The Let's Get Comfy Podcast
Hosted by Founder and CEO of Comfort Measures Consulting LLC, Norman Harris. The Official Healthcare Edutainment station. Empowering listeners with the knowledge and resources to age comfortably. The podcast platform will uniquely provide laughter, peace, joy, resources and most of all COMFORT. Fostering professional partnerships and engaging the audience by providing them access to a REAL family-like conversation. That gives them the REAL reasons. Connects them to REAL reliable resources. To get REAL results. For REAL Comfort! Through interviews with C-suite healthcare leaders, experts, caregivers, founders, authors, educators, and thought leaders who are doing incredible work for older adults, family caregivers, and the healthcare community.
The Let's Get Comfy Podcast
The Power of Advocacy: Building Better Healthcare Together
Joshua Wagner, Divisional Director at Aviata Health Group and Senior Vice President of the Florida Health Care Association, shares his journey from aspiring physician to healthcare leader and how embracing his purpose transformed his career trajectory.
• Born and raised in Florida, began in pre-med before discovering his calling in health services administration
• Brings over a decade of leadership experience across healthcare organizations, including Millennial Healthcare, Clear Choice Healthcare, and Aviata Health Group
• Currently oversees business development and leadership development initiatives for Aviata’s 58 facilities
• Serves as Senior Vice President for the Florida Health Care Association and has held multiple leadership roles on its Executive Board, including Treasurer and Secretary
• Advocates for early involvement in professional associations to build influence and drive change
• Recognizes Florida’s unique position as a leader in healthcare quality due to collaborative providers and supportive legislation
• Applies a 30-60-90 day improvement plan to help struggling facilities elevate operations and care standards
• Leverages healthy competition to engage teams and improve outcomes for residents
• Encourages forming employee-led engagement teams that strengthen workplace culture and ownership
• Credits his grandfather’s influence and a pivotal lunch with a CCRC CEO for sparking his passion for long-term care
• Expresses gratitude to industry colleagues for their mentorship and partnership in advancing quality care
Subscribe to the Let’s Get Comfy Podcast for more conversations with healthcare leaders driving positive change in long-term care.
This episode of let's Get Comfy was brought to you by Evolutionary Healthcare. Caring is what we do.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the let's Get Comfy podcast. I'm your host, norman Harris, the CEO of Comfort Measures Consulting. I have a wonderful guest with me, a leader in the healthcare industry and a long-term care journeyman as well, and I always start, I guess, allowing them to introduce themselves, and, to my right, I have.
Speaker 1:I have Joshua Wagner. I am with Aviata Health Group and also I'm an executive board member, senior vice president, with the Florida Healthcare Association.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, Thank you for taking time out of your day to come join the platform man. It means a lot to me.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to be here, norman, really excited, yes, sir.
Speaker 2:So, josh, we're going to start this with you personally, right?
Speaker 1:Tell us where you're from, your hobbies, what you enjoy doing, okay so I'm actually a Florida boy, born and raised yes, sir Grew up in Merritt Island, florida, so born at Cape Granaver Hospital back in Brevard County, cape Granaver.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm, this is my home state, so that's where I'm from. But just, you know, grew up here, went to school here, stayed here, work here. You know it's just been great so, but you know it's, you know it's a great state to live in. It's been a great state to live in. It really helped, you know, develop me.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, what led you into healthcare?
Speaker 1:So honestly, like I've always kind of wanted to be in healthcare, I actually wanted to go to school to be a doctor, and look how well that turned out. So when I went to school my first degree was like degree path was molecular microbiology, which was the pre-med path back at UCF, and just organic chemistry too was the hardest B I've ever gotten in my entire life. So that's kind of went there. And then I honestly got a chance to talk to a lot of physicians and hospitals and stuff like that and really just the changing nature of health care. And so you know, I don't think I'd rather be on the business and advocacy side, and so I kind of switched to health services, administration, and the rest is history.
Speaker 2:Rest is history. So now you're a leader in Florida, if you would tell us. Just give us, if we're in the elevator, together we go into the 50th floor.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Tell us just the last 10 years of your professional journey, right?
