Medically Based Model WVU Community Health Forum Final

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
And welcome to the WWU Community HealthForum presented by WBU Camden Clark Hospital.
Today, the one and only LouisHarris back with us. Um the man,
the myth, the legend. Heis back. How are you doing
today, Louis, I'm doing good. I don't know about that legend party.
Man. You're you're the talk ofYou're the talk of the medical the

(00:21):
health and wellness center over there.They talk about you all the time.
And you sound you sound like you'rethe man to go to whenever you're over
there. Yeah, that's it's probablymore than I've been there so long coming
up here, uh, I seenext week May eleventh will be my thirty
fourth year of being there. SoI've been there since before the building actually
opened because I had a construction background, so I actually helped with the construction

(00:45):
guys getting the building, getting theequipment put together and that type of stuff.
So I've kind of it's kind ofmy baby. Wow, thirty thirty
four year Yeah, on the eleventhof May, and you helped build the
building that's over there, not reallybuilt the building, but as far as
the it was a Folks that don'tknow from this area may notice, but
It was a it was called PlayersClub first was a racquetball club, then

(01:06):
the Players Club, and it actuallyhad a bar, a dance floor,
and ten racquetball courts and it justvery small amount of equipment and some cardio
stuff and that was it. Itwas basically, go play racquetball, have
a drink, relax, dance alittle bit, go home. So we
the transformation came when we made itto what it is now where we took
out racquetball courts, put in basketball, took out some more racquetball courts,

(01:27):
put in our maintenance phase and thingswe'll talk about later, put that in
the building, took the restaurant partout and made it into an aerobics room.
Part of the dance floor is nowour boardroom and our sales office where
Scott you know, his offices.So it's that transformation. It was just
a part of that towards the endof putting the final touches on thing,
and then as all the equipment camein, somebody's going to put that together.

(01:49):
So just because of my background andI kind of got thrown into that
and kind of went from there,Hey, if you got the expertise at
and there's nobody like you to doit. But I mean I've been over
there. I was over there acouple of weeks ago, right before Amanda
was on two weeks ago, andwe had I can't remember the gentleman's name
that walked me through and kind ofshowed me everything, but just to see

(02:13):
what it looks like now, I'malmost intrigued to see what it looked like
before the remodel and before everything gotput together and how it was before,
because what do you guys have overthere is is just nothing short of amazing.
And the machines you have, LikeI used some of the newer treadmills
that we're in the back on thebottom floor, and then went over to
some of like the upper body machinesthat were like the new, brand new

(02:35):
machines you got like a year ago, and those are nice. Those are
nice. Yeah. I've actually gotsome pictures from when we opened, so
next time I come up or Iwill definitely share it with in what we
did, I think for our twentyfifth anniverse we may do it again.
Our thirty fifth is we kind ofput a collage poster board up and we
just slammed all those pictures on fromopen and kind of like here we are

(02:58):
now where look where we've come.And that was kind of neat to watch
people's faces, like are you freakingkidding? Maybe because from the outside,
our building probably isn't the most attractive. It's a big metal shell. You
know. We've done some painting andsome facade type things and landscaping to dress
it up. But people walk inand that's the most common thing I hear
or Scott here is during the tours. Wow, I had no idea it
was this nice, it was thisbig, and the amount of the variety

(03:22):
of things you have in here justblows people's minds, so that what you
said is exactly what we hear alot of. Yeah, it's it's it's
better than definitely a lot of thegyms that I mean I've been to personally,
I mean even with the military andeverything, Like the stuff that we
have you guys have there is it'sjust amazing. It's just great, and

(03:43):
the like what was it the one. The other thing that stood out to
me was the basketball court. Howyou guys had the the college logos and
stuff like that, or like thecolleges on the wall. Those are really
well done too. I was impressedby those. Yeah, that was I
get in a little grief for thatbecause I'm originally from cant Ohio, so
i am a Ohise Buckeye fan,Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, Cavaliers,
and I did say Indians. SoI just came to kind of because that

(04:08):
was just white walls. Those wereall those were. There were four racketball
courts where that basketball court sets,so we see this is two playing here.
So obviously I wanted to put theAmerican flag up. We dropped that
over the one side. We alwayshave to have that, and then took
those fatheads. Actually Audio Crafters didthose for me. Did a great job,
and I got some grief as onewas Ohio State in here. Tried

(04:30):
to catch all the area high schoolsand some of the colleges, and then
North Carolina because I'm a huge Carolinabasketball fan, and everybody wonders, why
do you have that in there?So now you all know the story.
Hey, I mean there's a lotof people that I know that that they
follow the high state like football,but then have a different college than they
do for basketball. It's not unheardof, maybe sacrilegious, I don't know,

(04:50):
yeah, But at the same time, I mean, I'm personally not
a basketball fan, Like I don'twatch a whole bunch of basketball and bust
like my dad's doing like the Bettyor something like that, and he wants
kind of like some advice on it. But other than that, I mean,
I don't watch a whole lot ofcollege basketball, college or even the
NBA for example, I don't watcha whole bunch of that. College football

(05:11):
is like through and through where Igo to and I'm I'm screamed at the
TV every Saturday whenever they're I'm justjust saying, what are we like?
It's just yeah, that's how italways has been, right, And to
see that in there is definitely definitelynice to have those up on the wall
because it would if you didn't havethose, it would be really like or
institutionalized, right right. But anyway, I'm going I'm rambling on. So,

