WBENC 2022: Crystal King and Clovice Vaughn with Grady Health Systems

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for GWBC Radio’s Open for Business. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from WBENC’s National Conference 2022 inside the Georgia World Congress Center, inside the GWBC booth, Booth 1812, if you want to come by and see us. I’m so excited to have the guest we have right now, Crystal King and Clovice – Clovice?

Clovice Vaughn: [00:00:35] Clovice. There you go.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] … I screwed up. Clovice Vaughn – sorry about that – with Grady Health System. Crystal and Clovice, welcome.

Crystal King: [00:00:45] Thank you.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:00:45] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] So, how’s the show been for you?

Crystal King: [00:00:48] It’s been really good. Lots of great exhibits, great conversation. So, it’s been awesome.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:00:54] It’s been great. It’s just been good just to get out and see –

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] And see a lot of people at one place.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:00:59] And see real people, yeah, exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:01] Spend a minute. Talk about GWBC, why is it important for you to be involved?

Crystal King: [00:01:06] It’s important for us at Grady. We have a really robust program at Grady for diverse suppliers, and women suppliers have come through for us in major ways, especially during COVID, staffing companies providing nurses and PPE. We just believe that women always make the world better. And we find the same with our women-owned business partners.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:31] Now, at Grady, you use a variety of services, and want the women business owners to kind of think bigger and broader, right? Because there’s a lot of things they might be able to help you with that they may not be thinking. They might be self-selecting out before they even have a chance to have a conversation with you. What are some of the maybe different types of things that you need from the women business owners that maybe they’re not thinking that they might be a good resource?

Clovice Vaughn: [00:01:59] Well, from my perspective, it’s business as usual. You know, being a hospital, you don’t really think about certain things in that capacity, because in a hospital we bill construction-wise, marketing, IT. I mean, all of those that you see in some of the other big name corporations, the hospital industry using them as well. Well, now we have our specialties like medical devices, durable medical equipment, things of that caliber. But for the most part, we use some of the same service levels as some of the other big name corporations.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:38] Right. So, anything that you would do for any large company would be appropriate for Grady. But a lot of times people think, “Oh, Grady. I don’t have a medical device or I don’t know anything about medicine. They’re not in my list of people to even have a conversation with.”

Crystal King: [00:02:55] That’s right. And we try to really change the conversation about that. Don’t think of health care as health related things all the time. Anything it takes to run your house, anything it takes to run a city, a school, any other business. We have printers, we have everything, janitorial service.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:15] Every business need you have.

Crystal King: [00:03:17] Every business need we have.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:18] And, plus, the medical stuff. So, it’s not an or, it’s an and.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:03:21] In addition to, correct.

Crystal King: [00:03:23] That’s right. And we would love to see more women-owned businesses on that medical side, on the clinical side of the house, with medical devices, with medical technology. Those are places where we we see that women pull the shrink tremendously. And so, we would love to help grow and develop women-owned businesses on that side of the business.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:46] So, now, when you say grow and develop, what does that mean? Like, say, I’m a woman-owned business and I want to partner with Grady, how do I even get started?

Crystal King: [00:03:53] So, if you’re listening to this podcast, hopefully you’re tuned in to WBENC, and we really use GWBC, the Greater Women’s Business Council, where Roz Lewis is the CEO and Chair, as our main resource to reach women-owned suppliers. Because it’s so many people, Clovice and I can’t possibly meet everybody. So, we have a level of comfort that if you’ve come through WBENC and you’ve gone through that certification process, it puts a stamp of approval on you.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:23] Right. You’ve been vetted. We know that you’re legit. Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you’re a certified woman-owned business. Those are two different things.

Crystal King: [00:04:31] That’s right. And we don’t get to count you for our spin reports if you’re not certified, so get certification.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:36] You better get certified.

Crystal King: [00:04:37] And so, we attend all of the WBENC events, the GWBC events, and that’s where you will meet us and most corporates, because we can’t be everywhere. So, we use them as our conduit to the people.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:53] Right. They’re the first line of defense.