Speaker 1:So last 10 years, so most recently with Aviati Health Group for a little under a year now. Prior to that I was with Millennial Healthcare and they operate in kind of central Florida and I've been with them. I was doing like senior executive director kind of helping with running facility but also help oversee other facilities, which was good. Prior to that, With Clear Choice Healthcare through COVID, spent some time with them in Orlando at Conway Lakes for a long time and that was definitely an experience because just the whole COVID time was with them. Well, yeah, Everything like that.
Speaker 1:So it was crazy. It was definitely crazy, but that's kind of like with the companies that I've been with and then with Florida Healthcare Association, just really been kind of growing up in the ranks from being with committees, committee chair running the annual conference committee, getting on the executive board and it's just been a whirlwind and it's been awesome it really has been A true servant leader too, so you've always been involved, and just to see the trajectory and how you grew is very inspiring to a lot of other leaders in long-term care.
Speaker 2:If you had a message to share with a future long-term care professional just someone starting out their career what would you say to them? So?
Speaker 1:get involved. Like you know, we're loudest when we do it together. Do it together, like when we, when we go together and we do the lobby Wednesdays and we do, you know, inviting the, the representatives and the state senators to come to our centers and um, and everything like that's. That's when we're the last and that's what we really can make a big, big impact on um, doing stuff for our residents, for our staff, you know, and really making sure that our care centers are getting what they need and um. So get involved and ask, ask for help. You need help. Ask Florida Healthcare's here. You got people outside of your companies even that you can offer assistance.
Speaker 1:Like I always tell them get involved early. Like you don't have to be on the executive board to get involved. Like some of my fondest memories are working on the committees and learning more about how this profession works and the things to do and how to do it and from there, kind of building your building blocks and go up from there and, you know, move up from committee to committee chair to region VP, to, you know, getting on the executive committee and you can do it all and it's just, it's rewarding because you really feel like you're giving back. You know, you're able to see just the things we do and the voices we have and the impact we. It kind of trickles back down to the centers and it's just amazing.
Speaker 2:Right. So in your opinion and if you would share with the audience, is what makes Florida a great place for retirement, but also a great place for care.
Speaker 1:Okay Well, number one, the weather Weather yeah, it's beautiful and the state's just a beautiful state.
Speaker 1:But I think really you, just because there's, you know, first off, I think really you just because there's, you know, first off, I think you have some compassionate providers here, especially in our space, in the long-term care space, there's people that just you know, either whether they're transplants or whether they have grown up here or lived here for a long time, they're passionate about taking care of people and really making sure that the care they're getting is quality and amazing care, you know, and it doesn't say there isn't hiccups in the world, but, like you know, we're people taking care of people, you know.
Speaker 1:So it's always revolving, trying to get better, trying to reach that perfection that we'll never reach. But you know that's what it is. But you know, when you have that, and then you have the providers who go to the state legislature and say, hey, we want to provide the best quality care, help us do that. And then the legislature says, sure, let's do that and create that gold standard that we got going now that other states are copying because they're seeing like holy cow, look at this, look what the state of Florida is doing. We're leading in so many different metrics in quality and I really think that you have great leadership in the Florida Healthcare Association. You have great leadership in the state legislature and the state government, and then you have great leaders and the providers that are around the state.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you, that's actually really good. That's a good answer. Yeah, uh, and now you just said that off the top of your head. I did so, aviana. Am I pronouncing it correct? Aviana aviana aviana healthcare yeah, uh, you're leader with Aviata Healthcare. Yeah, tell us about the organization. What's unique, what stands out as a company as a whole?
Speaker 1:Okay, so Aviata a lot of the buildings and centers in Aviata are the old consulate healthcare buildings and some of the other smaller ones that were kind of broken off throughout. And you know, we had our CEO and COO, nathan Freund, and Ami Dagan. They came in and wanted to start something here, and so we were able to get 58 buildings around the state to create this and we started as Aspire Health Group, yes, and then had a little snafu with the name and stuff. There's another company out there that has the name Aspire. That wasn't too pleased, because I do like the new logo too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1:I love the new logo too. Yeah, me too. I love the new logo. Yeah, but we changed to Aviata, just to you know. So there's no issues with them and with us. But the parent company is still Aspire Health Group out of you know, out of the Northeast, but Aviata. But yeah, I'm not going to lie, I like the colors a little better too. The black and gold, I like it.
Speaker 2:I'm a UCF person, so Construction for health.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. You hit a line or you can finish too. You can, yes.