(05:33):
louis, what is the topic thatyou want to cover today? What
are you going into today? Ithink it's something we've talked about before,
and I know people out there thatmay be listening this, Oh here we
go again, But I think it'simportant to continually put this out there to
let people know because there are somepeople that jump on and have not heard
this, but just about what themedical fitness based model is. What does

(05:55):
that mean to people? When theyhear that, you say, oh,
that's this Clark always puts us outwhat is it? So that's kind of
what I wanted to spend our timetoday, kind of clarifying and adding just
putting the basics out there about whatit is. And because it's not complicated,
but I think it's something that alot of folks in our area especially
can take advantage of if they've notalready done so, gotcha. Yeah,

(06:17):
And I mean I don't necessarily knowwhat the medically based model is as somebody
that doesn't go, like, Imean, I've got to your guys fidess
facility once in the past two weeksand haven't been able to get back over
their sins. But the as somebodythat doesn't necessarily understand how what that means?
What exactly is a medically based model? In your words, there are
four components that set up And justto give a little backstory to this,

(06:41):
I went, I had to reallylook. Now, it's probably been ten
or twelve years ago. I pulledup one of my trade magazines and I
saw this gentleman's name, Doug Ribley. He was the VP of health and
Wellness at Akron General. And Iread the article through and at that time,
that's when we were getting inundated inthis area with gems. You know,
any times are starting to come in, not just one, not two.
We had five at one time inthis area. Then all of a

(07:04):
sudden, a couple of mom andpops popped up, and then you obviously
had the YMCA Mary at YMC inParkersburg. Then you had Planet Fitness come
in, and you had a fewmore of just mom and pop type shops
pop up, And I was like, you know what, we this market's
not that big to handle all thesepeople. It's like the car sales for
an we got too many, youknow what I mean? What can we

(07:25):
do to differentiate ourselves from from somethingin this article? And where I read
it is like, you know what, I need to take a visit up
there. So I took a roadtrips that's from my hometown area up there.
Went. Then I end up takingour whole leadership team up from the
hospital, CEO, VPS everyone tolook at the model and everybody's like,
this is impressive. So I broughtit back to our existing building and decided

(07:46):
we're going to try to start implementingthis just little pieces of time. We
can't do it all, but we'regonna slowly start making it happen. And
those components. Getting back to yourquestion, basically, we've added one of
just safety. You're gonna get moresafety from a cleaning oversight standpoint. In
our facility, you have medical oversight. I have a medical director that I
report too, and I sit downand meet with him about every decisions that's

(08:09):
made in our facility. Clinical integrationmeans you may have something going on to
hospital, for example, a heartattack, you go through phase one,
Phase two, you come to ourbuilding for what they used to call phase
three, and now it's called maintenancephase and we continue on. Then hopefully
after that you become a member ofthe facility. So that's the integrated piece
of the third The fourth pillar isthe qualified staff. I've not been in

(08:35):
a lot of the gyms around herelately, but I know in the past
was people just like you and Ijust like to work out. We want
to work in a gym. Everyoneour facility has at least a minimal a
certificate in what they're teaching. Allthe Group X teachers, all the exercise
specials have at least a minimum fouryear degrees, So everyone in that building
has expertise on what it is thatyou're asking about in your particular. If

(08:58):
you want to know a yoga,if you want to know had a heart
attack, if you've got cancer,We've got the area the regions only Fit
to Thrive exercise program for people withcancer. So if I'm out there in
the public saying, wow, onea lot of people have never been to
a gym. You don't consider ourselvesa gym. We go a wellness center.
But it's like, Okay, ifI'm going to make an informed,
smart decision, which most people are. The internet is that everyone's fingertips,

(09:22):
I'm gonna do some research. That'swhere I'm gonna go because I know that
the staff there, the medical oversight, the cleanliness, and the integration that
if something does happen to me,we're tied in with w medicine. It's
a no brainer for me. That'sfacility I want to visit. Yeah,
absolutely, And I think everybody that'sin this area, and I mean not
even just this area, but justin this state or this part of the

(09:46):
country in general. I think it'sa good idea to go to somewhere that
has those this trained staff that areable to assist you along the way.
And I think that's kind of whatmakes me more comfortable in a way,
is if something were to happen orsomething was say, something were to happen
to like me or somebody else thatwas in there, not everybody's No one's
gonna stare sit there and look atyou and be like, I don't know

(10:07):
what to do. Ye Like,at least everybody that's on that floor is
going to jump in and try todo what they can to keep you from
either getting severely hurt or X,Y and Z of whatever can happen.
And that's kind of what I guessmade me want to go in a way,
because most gyms you just have peoplethat are just meat heads that want

(10:28):
to get just get really buffing.They don't care about doing anything else after
that. But then you guys havethe the courses to not only just work
out to get stronger and to gethealthier, but you also have the everything
on the back end. Like whatwas it the other one like you said,
the fit to thrive thing with likecancer patients and everything. Yeah,
they're want to strong for surgery.Like as someone's going for surgery, we

(10:48):
want to get you because it's provein fact out there that the probably have
a guest speaker will talk about that. Probably at some point Jeff Delancy runs
it. But if you go andget yourself as health and as fit as
you possibly can prior to surgery,your recovery time is cut down and occurs
much faster. It's a proven fact, there's data out there. So that's
kind of like those one of thosepositive based outcomes that are proven. So

(11:11):
you know that program is huge tohave. And like I said, that's
like you said, it makes youmore comfortable, especially if you've had a
heart attack or you just had alife event. You just went to a
doctor and he said, hey,your numbers are not where they should be
with your blood works, possible youcould become diabetic. Right, Okay,
My first thought is my bu's gonnastart exercising and I'm gonna start eating right.

