A Glance Inside New Richmond Medical Center With Dr. Harrold - Transcription

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Pete Waggoner: Welcome to the Optimal Health Podcast from Hudson Physicians, getting you back to optimal health when you're feeling sick, stressed, overwhelmed, or rundown. Big news coming out of Hudson Physicians, we already know about the new facility that's opened on Carmichael and across the highway from where everything used to be and how wonderful that is.

[00:00:24] We have even bigger news as the new Richmond facility is set to open seeing patients on February 6th with an open house for the public slated for the 2nd of February. We're excited to have Dr. Stephen Harrold on board. He is the medical director at the Hudson Physician's New Richmond location. Stephen, thanks for joining us.

[00:00:44] I'm sure this is exciting times for you guys. 

[00:00:47] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yes. Yes. Very exciting. Yeah, we're looking forward to it. 

[00:00:50] Pete Waggoner: So obviously there's been a lot of planning and things that are going into this. And we've got a number of topics we're gonna talk about, about the new space and as we get into things.

[00:00:58] Let's just take care of the housekeeping [00:01:00] business first.

[00:01:00] The public will have an opportunity to have an open house on February 2nd. And what we do know is that the open house that occurred in Hudson for that new facility was really successful. There were a lot of people that were curious that came and checked it out. So, you know, I would urge people to get there and enjoy the opportunity.

[00:01:19] And if you can share with us what were some of the things that were learned from the open house? The first one in Hudson. 

[00:01:24] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yes. I think with the open house in Hudson, we were actually surprised at the number of people that came to tour. So we're gonna be prepared for I think a really big crowd to come to New Richmond to see the facilities and we'll make sure we have, you know, that we're prepared for that.

[00:01:37] Yeah, I think it's gonna be a very high volume of people that are curious to see what we have to offer in New Richmond. 

[00:01:43] Pete Waggoner: Did you find that a lot of people when they go through this, it's a peace of mind type thing where they can take a look at this and say, okay, this is where I get my care. I feel better.

[00:01:53] And then for you as a provider, does that make you feel good that people are that vested into their health? [00:02:00] 

[00:02:00] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yes. I've actually been really surprised. I knew that people would be like appreciative that we were building a new clinic in New Richmond. But the term that I've heard, used for most people is excitement, which surprises me that people are excited for going to the doctor's office, I guess.

[00:02:16] So yeah, that's been kind of unique that there's truly like a bubbling of excitement in the New Richmond community for this new medical center. 

[00:02:23] Pete Waggoner: Well, that's one of the things that you can look at and say, really? Great! No, but I mean, I guess, but to me, what that really is representative of is the work that's already been done by you and your team in Hudson.

[00:02:36] At the Hudson Physicians and that you have a real community-based feel. And I think people really don't feel like a number with you guys and they actually feel like they're cared for. And I think that's just a, a, a part of the dialogue that you're feeling as providers too, as well. 

[00:02:51] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yes. Yes.

[00:02:52] I think that's definitely, I mean, that's why I'm here. I don't want patients to feel like a number. And then the doctors that are joining me in New [00:03:00] Richmond have that same mindset as well as all the doctors here at Hudson Physicians. And the thing that's gonna be neat about the New Richmond Medical Center is we're going to take the culture of Hudson Physicians, which is very patient-centered.

[00:03:13] Move it to Richmond, but it's also gonna have a local New Richmond feel, which you'll notice right when you walk in the Richmond Medical Center, even just with the signage and the photography especially is local photography. So we've actually used two local photographers for our pictures in the facility.

[00:03:30] Pete Waggoner: How cool is that? So just to be clear on the branding perspective, this is the New Richmond Medical Center. Correct? 

[00:03:39] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Correct. Which is part of Hudson Physicians. But yes, it's the new Richmond Medical Center. Okay. 

[00:03:42] Pete Waggoner: Exactly. 