Speaker 2:So effective strategies and implementation in long-term care. And I want to do a scenario here. Okay, as a leader in health care, if you had a facility struggling right with Aviata Health Group right, you took over a new facility. You purchased a new facility Right, you guys are growing. What do you guys process in regards to when you actually purchase a facility from a clinical improvement standpoint?
Speaker 1:So a lot of it's going in and just kind of, you know, going in and seeing what's already there. You know you want to see what we got going on. Do we have the right systems in place? Are we doing the things we need to do on a daily basis? And, honestly, do we have the right people in the right positions?
Speaker 1:Sometimes, you know, sometimes there's a little disruption that has to be made, whether it's from the top down to the bottom up, either way, or both sides even, and you really got to just evaluate it and you can't just go in there and make a knee-jerk decision and hope it's going to fix it, like you have to spend the time. I'm a big believer in the 30, 60, 90 day kind of process. You know you kind of observe and watch for 30 days, 60 days, you start to put some new stuff in the 90 days, hey, we're here, let's start making the changes kind of stuff. And I think Aviata does a good job of that. You know we took over some struggling buildings that you know had some quality issues and you know it's going to take time. You know the the group itself, the company itself, has only been around less than two years. Wow, from Aspire to Aviata even with the name changes less than two years. So there's a lot of stuff they've achieved in two years 58 buildings.
Speaker 1:You ain't lying, that's a big ship to turn. Big ship, big ship to turn. So it's a lot, but you can already see where there's some positive improvement going and you know we got buildings that are leading the way, that are four, and we're one star, and now moving up twos and threes, and it's huge. And it starts with quality. It always does, and that's where there's a huge focus on the quality and the clinical outcomes that we're providing, making sure the care that we need to give those residents is the correct care. That's the biggest thing.
Speaker 2:Yes. So, josh, I'm telling you, you come off very competitive, oh right, Very competitive.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So are you competitive.
Speaker 1:I'm very competitive, all right.
Speaker 2:I don't like to lose. Give me an example. It doesn't have to be professional related.
Speaker 1:So I grew up playing sports a lot, what's more. So I played baseball, football, basketball, ran track, played soccer a little bit as well. You got the J oh I used to Used to. It's been a while since I've, like my son, schools me now.
Speaker 2:What player in the NBA would you compare your?
Speaker 1:game to. That is a really good question.
Speaker 2:Derrick Fisher, Steph Curry.
Speaker 1:I'm a scrapper. I'm a scrapper.
Speaker 2:I'm a scrapper, richard Jefferson.
Speaker 1:Probably Like. I like to get the like. I'm going to go get the loose ball. I'm going to go do the hard foul. Who's this like that? I'm trying to christine. Yeah, that's not a bad name. Like that, that's not a bad person.
Speaker 1:Yeah uh artist yes, artist yeah that's probably a good one. Like I'm gonna do that, that's I'm a scrapper. Like I'm not. I'm not the biggest guy, wasn't the tallest guy? Plus you know, plus my skin color, skin cover. You gotta make up a little. Can't jump aside, can't jump aside. But um, but no, you, you gotta do that kind of stuff so.
Speaker 2:So how do you do you in actually being competitive? How do you incorporate that in your leadership style?
Speaker 1:So for me it's you know, I look at it as you know, you always want to. There's friendly competition with your sister facilities. We'll say so there's all that friendly competition and you always want to be the best, I feel like, because if you are the best, you're delivering the best care, and that's kind of how I look at it. So I kind of look at it that way. Um, the metrics that we use from cms as well as from the state of florida for the quality stuff, you know, looking at that, because what I always say is, especially with employees, to really dial it down for them, like guys, like if we do these things, the incentive for the pay for the residents to make sure we can give them even better care, is there yeah and so I use that a lot and they they get that.
Speaker 1:They understand that. They can say, oh, so if we give, like, amazing care, we can get more back for our residents so they can get more stuff and exactly, and that's kind of what. I kind of dial it down for them a lot, uh, and then you know what's? What's great is, I feel, like health care itself. There's a lot of competitive people.