(11:31):
So and we have that component.We've got a girl teaching a life
coaching and that's just about reducing stresseating right, sleeping right, exercising,
putting all that together. Lynda mccleadjust joined us here a couple of months
ago, and she's teaching a classon Monday nights as far as taking you
the grocery store and showing you howto shop. So when you said that
overall concept of that's even at myphysicis I've been this around as all my

(11:56):
life. That's still what I want. I want to be able to go
to one place, have someone tellme exactly what I need to do.
If I get a problem, they'regonna take care of me. How do
I eat? Right? Okay,I'm gonna talk to this lady. You
know, I want every component inone building for you. And that's what
it's about today for people. Iwant convenience. I don't want to have
to go here, here, here, and there to get all my stuff
done. Let me go to thewellness center and get all my wellness knees

(12:18):
taken care of. So the onestop shop for basically everything. Instead of,
like you said, having to goto eight different places exactly eight different
things, you can go literally oneplace and you get everything exactly. And
I didn't know Linda actually did becausewhenever we did the I did the podcast
with her. I would say abouta month ago. I did not know
that she actually went and actually boughtlike help people like do groceries to you

(12:39):
all that I did not take themto the grocery store. I did not
know that ye have to read labelscorrectly? Didn't what do I shouldn't I
have this much? Or should youknow? What do I need to do?
So that that's huge and I andI will tell you even as long
as I've been doing that, thatis my weak point. You know,
I still I eat pretty healthy itthen man, like that ice cream,
those cookies, you gotta really thinkabout what you're doing when you're eating it

(13:01):
and what you've just spent all thattime in the gym doing before you go
home. And so it's it is. You can't just take one piece of
wellness and think you're going to getbetter, right, have many goals and
reach out. So it's you know, like I said, it's it's not
and think a scientist to figure thisout, but it's I mean us to
be able to have that right herein Parker's Bar for everybody, I think
is a huge advance to everybody,and especially being tied in what w medicine.

(13:24):
Absolutely, And I mean, aswe're talking about this, I have
a mountain doing a nice coffee sittingover here. So I mean, I'm
it's like the pop call and thekettle black here. I mean, I'm
not necessarily the most well in shape, and I've never have been. I
mean, but what do you guyshave going like you just even Linda just
going out to bot help people likeunderstand the labels. That's even, like
I said, did not even knowthat was a thing. And that's that's

(13:46):
wild because nobody else does that stunt. But to kind of get back on
track here, because I mean,I'm going off on different tangents. You
were talking about the four pillars ofthat medically based model. Now what is
the importance of each Like each ofthose pillars exactly? So how important is
each one? Okay? The safetyfactor I think is huge right now,

(14:07):
especially in today's air of what's justgone on with COVID. If it's still
here, is it gone or not? But that really kind of brought things
to the forefront. We always hadsafety measures in place, but I think
we've stepped it up ten times sincethen, and I think that's important to
know that from as basic thing asyour cleaning process to your solutions, to

(14:28):
what we do every day. Everythingwe use as hospital based. So I
think that would give people even moreassurance in their head that these guys are
really clean and everything. We askour members to do it between each other,
to wipe things off. It wouldprobably gone to the extreme of it,
but I think again, if you'resomeone who's had a life event or

(14:48):
never been in a gym, that'ssomething that would be, especially these days,
be very important. The medical oversightI think is important to me because
the decisions aren't being made by justthe general population. You've got a doctor,
you know, having conversations with meand our staff about how we do
things. From things always cleared likeour health history. When you joined,

(15:09):
you filled out of health history.There's not many places that do that.
Well, that's for your own good. People will say, I don't want
to it feels like I'm closing,you know, doing that closing on a
house. Well, you know whatif I see something like you've got blood
pressure, I know, during exercise, your heart rate and blood pressure probably
aren't going to go up like theyshould because your medication is doing its job.
Or maybe it's not, and Ican say, hey, go back

(15:31):
and see your doc because your BPshould be controlled with that medication. So
just little things like that, Sohaving that medical oversight is hugely important.
The integration peath, I think,kind of speaks for itself. That look,
like I said earlier, if youhave a heart attack, I'm in
the hospital, I go home.Now what do I do? No,
you need to be going to rehab. You need to keep eating correctly.