[00:03:43] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Just like, we work out of the Hudson Medical Center here in Hudson. Hudson Physicians is you know, a primary tenant of the building, but we're gonna have more than just Hudson Physicians there, we'll have some other specialties as well. 

[00:03:54] Pete Waggoner: Absolutely. We'll get into that in a second. One thing I wanted to mention for that open house, grab your pen. It's [00:04:00] from three 3:30 to 6:00 PM that is on Thursday, February 2nd, and then on Monday, February 6th, patients will be seen and that's when I'll begin the address for the New Richmond Medical Center.

[00:04:13] 525 North Noles Avenue. That's 525 North Noles Avenue. 

[00:04:19] Be sure to check that out if you wanna see it. I mean, they got a great pop-up box. You know, you hop onto the website and the first thing that shows up is that it's like, oh, excellent. That if you don't know what's going on, you do now. 

[00:04:30] So one of the things that is great about this, this isn't just like a single officer too.

[00:04:35] You have five full-time providers on hand, on staff in New Richmond. Can you take us through the team that you're gonna have there? 

[00:04:45] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Sure. Yes. So we have myself and then four other family physicians. So we're all family medicine providers. And I'm proud to say, I mean, these are the top four people that I wanted to work with me.

[00:04:56] So I'm very happy that, that all of them agreed to join the New [00:05:00] Richmond Medical Center. We have Joe Dietzler who lives in New Richmond. He trained in Eau Claire at the, the family medicine residency in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He has worked primarily in New Richmond since 2007. He does a lot of sports medicine, has covered a lot of football.

[00:05:17] High school football games over the years, preventive care, chronic disease, does a lot of procedures, casting joint injections, et cetera. He yeah, like I said, lives in New Richmond and is excited. We've actually worked shoulder to shoulder, our desks next to each other for many years in the past. So he'll be joining us. 

[00:05:35] And then we have de Diether Heinz, h e i n z is his last name. First name is Diether. He trained in the Mayo system. He's been working out of Stillwater for quite a few years. His kind of special interests are asthma, pediatrics, sports medicine. Dr. Heinz is really all of us practice evidence-based medicine.

[00:05:55] Dr. Heinz, I would say is, is probably the best at staying the most up to date on the [00:06:00] latest medical studies and whatnot. He's also a really big biker. He bikes, I know he is biked in, I think Belgium and Switzerland and does bike races in the Rocky Mountains. 

[00:06:09] Pete Waggoner: You're not messing around. You're legit. 

[00:06:12] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yes, we tried to get a shower put into the building so he could bike in the community, and then, but we didn't, we weren't able to finagle it at the end. But yeah, and he's done the beca cross country skiing and stuff. So, very active guy. Nice, affable, very well liked by patients.

[00:06:27] And then we have Alena Tawari her last name is spelled T I W A R I. She has practiced in Stillwater for many years as well. Trained at the Hennepin County Medical Center, which is one of the best residencies in the Twin Cities. You get lots of, lots of experience there. She's but she's, she's out of training.

[00:06:45] She's mid-career now. She does pediatrics, adolescent medicine, women's health, chronic disease. We all do, you know, the full scope of family medicine, but we have kind of our niches. She lives in Stillwater. She loves to [00:07:00] cook, and she talks to her patients a lot about diet and nutrition.

[00:07:04] And at some point we're hoping to actually have her set up to do some cooking demonstrations for patients. Whether that's in person.

[00:07:12] Pete Waggoner: Can I film those? 

[00:07:12] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yeah. 

[00:07:13] Pete Waggoner: I would love to film those. 

[00:07:14] Yeah, that would be unbelievable. The whole thing. You know kinda create a kitchen there that would be awesome.

[00:07:19] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yeah. And she's originally from India. So she does some cooking that's kind of Indian heritage. 

[00:07:24] But she also is a proponent of the Mediterranean diet, which we all are, which promotes good health. And so, yeah, so she wants to do some teaching for teaching kind of healthy cooking habits. 

