who is, is my, you know, awesome. And her experiences really helped me. Really motivated me to keep this conversation going.

25:45
There are so many pieces to me that is hard to pinpoint which one it is. You know, everybody had a, everybody, every situation had a role. You know, even from switching my major, even my professor who helped me switch my major from clinical psychology to health coaching, you're right. You know, that was a, that was a huge piece to why I'm where I'm at now. So.

26:15
What I will say is, you know, my mindset of there's this there's this quote from this super old book and I can't think of it right now, but it's a book that I love called, as a man think of from, uh, from poverty to something, but it's all about positive mindset. There's a, there's a quote in this book that says, uh, dreamers are the saviors of the world. And there's all, it's a whole long quote. That's just the.

26:44
first part. And for me, that that quote alone motivates me to keep going because my city, my health started out as a dream and the healthy project started out as a dream. And if, if anybody out there listening or it could be you, my whatever, if you're, if you're considered a dreamer for some people that, you know, that's, you know, they're aloof or they're just got their head always in the clouds. It's not a bad thing.

27:14
Right? Because dreams are what keep this world moving. So for me, the more I, the more I have dreams, the more excited I get to make sure I see them come to reality. As we're talking about now, April 28th with my city, my health, Iowa city, being the second conference in this goal for a health equity conference in every major city.

27:36
That's awesome. That's awesome. Sounds like you've had a lot of, uh, influential people in your life and that have been stilled dreaming. Um, I guess, uh, for lack of a better way to say it. And, um, thank you, Corey. I, this was a great conversation. I've really enjoyed, um, talking with you today and learning more about you. And shout out to the listeners for, for joining us today.

28:03
If you're interested in learning more about MyCity.MyHealth, Iowa City Conference, visit MyCity.Health and we will see you on April 28th.