(15:52):
We actually put ourselves embed ourselves in. When they're in phase two and they're
almost done with their stuff at thehospital, Jeff de Lancey goes down and
meets everyone and says, hey,gets all their names. We make a
phone call to him, say wouldyou like to join the maintenance face to
keep going so you don't have anotherheart attack or another heart issue. So
we put ourselves right in the middle, go to the hospital and do this

(16:15):
down there when they're on their treadmills. At that point, they've still got
twelve LEADPG on right, so whenthey come to us they don't have anymore.
We're still checking blood pressure, monitoringthem, doing little testas how they
progress. So that integration piece ishuge. And then the last piece I
think you know again, the qualifiedstaff is to me very important if you

(16:36):
come in and say, hey,my goals are to get buff. Okay,
we got a guy. All ofthem that look Mikey, I'm fifty
eight, you know, fifty seven, fifty eight. I need just to
get my overall wellness back and checkwhere do I start? Okay? So
I think all four of them havetheir pieces, and each one is very

(16:56):
important. Together. Again, youcan't pull one piece out. Now.
If someone says I don't have time, if they at least do one thing,
okay, that's better than none.Right. But again, I think
having those four pillars and being ableto understand what each one is. Again,
if I'm someone out there setting thatjust had a heart attack, just
got toldly at diabetes, just gottold you gotta lose weight, just whatever

(17:17):
doctor might tell you, this wouldbe why I'd want to come. Yeah,
it sounds like the whole, thewhole base model of those four different
pillars. They're kind of like piecesof like a jigsaw puzzle. Almost you
take one out, the system doesn'twork as effectively as it should. But
when they work together, you seethe whole broader picture of what they're supposed
to do and what they're doing foreverybody in the community. And and I

(17:38):
mean Jeff for example, like hedid he did a real good job whenever
he was in here, Like Ithink it was like probably about a month
ago, he did a real goodjob of like the cancer or the thrive
for cancer or thrive. Yeah,he did a good job of talking about
that. And I saw him whenI was down there, and everybody's just
really good. And I think ifyou go in there and you're working out

(18:00):
and you see the staff cleaning andactually taking care of everything and doing everything,
I think that almost kind of likesubconsciously installs something in everybody's head to
go, hey, I should probablyclean this, or I should probably clean
off everything when I'm done. Andthe safety and just making sure that nobody
gets sick, I think is likethe biggest top priority. Even with nowadays,
like you said, with COVID andeverything, whether it's here, whether

(18:22):
it's not, if it's sticking aroundor it's changing and doing whatever it's doing.
I think the cleanliness is a huge, huge thing right now, and
that kind of scares a lot ofpeople. But going in there and knowing
for a fact that I know andI see it that everything's clean, there's
no there's no issue with me feelinglike I'm gonna get sick or feel like

(18:42):
I'm gonna get anything from something likeif there's no worry. And then on
top of that, you see somany different people, Like I've seen kids
that were they looked like fresh outof high school almost, and then you
see college kids, and then yousee the older crowd, and everybody just
gets along. Everybody's great together.And the one guy that was down there,
I can't I don't think. Idon't remember his name, but he's

(19:03):
a he's a bigger guy, likea bigger like a buffer guy, Sam
Sam. He was down there andhe was coaching this one person. I'm
like, if you don't see thatvery much anywhere else, Like you don't
see that with like most gyms,it's mostly just they're here for you to
get in, pay your money andget out. You guys are more along
the lines of trying to make sureeverybody comes in, gets healthier and makes

(19:26):
their life better and just not andlive longer. Right for the most part,
In quality of life, I mean, we want people to reach their
goals. And that's what I constantlypreach and we just had a meeting yesterday
with the guys that work on thefloor and girls. Guys, we can
get all the members you want,but if you're not reaching your goal,
you're probably not gonna stay right,you know, even with you, you

(19:47):
haven't been there in two weeks,So let's let's get back in there,
because a lot of it is lookin the mirror, I haven't been ever
two weeks. But again, whenwe initially assess, you say, listen,
to reach your goals, you gotto be in here three days a
week, you know. And it'sand that's the tough part for me knowing,
like you know, the control pieceyou haven't been in Well, there's
not much I can do other thanhey man, Blake, get in here,

(20:07):
right, let's go. I can'tcome to your house and drag you
in here. So it's just thatpart frustrates me sometimes. Or you know,
we'll get people that six months interaction. Well I've never been there,
you know, and that's tough.We've called, we've set up stuff for
them and they don't make it.And that's you know, we'd really like
to see everybody at least give ita good chance, because like everything else.
I think what they say is thirtyor sixty days you form a habit.

(20:29):
Yeah, and that's it's key.That initial time is with that assessment
we do, and and staying ontop of getting their workout going and encourage
them when they come by the frontdesk that everybody at the front desk is
a great job. How you do? They usually know your name after a
while. And so it's just theoverall package, like you said, is
key. And I think the otherpiece, you know, to the medical
model is that at some point there'sother another four pieces that that that you

(20:53):
in one location, you diagnose,you treat, you rehabilitate, and you
prevent all in one building. SoI think that ultimately, if I get
to that point with a building thatI can have what does that mean,
Probably have doctors in my building,Probably have a small lab where you can
draw blood, X ray, MRI, whatever it might be. And then

(21:15):
the preventive side is what we alreadyhave. So I think, you know,
someday down the road, I wouldlove to see, you know,
we get the full model, justthe whole piece to it. So but
we keep building and building because whenwe first started we have any of this
now we've got the integration, themedical piece, the safety. You know,
we're just plugging along. And soI think that there's that's a key

(21:37):
because we're we can already treat,we're treating. Yeah, the diagnosed piece
is probably the piece we're not doingother than just basic stuff. But you
still got to go to the hospital. We are if you get a problem
or something like that. But someof these some of these models actually have
a small urgent care attached right totheir building. So you've got an ear,