[00:07:34] So, and then so all of those doctors that I just introduced are joining us right away in February, and then in April we will have this is probably the most common question I've received from people in the community, is Dr. Brandis joining you? 

[00:07:48] So, Dr. Angela Brandis will be joining us in mid-April. She is a family doc as well. Her practice is a lot of women's health and pediatrics, but she does the full scope of family medicine, [00:08:00] manages diabetes, et cetera. She has worked in New Richmond since 2009. Lives in New Richmond.

[00:08:06] She's had multiple leadership roles at her prior clinics and she's starting with us in April as well. So she trained at the Mayo system in Lacrosse. 

[00:08:14] Pete Waggoner: What a deep team, what a deep team you have. 

[00:08:16] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yeah, definitely. 

[00:08:17] Pete Waggoner: And you know, the thing that when you go through their focus, they all are in the position where you looks like you have all the bases covered with every angle and all the needs that are there with that group. 

[00:08:29] Dr. Stephen Harrold: I think our practices compliment each other really nicely. So yeah, it should be good. 

[00:08:33] Pete Waggoner: So when that team was put together, obviously you have some new Richmond people that live there that would be like commute. Hello. 

[00:08:41] So that, that obviously fit. And then were there things you were looking for when you were building out this team? Or how did that come together? 

[00:08:48] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yeah, I think the primary thing is Doctors that are patient-centered, and I mean, all doctors I would say are patient-centered and focused, but I wanted doctors that are, that are [00:09:00] going to go above and beyond and do the extra things that sometimes it takes to take good care of patients.

[00:09:04] Also docs that are willing to work hard. This is gonna be a brand new medical center that's gonna be, we think it's going to be very busy right from the get-go. We're gonna have Urgent Careright away covered by us five doctors as well. So I wanted people that you know, have a very strong work ethic as well that would be willing to do the hours it's gonna take to get this thing off of the ground.

[00:09:25] And then just skillset, these are four other docs who do family medicine is a specialty where most of the docs do a wide variety of things. There are some that kind of narrow their scope of what they do, and these, these four docs do, are willing to do, are comfortable doing pretty much any, anything that falls under the purview of family medicine, including a lot of procedures, skin procedures, joint injections, things like that, that you know, there's a lot that we can do right in our medical center without having to even refer to outside specialists. 

[00:09:58] Pete Waggoner: So then you have a versatile, [00:10:00] well-rounded team that has a work ethic to make it work. And speaking of that, hours Mondays through Thursdays very advantageous for the patients, 7:30 AM to 7:00 PM Friday, 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM and then Saturdays from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM. 

[00:10:15] When you talked about other specialties, obviously we mentioned associated eyecare. That's a part of this. And then you also have Twin Cities Orthopedics and Hudson Imaging. Can you kind of break down all three of those and what they bring to the table and how beneficial it is for the patients in the area? 

[00:10:34] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yes. So you listed what us, did you say? Associated Eye, Twin Cities Ortho, 

[00:10:39] Pete Waggoner: and Hudson imaging. 

[00:10:40] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yes. So the only reason I ask that question is cuz there's other specialties that we're adding that I'll mention as well. But so yeah, Associated Eye will be a major tenant in our medical center. They actually are probably about a third of the square footage. They have had an office in New Richmond for many years, an older office that actually used to be the old New Richmond clinic from years [00:11:00] ago.

[00:11:00] So they're excited about a new building. They have always been, I think I said this at the groundbreaking when we broke, my job as a family doc, when I'm sending to a specialist is making sure that I'm sending to someone that I think is going to provide the best care and I will sometimes steer patients away from a particular specialist if I don't think it's the best specialist for them. 

[00:11:21] With ophthalmology with Associated Eye, all of their whole team is excellent. So I'm always comfortable sending to any of them. It's gonna be really nice to have them right next door, just kind of through the hallway, sort of collaborating and working with patients.