Crystal King: [00:04:55] That’s right.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:04:56] And just to add to that conversation part, you mentioned about the certification piece and that vetting process, so that eliminates some of the fieldwork or trenchwork that we would normally do by identifying business that’s associated with GWBC and WBENC.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:13] Right. So, you don’t have to kind of vet them because they’ve already been vetted in order to be part of that organization.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:05:20] True.

Crystal King: [00:05:21] That’s right.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:21] And then, that enables you to focus on the most important part, the relationship building part, to making sure it’s the right fit for you and your team. And they have what you need and you have what you need from them.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:05:33] Very much so.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:34] That’s an education process, right? Just because someone sells something or has a service, that doesn’t mean they’re the right fit. You have to kind of learn how to work together, right?

Clovice Vaughn: [00:05:43] No. There’s a combination of things. It has to be a need for that product, goods, and services. You know, once you identify that need, then you can have that opportunity to identify women-owned businesses that can bring forth that value for those opportunities. So, yeah, it has to be a handshake for the need, for the products, goods, and services needs. Once that has been identified, then that’s where you can always start and develop those relationships that you have.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:13] Now, does it work best when they maybe start small with a small need just to get to know each other or get to work together so you can say, “Okay. These people are a good fit. They know how we operate. They know what to do in order to be successful in our ecosystem.” Because the way you do business may not exactly be the way that some other big business does business.

Crystal King: [00:06:32] Yeah. And we’ve been spending a lot of time educating our suppliers about what it means to work in health care, because health care is different than energy or telecom. So, we work with group purchasing organizations. For instance, Grady works with Vizion, our group purchasing organization. We use distributors, Medline is our distributor. So, while you might not be able to come in to sell something to Grady today, we make those introductions so you can get on Vizion contract or get on Medline contract. And they don’t just deal with Grady. They deal with all the hospitals.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:06] Right. Then, they’ll open the door to other things.

Crystal King: [00:07:07] So, we’re really trying to educate people on not minimizing what you do and making them understand what it really means to work in health care, being on GPO contract, being on distributor contract, and then bringing new technology to the table. Because I’m putting it out in the universe, there’s a huge need for hospital at home services right now. The technology and the connections to do it effectively.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:33] So, there’s opportunity there that isn’t being tapped and you have a need. And if somebody is out there listening –

Crystal King: [00:07:38] We know we have the need, but we know we haven’t met the person with the technology yet. But we need a way to monitor patients once they go home, that transition of care. Grady is great about we don’t send people home if we’re not comfortable that they will get the same level of care that we’ve been providing in the hospital. So, that makes our average length of stay a little longer than some other hospitals. But if we can send you home and know that you can be monitored, and get the food you need, and the outcome is going to be the same as if you were in the hospital, that’s a huge opportunity right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:15] Huge. Now, is there a story you can share maybe with a woman-owned business that you worked with that you, you know, helped and then it was impactful?

Crystal King: [00:08:24] We have so many.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:26] We don’t have to name the name of the company, but maybe tell the story about what they came to the table with. Maybe they were small and grew or something like that.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:08:33] Well, yeah, I have an excellent story in that aspect. One of the woman-owned certified business that is here at the event today. At that time they were highly into the IT profession. Of course, the pandemic happened. They had to pivot because not many businesses was doing a great deal in IT. They pivot to the nursing aspect. I was one of the responsibility. Crystal and I brought them to the team for the nursing aspects of it. And that really saved their company’s life.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:09] Because if they didn’t have that, then they would have gone out of business, probably, because there wasn’t any opportunity for a period of time.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:09:16] And every time that lady sees –

Lee Kantor: [00:09:18] She hugs you and thanks you.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:09:19] Yes, she does.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:19] I mean, I can’t emphasize enough, especially to the corporates out there, the account that you give them, even if it’s a small account, it could be life changing for them. It could be an individual with their family that makes a difference between them eating this month or not eating this month, or they’re in business or they’re not in business. So, the impact is real.