(21:59):
you've got the well on a center, you've got outpatient pt here,
and you've got a lab and doctor'soffices down this wing, but all into
the same roof. Got that's prettycool concept. Yeah, that's good a
concept. And I mean and howyou're saying like it down like further down
the road where you guys can dolike the diagnos and all, like the
blood drawn all that. I feelconvenience, convenience exactly, And like you
said, the one stop shop,you want to be there and do we

(22:22):
be able to do everything. Butit's at the same time, it's like
a it's kind of like a crawlwalk run type face. You want to
get your solid base and your solidfoundation in place and do it flawlessly before
you start expanding out past that.And I think and I mean, granted,
you guys are doing a great jobdoing it anyway right now, so
it could be it could be soonerrather than later that all that stuff could

(22:45):
be to come to fruition, right. Yeah. And we've got all the
labs around town, I mean,Cameron Clark w met Us, We've got
labs outside north Side, I meaneverywhere you go and Harbor Point and Williamstown.
Now we got Urgent Care and MariettaUrgent Care in Parkersburg. So we're
really expanding our at print and Ithink that's good and helps the community that
we're outreaching to people that makes itconvenient for them absolutely. Now, how

(23:07):
you mentioned about the population of thecommunity, And we may have touched this
on this previously, or like someoneelse may have touched on this previously,
But who in the community would benefitfrom a place like like going to your
guys facility, Who would like benefitthe most out of this because we know
our because ut Scott made a commentin the podcast we did like a while
back that this area is not necessarilythe healthiest in the world and there's a

(23:30):
lot of like like, obesity isa big thing, Diabetes is a big
thing around here. Even cancers area big thing around here too. With
all of the stuff going on here, who would benefit the most out of
all of this? The model was, and this is a funny statistic,
and I need to look because Ijust look last year. But back in
nineteen seventy seven, just give youa guess, how many people do you

(23:52):
think belonged to gems or wellness centers? Just throw a number out there.
I don't know, likewelve hundred maybe, Okay, it was. And this
is what's really crazy. In nineteenseventy sent, fifteen percent of the American
population belonged to health clubs or wellnessclubs or gems. And this is back
probably two years ago, the lasttime they had data. Guess what the

(24:15):
percentage was then fifteen percent, Sothat mean had not changed. So that
means there's eighty five percent of thepopulation that are not involved with a gym,
wellness center or anything of the saintyou know, I likely, So
this model came from all Right,everybody's fighting over that fifteen percent. What
can we do to differentiate ourselves andgrab the eighty five percent. That's where

(24:37):
the medical fitness model comes in.So back what I said earlier. Have
you had a life event, doctortold your obese, your diabetes, pick
up, your blood pressures, up, your jobs, stressing you out,
whatever it might be, You've gotto get into a center like that's what
we specialize in. The Other oneis you've actually had a life event or
you've never been to a gym.And people that hesitate to come to a

(25:00):
gym there number one reason is justuneasiness thinking that everybody in there looks like
you know, my show, myage, like Arnold, you know,
or some fair faucet back in theday, that type of thing. And
that's not true. Especially in ourgym. You've been there. You can
see that there's people of all shapes, sizes, ages, and like you
said, it's like a big family. And that's what I want it to

(25:21):
be. I want people to,yes, say I go to the club
to golf, Well, come downto the wellness center to get better before
you golf, you know, andit and a lot of you'll walk by
people. The more you're there,I say, hey, Blake, I
heard you. I mean, that'sexactly how it is. And it's it's
crazy. I've been doing this sinceeighty nine when this studio was clear down
to the enna somewhere with Steve Dahardyand I was like, who's gonna listen

(25:44):
to? You know, I wascoaching at the time and my kids.
Because the show aired on it wetaped and it aired on a Sunday.
A coach I heard you. Iwas like, these are seventh eighth graders
listening to AM radio about a talkshow. So you know, I think
it's it definitely gets out to people. It definitely does. I can tell
you that it definitely does, becauseI mean I can tell you I could

(26:07):
walk like we can even take mydad for example, like him being a
business owner and everything. You justmentioned his name and they're like, oh
my gosh, I know exactly whothat is, Like they immediately know.
And the same thing with like WV, like the health and Wellness Center and
everything. The minute you mentioned that, everybody's like, I've heard about that.
I want to go over there,like and then they start asking questions
and then the questions start rolling inand that's where we direct everybody. I

(26:30):
direct everybody your way, And Isaid, hey, talk to talk to
Louis over the Health and Wellness Centerand he can get you all the answers
you need. And and that's thebiggest thing with our community is once you
hit that reach, you want toreach the person the people that you want
to get in here, not necessarilyfocusing just solely on the people you want
to get in here, but justeverybody as a whole in general, because

(26:52):
you don't want to miss anybody thatcould could benefit from it. Say that
they're they're early on and they're likethey they're getting towards having a life event,
or maybe they just want to preventone in the future. They're getting
older and they they're more their familiesmore prone to heart attacks or strokes or
X, Y and Z. Theywant to get in there to prevent that
from happening. And I think that'swhere it starts, is going in to

(27:14):
see you, see Scott, seeJeff, see everybody over there, and
get that started before something does happen. And my motto is make it,
do it before it happens. Dosomething before it happens so that you don't
regret it after it happens. Andthat's the biggest thing is like my family
history and everything My grandmother had diabetes, She had all kinds of different stuff,