Speaker 1:You just got to find your staff members and you kind of put them in charge of things and be like hey, you're in charge of this. And, like you know, I always do like an employee engagement team where the team, the actual staff members, run it. I'm just there for moral support and make sure they're doing the stuff, but I let them, I want them to have ownership in that and there, and you know, then engage in culture, because everybody can find problems and issues.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, who's going to join the team? Right, the fun squad take committee.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Join those committees. Right the change.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and oftentimes they create those competitions like hey, unit a versus unit B, about you know, the less falls, or or the who can be the cleanest rooms, or whatever it can be. You know, and we even do fun things like wheelchair. We'll do wheelchair races or we'll do who can make a bed faster and stuff like that, or make the cleanest bed or whatever. Can I bounce a quarter off that thing? You know? See, that's how it is.
Speaker 2:I knew you were a competitive man. Yeah, heck, yeah. So this show is definitely about speaking to the caregivers, sharing knowledge and resources, definitely. So if you had a message one, do you have a personal story to share regarding caregiving, but also a message to families and caregivers out there today.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so I actually I kind of grew up in this industry. I actually didn't think I'd be here. Like I said, I wanted to be a doctor initially and actually my job, um, after college, was in a hospital. I worked in hospitals and didn't want to do this. My grandfather did this, uh, for many, many years when I was growing up and he ran assisted living, he ran nursing homes, he ran independent living facilities as well. So I grew up running around these places. I'm like I don't need to do that. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:And um, really, I was in the hospitals and just, it's like, it's very, it's not personal. It felt, you know, it's cold, it's sanitary, you know kind of thing. And my grandfather said, well, he always wanted to push me toward that. And he said, hey, come talk to this guy that I know and I was a didn't know who it was. He set up a lunch for me and it was a CEO of a company that had CCRCs in Florida. And it was just lunch, it wasn't a job offer, it wasn't anything else. And he said, no, he kidded, my grandfather didn't show up, it was just me and that CEO. And he was like hey, he goes. I hear you're interested in doing something different. And I said, yeah, I actually am.
Speaker 1:And he spent the next two-hour lunch talking about the things his company did, the residents in his plate in his centers and his communities and just the wonderful things they can do, and it literally it kind of lit a fire a little bit and it really sparked something. He said, hey, if you're really interested, he goes. You know, next that goes the next following year, we're gonna have an AIT opening up. And I said, why not? And I did it and just fell in love, like, just felt like I. I remember my first week in this in the skilled center was just a whirlwind, but it was so much fun, it was just a blessing and it's um, it's not something like I said I thought I would ever do, but it just um, I found my passion.
Speaker 2:You find your passion.
Speaker 1:And it was just. It's amazing and I get emotional talking about it, but it's just. You know it's cool. You connect your purpose with your passion. I do, I do, man. That's what it is. That's a big thing, it's great, that's a big thing it took me.
Speaker 2:I really believe I did that at the age of 34. So I'm a little later, yeah, In the game of connecting my purpose with my passion. Definitely, getting up in the morning. It's not a pain to go to work. I mean, of course, we'd rather be billionaires, billionaires, of course. But even those individuals work, yeah, they do. So they stay busy, they do. I'm going to start a little drama here on the show. Oh, a little drama, a little drama, okay, all right, and this may have a little backlash on you all right here on the show today. Okay, three shout-outs, and don't say I want to give all my team members a shout-out.
Speaker 1:Fair enough Three shout-outs.
Speaker 2:Yes sir.
Speaker 1:Okay, and could it be my company, or anybody, anybody, anybody. Yes, sir, okay.
Speaker 2:I'm personal, because then I don't want to offend your family or anybody like that.
Speaker 1:So let's stay professional. Three shout outs. I will give a big shout out, especially right now, to Tom Parker and Toby Philpott. Yeah, just the work they do. I've been blessed to be, you know, hand in hand with them and really see the things they do behind the scenes. And it is amazing work that they, what they do and how they step up for our centers, for our people, for our residents, and they just do a bang up job. And this year was a tough lift. It was a tough lift this year and they got it done.
Speaker 2:I think Tom told me he's about to participate in like a 100-mile run or something like that.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, he always does that kind of thing. I'm like, what 100 miles? You talk about being competitive, that boy is competitive, Jesus Christ. But no, the two of them are great. I will for my company, Aviata Just an amazing, amazing clinician, Just being like I didn't know her well until I joined the company and just talking to her and getting to know her and the people around her and the things she has done and like just how well-respected she is.