[00:11:35] So they're a top-notch team, so we're excited to work with them. Twin Cities Ortho we have one of their docs, a Nell's Leaf BBL is gonna be joining us. I think it's a half day or possibly a full day, a week. He does a variety of orthopedic surgeries. And actually maybe you'll introduce him at some time, Pete, or do a podcast with him. He was on a, his claim to fame, he was on American Idol years ago. 

[00:11:57] Pete Waggoner: Oh, I gotta have that one. 

[00:11:59] Dr. Stephen Harrold: [00:12:00] Yes. He's a musician. 

[00:12:01] Pete Waggoner: I am too, so we'll have fun. Let's make that, let's make that happen. I love it. 

[00:12:06] Dr. Stephen Harrold: And then we actually now have added via Twin Cities Orthopedics, we we're gonna have physical therapy five days a week in-house as well. So that's another relationship we have with Twin Cities Ortho.

[00:12:17] And then Hudson Imaging as a kind of a joint collaboration between Minneapolis Radiology, Hudson Physicians, and Twin Cities Orthopedics. We kind of founded our own entity.

[00:12:28] And in the New Richmond facility, we are going to have X-ray that will mimic the hours that you already put forward. So we'll have X-ray all the time when we're open. And then we are also adding mammogram and ultrasound. I don't know exactly when we'll be opening those, but sometime, you know, probably first or second quarter of this year.

[00:12:46] Mammogram, I believe is gonna be two days a week and ultrasound probably will end up being about two days a week as well. 

[00:12:53] And then Hudson Imaging in Hudson will have CT scan and MRI as well, and bone density testing and a few [00:13:00] other things that we won't have in New Richmond, but we'll have access to.

[00:13:03] Pete Waggoner: Within a really sharp radius, you have Western Wisconsin, really handled with every component of needs for the patient, which is absolutely amazing. You did allude to maybe a few other tenants that might be in there. Do you wanna share those?

[00:13:19] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yeah, that's been kind of the fun part. I think both at Hudson Medical Center and in New Richmond Medical Center is we have actually had a lot of docs call us lot of specialties, contact us about working with us. 

[00:13:30] So additional specialties we'll have at the Richmond Medical Center. Some of them are other specialists from Hudson Physicians, so we'll have Podiatry, Dr. Ali Nyquist will be in Richmond two days a week. She recently graduated from her podiatry residency, I believe last summer.

[00:13:45] She is excellent. Does it I don't even know. Podiatry 2.0, I guess I would call it. She is very, very, very up to date and does a lot of things that are very high level in podiatry. So she'll be there two days a week. . And then we have Mike Schneider, who's a [00:14:00] general surgeon who has worked in near New Richmond prior.

[00:14:02] He will be there, I think it's gonna be two days a week as well, doing clinic. And then he'll be in Hudson the other part of the time. Same thing with Dr. Nyquist. She'll be at Hudson Medical Center when she's not at New Richmond Medical Center. I've heard rumors that I think will be confirmed of a spine surgery, midwest Spine, having some office hours as well. 

[00:14:20] And then we may add a few other things as as time goes on, we also will have the capability of referring to Hudson Medical Center for ear, nose and throat, dermatology, cardiology. 

[00:14:32] And I now have a relationship with Minnesota Oncology where we'll be able to get stat or urgent referrals for new cancers and be able to get people to infusion centers for antibiotics and blood products, things like that in a timely manner.

[00:14:45] Pete Waggoner: So that's fantastic. For sure. So for those that wanna know more, I have done a number of podcasts, Dr. Nyquist, I think it was back in the summer. You can go back through the history and you can learn more about her and exactly what Dr. Harold said here is [00:15:00] supported in what that whole podcast was about. It was terrific. 

[00:15:03] I've done a couple with Associated Eye Care. I've been very fascinated with the work they do and just their history and their experience is incredible. We did one regarding the new Hudson Imaging Partnership. So all of these are things people can learn about if you wanna learn more and you know, you're driving and you don't have time to read or, you know, you can just do a quick listen on those things. That's really kind of the whole point of this stuff. 