(27:37):
and I wish that if she wouldhave had or gone to something like
this, that maybe she would havebeen better off and she would have lived
a little bit longer. Yea,And that's kind of then that's where the
regret comes in of not being ableto be like, hey, you should
probably go check this out, orhey you should probably do this so you'll
live in you'll learn. Yeah,and it is, I mean, it's
we as you've seen. We've gotall walks of people. They're people are

(27:57):
perfectly healthy. They just care abouttheir health and come in. But I
think if it's back to your questionof what's the focus of this model,
it is people with a health lifeevent or people that have never come into
the city that are worried about safety. So I think that's probably the two.
That's the eighty five percent of thepeople why they're not here, you
know, and then all of asudden, I need to go somewhere because

(28:17):
the stuff happened so absolutely, Andyou mentioned earlier about being like if somebody
has high blood pressure and say thattheir medication is working and it's doing the
blood and it's dropping their blood pressurelike it should. But then you also
said that if it's not working thatyou can say, hey, go check
out, go talk to so andso and get it fixed. Right.
I'm assuming that your guys a relationshipwith the physicians and the doctors and everything

(28:38):
are very very strong. If I'myeah say that. I mean from the
very beginning when you filled out yourhealth history, if you would have had
certain risk factors or checks on ahealth history, accuse us to say,
you know what, before you startworking out, you're gonna call your physician
or you're gonna go see them,and now you're gonna send us a slip
that says may participate, participate withoutany restrictions, or I don't want to

(29:00):
blood pressure exceeding this, or don'tcarry or don't lift weight over this amount.
So we've got a great relationship withthe doctors, and we've been doing
this so long that they know thatwhen they see these, you know,
our fax machines rolling all day fromslips coming in, Hey, Blake's good
to go, Louise needs not liftover twenty pounds, those things continually,
and once we get that, thenthe next when they take you through your
workout, they look and say Okay, I got to do this, this

(29:22):
and this or tato this program aroundto make sure that I'm taking care of
those issues that the doctor have found. So for sure that that relationship is
huge, and that's basically the biggestpiece of this model. As physician referrals
and more and more docs are startingto believe in what we're doing, and
we're going to start communicating back withthem, letting them know they send us
a patient if they want to,we can give them like a progress report,

(29:44):
where the progress report is the nexttime you go back to the doc,
Hey, you want some weight BPSdown. Great, your VP's down
so much, let's lower that dose. We've seen that years people come in
and on BP mean and after twoyears of being consistent, they're off their
medication. That's ultimate. Wow.So and what we've seen that over the
years. So just to get offthe medication as soon as you've done,

(30:06):
you've kind of because the doc seesyour blood prayers are starting to drop and
you're eating healthier and everything you're doingis definitely helping. I mean, nobody
wants to be on medication. OhI hate I just hate taking allergy medication,
let alone, like the medication thatlike diabetics or like anybody to have
like health issues need that they gotto do it every day. It's it's
that And that's the thing that makesme kind of wonder is like I'm not

(30:30):
a fan of like I'm not evena fan of shots in general, but
to just have to take like aninsulent shot every day or do like any
sort of like shots in general athome, it's just it just it just
makes my skin crawl because my grandmotherhad to do it all the time.
And I mean as a kid,you you're interested in them doing the blood
like the blood sugar stuff and allthat, but I mean it's just then

(30:53):
also watching them deteriorate after so long, if I like, if they don't
get something right that you just kindof are like, I wish I could
do more. And then you don'twant that to happen to yourself. You
know, it wakes hup. Yeah, it definitely it's a huge, huge
wake up call for sure. Umnow kind of and then going into another
question, is there any like incentivefor like members to go talk to their

(31:15):
doctor that you guys do or likeif they go to their doctors, do
you give them like an incentive todoing that. Yeah, we started this
I think about two years ago.Um, once a year, we allow
you to give you a little card. You take it to your doc for
your annual checkup, get that signedoff and doc bring it back. We
give you a three month on additionto your membership, which has been a
pretty huge I mean it's it's slow, but it's growing. I think last

(31:37):
year we had almost fifty people takeadvantage of it. So and that was
our peace to try and help,especially after COVID, get people back to
their docks, because you know,their visit was telemedicine, it was this
or that. But that was ourour help to get not only people to
know your numbers we always say,you know, but to get get get
back to the docks and let's geta check up here. So that was

(31:57):
how can we do you know,what to do to help that? I
was like, how about we givehim a free month. So we'll send
out emails about every two three months. And Andrea does a great job with
that, my front desk supervisor.She'll send them out and just say hey,
just a reminder if you go toyour physicians, stop, buy the
desk, get a car, getit signed bring it back, We'll give
you a free month. So that'scool. That's that's actually a really good
incentive. And especially like you saidtwo years like two years ago, when

(32:21):
you implemented this with COVID and everything, I think that was that's also a
good thing to have them go thereto get It's just I just think it's
a good idea in general. Imean, I'm a lack of words just
how to describe what I'm trying toexplain, like say here, but I
think with COVID and everything and everybody, like you said, being like telehealth

(32:42):
or whatever that was, you didn'tsee anybody face to face like you saw
face to Facebook was steward computer screen. You didn't see how everybody was and
everything like that. And I'm nota big fan of I'm more a face
to face like I've got to seeit to be able to like do something
about it. And with COVID,that took that completely out of the equation.
And now that they're actually you guysare actually incentivising people to go to

(33:02):
the doctor, go get checked out, go get examined, go get just
a check up done. I thinkthat wouldn't make it easier to get back
into the old routine of going tosee a doctor on a regular basis,
and adds a part of that too. I think, as they will see,
I've been working out here six months. Man, my clothes are fitting
a little different. I've got moreenergy, and I went to the dock.