Speaker 1:She is a rock star, is all I can say. Deb Mack yeah, Deb Mack, she's good people too, Just a fun time, fun person to be around. Good people too, Just a fun time, fun person to be around. But she's great and just always willing to lift people up and just build good teams and find the right people for the right places and that's just great. I'll see if I can do one more. Norman, I'm actually going to say you, my friend, Really I am like I remember when you started doing this and I heard about it and I was like podcast, yes, sir, I was like who. But when I more thought about it I was like that's an amazing thing for us to do. How else? How a better way with how much people? How many podcasts are out there about everything under the sun? But there really wasn't one for us, and you're really taking that by the horn and really running with it.
Speaker 2:And I think it's amazing. And when you told me there was an opportunity, I said oh yeah, he's going to be on the show at the front of healthcare, for sure. And so I told Kristen Knapp. I said I want him on the show for sure. So it really feels good to have people champion that and actually publicly embrace it too. Because I get a lot of people walking by, you know coming.
Speaker 1:I love what you do.
Speaker 2:That's fine, I love it, I accept it all. Please continue that too. But just the embracing and those likes and shit. I never been a social media person Right, so now I'm like fading into, like, oh man, they didn't like my post now. So now I'm like becoming this social media, watching those things now. So it does mean a lot and I challenge the audience out there. You know, subscribe to the show, tune in.
Speaker 1:Yes, I the audience out there, you know. Subscribe to the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tune in. Yeah, I know, in most times leisure time myself included I like to watch funny things. Of course I know it. I'm sitting there on the couch with my daughter watching TikTok little kid funny videos Right For an hour, and they like to watch people eating. I say why you want to hear people crunching and smacking, for you know, but I always challenge people to tune in to things that will actually benefit you. You hear from experts that actually journey through health care that you don't typically have access to, right, and I heard one of my mentors told me she said tune into what you want to turn into. That's a great saying. I said that.
Speaker 1:I did that too.
Speaker 2:And that changed a lot of the landscape of what I listen to in the car. Now, right, those things Tune into what you want to turn into. So I want to be able to prepare my family from a healthcare situation. Right, I want to be that person in my family that people can call and say, hey man, mama, going through this, can you help me? Right, you can be that person in your family. You can have your family ahead of the game, knowing the power of attorney, having that situation, your mom, health insurance, where a Social Security card is, those type of questions you can have answers to it now. And that's what I wanted to do for a community because, as you know, in skilled nursing, people go and sit with admissions or social services and they don't know where to start.
Speaker 1:And they have no idea what's going on and it's not clear, like you said, it's not Having an advocate like you doing that and really can get it, boil it down to the people is it's huge, it really is and it's and it's. And having someone who can really help us bridge that gap and really kind of change the culture and change the mindset of how we, the things we do in our profession, is amazing. Right, we're always looking for those people and you're one of those people.
Speaker 2:Moment thank you. You are my friend. Thank you so Final words as we wrap up today. Final words yes sir.
Speaker 1:Just, you know it's been a great conference already. Yes, sir, it's going to. You know we got a couple days left. I feel like every year we do bigger and better here and it's amazing. It's beautiful too. Oh yeah, the Hyatt, the Hyatt fun. We can get all these people together. It's like old home week, it's like a reunion, you know, at the time alumni coming back um is what it is, and it's just so much fun to get everybody here and you get your passion back. I feel like a lot because so often we get I feel like we go through the every day of the surveys and you know the the difficult things we have to go through, because we're oftentimes we get people what the the worst part of their lives right and you know, and we're the ones that have to build them up, and I feel like coming back here and getting with the people that you work with hand in hand every day kind of gives you that fuel back to really get that fire going again.
Speaker 2:And then it's a year or two. So it's like your rejuvenation.
Speaker 1:Exactly, to finish the year Exactly.
Speaker 2:Thank you again, sir, for joining the platform. Thank you. I'm so happy to have you. Thank you to our sponsors Evolutionary Healthcare, high Regency, here in Orlando, wonderful, here in Orlando, wonderful and, most of all, florida Healthcare Conference and Trade Show Tune in to the next episode. Thank you, thank you, all right. Thank you, sir man you killed that.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man. This episode of let's Get Comfy was brought to you by Evolutionary Healthcare. Caring is what we do.