[00:15:25] A few more questions for you. The one that I have is, obviously the Hudson facility, the planning was probably ahead of what happened with the New Richmond Center. Were there things that were learned from the process saying, you know what, we really need to bring this over into this one, and if you did, what were those items and how would they benefit and be advantageous to your patients?

[00:15:50] Dr. Stephen Harrold: You know, a lot of the planning for the Hudson Medical Center was kind of before my time, before me being signed on for the New Richmond Medical Center. So I got to kind [00:16:00] of watch the process from the sidelines as well for the building for the Hudson Med Center.

[00:16:05] So I don't have a lot of things where I can say, oh, this is what was learned or what we changed. We honestly kind of rode the coattails of all the work that had already been done, which made the New Richmond Medical Center much, much easier to, you know, like I got pulled into a meeting to look at for the New Richmond Medical Center, color schemes and things like that, which is probably out of my expertise, right?

[00:16:26] And I could just say, Hey, what you guys are doing in Hudson, that looks great. You know? So not a lot of big changes or learnings where we had to, to make major changes. We did plan ahead. Some of the docs in Hudson and all of the docs in New Richmond will have a couple of assists working with them.

[00:16:42] Meaning when a patient is roomed, their assistant will then stay with the patient and stay in the room, and when the doctor comes in, the assist will stay in the room and place all the orders and help with documentation and things like that to make us more efficient. Because we know we have five doctors that [00:17:00] are busy doctors.

[00:17:01] So we did you know, planning for the facility, plan ahead to make sure we had room in the rooms for an assist to remain in the room with the doctor and room for staff at you know, nurses stations and things like that. So we're excited about that. That has been taken. I've been working under that model in Hudson and patients really like that model where they get to know the staff and the staff are helping them kind of walk through the process. 

[00:17:26] Pete Waggoner: It really does become a relationship, and I think that's what this is really all about. When you think about the location of the New Richmond facility, you say, you know what?

[00:17:37] You now have everything North, East, Southeast, you know, Southwest to West is kind of now well covered. But this really takes a really nice footprint for Western Wisconsin and extends the quality of coverage that's occurring right on the edge of the state line. And it gets a little bit deeper in.

[00:17:57] I'm sure you as a group are really [00:18:00] excited to benefit even more people as they're aware that this is the place to go. 

[00:18:06] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yes, there is. This is not just putting up a medical center to be in competition with others. There is truly a need definitely in New Richmond, but probably even more so in some of the surrounding communities that you might be, you know, a long enough drive to Hudson that they've chosen not to, not to drive here.

[00:18:24] So yeah, especially communities north and east, you know, Amory, Turtle Lake and then even over to St. Croix Falls and Osceola to the Northwest. We expect we'll see quite a few patients from those areas. There is a shortage of doctors and there's a long wait to see physicians in many of the communities, both in the Richmond and surrounding areas.

[00:18:43] So, yeah. This is hopefully will be kind of a gym for the area for fairly comprehensive medical care. 

[00:18:50] Pete Waggoner: Well, your group is making a complete difference and it's exciting to watch from the outside and see how much passion and compassion your group has. [00:19:00] And I think the public knows and feels that, and that's what this is all about.

[00:19:03] A reminder to everybody that public open house is on February 2nd. From 3:30 to 6:00 PM. The address is 525 North Noles Avenue, New Richmond, Wisconsin. 

[00:19:15] This has been Dr. Stephen Harrold on Optimal Health and once again, really appreciate your time here and it's probably time to get back to some more work. 

[00:19:25] Dr. Stephen Harrold: Yeah. Yes. Thank you Pete. 

[00:19:26] Pete Waggoner: You bet. Thank you. That's gonna do it for Optimal Health for Dr. Harold. I'm Pete Wagner. So long everybody.