(33:22):
Wow, look I lost some weight. Natural things happen by Actually,
I always say, exercises, medicine. That's my answer to everything. Something
hurts, exercise more. You know, it's not always smart. Let me
let me tell you. My workoutpartners would tell you that. Pat and
Jeff would say, you know,I'm a stubborn mule because I mean,
I probably really have some stuff goingon and I just keep so. But

(33:44):
yeah, that's the other big advancethat in my mind of going to the
doctors. Wow, that gives yousome more reassurance that I'm not just doing
this because everybody should be exercising.I'm seeing results, right, And that's
and the result is what you're mainlywanting to see. Is if you don't
see the results, you're gonna stop. And if you see the results and
say, hey, I am losingweight, Hey my clothes are fitting better,

(34:05):
Hey I look a little many goalsexactly exactly, and that's what everybody
is is about seeing the results andbeing able to look at themselves and be
like I am having a difference.I do have a difference, Like there
is something different going on here.And I think that's a huge, huge
thing with your guys facility, Likeif they stop going, they're going to
get worse health wise. But ifthey keep going and they keep doing it,

(34:29):
then they're more inclined to keep comingback and keep doing it and keep
doing it. Right. And thennow this month, because we're in the
month of May, and then forsome reason yesterday I thought it was June,
and I don't know why June,But for this month in particular,
is there any kind of specials youguys are offering, Like is there anything
like like special wise that's going onthis month? Yeah, what we're doing
right now the first ten days ofMay, as the Nittiche fee is only

(34:50):
ten days. Then after that itgoes back up to the nor rate.
So if you're thinking about it,you need to get in here in the
first few first basically week of Mayand take advantage of that. But again
and that you bring up a pointthere that one of the other reasons you
hear people don't come to a gymor don't work out or want to quit
is financial. And that's probably theworst excuse to bring to a person like

(35:13):
me, whether I was at agym or not, or working at a
gym, I just I can't.I can't. That doesn't register with me
because you look around this town oranywhere you go out to eat one time,
even with just two of you,you got forty or fifty bucks right
now throwing a few drinks where you'reup sixty seventy eighty bucks. And people
don't hesitate to do that in thistown. Drive around our restaurants, drive

(35:37):
around our drive throughs. It's ridiculoushow many people are there. So I
always say, well, I can'taffordable. Wait a minute, even for
an entire family, anybody under theage of twenty six, it's fifty eight
dollars a month. That's thirty onedays of allowing yourself to get better and
be healthier. So you break thatdown thirty one divided by a fifty eight

(35:58):
How much does that come out wayless than going out to eat one time?
Absolutely, So I just kind ofdrifting off there. But you know
that's one of the things that you'reout there, Oh, I can't afford
it, Well, what can youafford your health? Or going out to
one of the restaurants and you know, gorging on that and then sitting back
and doing nothing. I think it'ssafe to say that you're the money should

(36:20):
not be an issue when it comesto your health. I don't think I
think that's I think that's a prettygood thing to say, because most people
put money before health. And ofcourse then they go out and they spend
thirty dollars on Wendy's or thirty dollarson X, Y and Z restaurant where
they don't care about what they're puttingin your body. They're they're just worried

(36:40):
about the money and making the moneyand putting more food into other people's mouths
that aren't necessarily the healthiest form.And but then you guys are over here
telling them, hey, take thatmoney you would be doing at the restaurant
over here, bring it here.But you're gonna get healthier and you're gonna
be a lot better off, Andyou can have that cheat day and go
grab a Wendis on and that's thething. You get into shape and you

(37:01):
reach your goals. Nothing says youhave to be one hundred percent strict all
the time. There. You know, we give you, hey, take
a cheat day. Now when youstart here, you're gonna have many goals.
We're not gonna expect you to ifyou're thirty pounds are away. It
didn't take you a day to getthirty pounds overweight. It took you a
while to get there, so it'sgonna take a while to get it off.
But just be consistent. Take careof you first. I mean I

(37:22):
always have went out and done sometalks to like the Lions Club, different
places, and I'll start out,you know, say does everybody in the
room brush their teeth daily? AndI get the goofiess looks people laughing like,
oh yes I do. And I'mlike, okay, well, then
you need to exercise a part ofyour day exactly. Why is it any

(37:43):
different We brush our teeth to behealthy. Take and that's the other thing.
You don't have to spend an hourand a half of every day to
be healthy. Do a little biteach day, have an off day.
I mean, there's there's a ride. That's what our folks can help you
with. Just set up a planthat works best for you. Blake,
I can look at you and say, why don't you work out with me?
Say, ain't gonna work for me? You could say, hey,

(38:04):
lou he want's you work out withme? Yeah, that's not really Well.
Every single person has a different goalin mind, a different set of
priorities. So that's what's important toyou. What works for you. You
know, me getting up at fivethird and more and go run or hit
my heavy bag or whatever probably doesn'twork for some people, but others,
yeah it does. Oh, Iwant to do mine at night after the
day's done, you know, Ilike to get up at least get my