Crystal King: [00:09:41] It is. And we really have tried to help the suppliers understand our needs and help our internal customers understand the suppliers needs. Because we have to meet in a certain place.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:53] Right. They got to work together.

Crystal King: [00:09:54] So, in health care, you’ll find that a lot of things are streamlined. Like, for instance – I don’t know if I should say the name – but we use an MSP, I will say that. But during COVID, we have several women-owned businesses who made millions of dollars through that MSP, because nurses were writing their own ticket. But our internal customer only had to deal with that one person, right? They didn’t have to manage 15 different companies.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:26] Right. That became someone else’s problem.

Crystal King: [00:10:28] Right. And so, to understand the needs of the customer, but understanding that, “Hey, if you can just give a slither of that pie to this small or women-owned company, that’s life changing for somebody.” We’re really teaching supplier diversity at Grady from a standpoint of economic empowerment and economic impact that the more we employ the diverse women-owned businesses then those are people who give people in our communities jobs who don’t show up with no insurance in the ER, so it’s a win-win.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:05] Everybody wins, though. This is a situation that everybody wins.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:11:08] Yeah. There’s a trickle down effect.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:09] And a lot of these folks just need the opportunity.

Crystal King: [00:11:12] That’s it. That’s it. And we are opportunity givers. We love it.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:19] So, how does someone get on the supplier list? Is it through GWBC as the first step and then they get certified there, and then that’ll get them connected with Grady? Or does Grady have a place on the website or somewhere that they can go and raise their hand and say, “Hey, I’m here”?

Clovice Vaughn: [00:11:34] Well, I’ll say D, all of the aforementioned. Of course, I mentioned previously there has to be that need for that process –

Lee Kantor: [00:11:42] Right. There has to be a need and all that. But if everything is there, the best way to go to the website and kind of poke around, there’s a supply there or –

Clovice Vaughn: [00:11:50] We do have on our website contract opportunities. So, if you see a need out there that fit your bill or fit the opportunity skillsets that you provide, then, yeah, by all means respond to that.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:12:01] But it goes back to what you mentioned earlier, the relationship building. So, if you build the relationships with a woman-owned business and then an opportunity comes about, you’re going to instantly think about that conversation that you have. You reach out to them, ask them about their skillsets, and provide information pertaining to the RFP or RFI or RFQ, whatever, are reflected. And then, the next steps come into play where you make the introduction to the subject matter experts. The subject matter experts learn more about what those businesses do and kind of fits within that pipeline.

Crystal King: [00:12:40] We’re not big on the dropping your name in a bucket and then we try to fish you out. We want to know you. So, we are very involved with WBENC, with GWBC, we’re members at the national level and at our local level. And the best way to see us is to see us.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:57] Relationships are important.

Crystal King: [00:12:58] Relationships matter for us. Because I’ve worked in organizations and we’ve had instances where fishing somebody name out of a hat doesn’t let you know if it’s a good match.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:10] You got to do the work and you got to invest in the relationship.

Crystal King: [00:13:14] That’s right. So, supplier diversity at gmh.edu is a place they can send capability statements.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:23] But reach out to a human being, get to know you, and then let it evolve from there.

Crystal King: [00:13:28] That’s it.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:13:28] Yeah. It’s not a black hole.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:30] There are humans there, promise.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:13:32] Yes. We are not a robot.

Crystal King: [00:13:34] Yeah. We really do. We go through them all. And we’re not afraid to tell you it’s not a good fit. And we make so many introductions to other health care systems who are bigger than us, who have different needs. But I tell everybody, Grady is a very old hospital, so if you’re a construction, you should definitely be talking to us. We always have something broken, busted, leaking, need fixing.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:57] Well, thank you both for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Crystal King: [00:14:01] Thank you.

Clovice Vaughn: [00:14:02] Thanks for having us.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:03] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll be back in the few at WBENC National Conference 2022 inside GWBC’s booth.