(38:27):
cardio done. That works for me. So it's different for everybody. But
the key is just get moving andlike I said, exercises medicine gotcha.
Absolutely absolutely, And we'll just putthis out there. If I were to
ever work out with Louie, hewould probably whoop me into shape and I
would probably be on the ground pantingbecause he I've heard I've heard some of
the stories of what he does inhis workouts, and let me tell you,

(38:50):
it's like some triathlon stuff going onhere. There are a lot of
the people that work over with you. They tell you that, they say
that you have a pretty intense workoutthere. You do a really really intense
like but at the same time,that's for you, right, that's tailored
to what you want to do andwhat you want out of it, which
is not necessarily what I want orsomebody what else would want, but at
the same time, like, it'swhat you want to do, right,

(39:14):
and it's what you can do right, and for me, it would kick
my butt. And I'm just beingjust completely if the honesty is that I
need to probably change the way I'mworking out. Like I said, Pat
and Jeff would be laughing if theyhear this, you know, but I
really do need to start thinking aboutlike I said, i'll be fifty eight
in December, that I probably needto stop working out with twenty and early

(39:35):
thirty year old you know. It'slike you gotta be smart about what you
do, and then again you gotto do what works for you and what
you need the most. Um.You know, I do a lot more
cardio than they do because I'm older. You know, they're young, and
at this point they still should bedoing some but their focus more on you
know, getting stronger, so andthat's and again that's what what your needs
are, what are your priorities?So yeah, he say, he says

(39:58):
older, but he definitely don andlook O shade over thirty right now.
Like I'm telling I'm telling you whatlike when you said you were like fifty
eight or like in that ballpark,there were there There's no there's no way.
There was no way. And that'swhat um. Jeff and the gentleman
that walked me around when I firstwent in there, he was like,
yeah, he's in his fifties.I'm like, what there there There's no

(40:19):
way because it's just put again.Then it goes right back to you've been
taking care of yourself. You've beendoing the things the right way. You've
been doing things to help you stayhealthier, which now in turn, you
have no remedie. Like you don'teven look like you're above forty. And
that's and that's crazy, crazy,And I think that's something people, um,

(40:42):
what exercising does for you on aconsistent basis. I see it with
the people that have been in andI think they would tell you the same
thing. The people have been withus since we open an eighty nine.
It's the same thing. You lookat him and it's like, there's no
way. They're sixty eight now,no way. So I think there's another
side too. I mean, Iknow there's some research out there what exercise
does to you and how you feeland how you look. But it's it

(41:07):
is and it's not easy. That'sit. I mean everybody thought, oh
it's no, it's not. Imean everybody that does it. I can
tell you I don't like exercise.It's a it's tough. I mean,
I do not like getting up atfive fifteen in the morning to go out
in my garage and get on aspin bike or go hit the payment when
it's snowy and rainy, and it'snot fun. It's not, but it's

(41:28):
just it's become a habit for me, and I think that's the key for
everyone. It has to become ahabit. It has to be like I
said earlier, brush your teeth,work out, go to work, you
got to get and again. Butwhat time of day works for you?
But that it has to be.And once you get to that point,
I will tell you if I missa workout, my staff doesn't like me

(41:49):
because I'm grumpy. They can tellI just that's part of my day.
I've got it's that's my drug isexercise. So and like how you said,
like you just you just don't likeworking like you hate working out.
It's like it's not easy. Yeah, And like the military has coined the
phrase embrace the suck, and Ithink that kind of definitely fits this a

(42:13):
little bit. Is like embrace itthe whole way through. And then at
some point you're not gonna it's notgonna suck anymore, and you're just gonna
monotonous, Like I wouldn't say monotonous, but you're just gonna subconsciously just day
And it's just like you said,you're gonna be habitually start doing it.
After thirty sixty days of doing it, it's gonna start becoming routine at that
point. And that's one of thebest habits that you can do for yourself,
exactly that you're not there's really nothingwrong, rather than overuse things that

(42:36):
you know you're gonna get injured oncein a while, but you know I
can't, like I said, exerciseof medicine and exercise of medicine. Well,
Louis, is there anything else thatyou have to cover? Anything?
You want to like put in here. UM, give everybody the address and
where you guys are located to realquick one more time. We're at twenty
eighth four Bert Street and Parkersburg upbehind Rural King and they keep changing the

(42:57):
name Pakatans or whatever it is there. I always changing their family dollar.
It was like family Dollar. Therewas the Michael's building, Michaels and it
was Packatans. He had Craft twothousand and say, yeah, and up
between that up to little Hill there. But anytime stop by, we'll give
you a free tour. Doesn't costanything to take a tour and see for
yourself. I mean, and Iwould almost guarantee you'll probably run into someone

(43:19):
that you know in there, andthey let them tell the story. It's
I always say, it's it's ourmembers place. It's not ours. We
are there to service and help helpyou. So it's it's your club,
it's your wellness center. It's soI encourage people to put We've got comment
cards in the building. We encouragepeople don't like things to give us suggestions.
We just we just finished up ourannual member survey UM and if it's

(43:43):
what Scott's looking at, we hadwhich is a great thing. We had
over ninety percent satisfaction and over ninetypercent would recommend our facility to a friend,
So that makes us feel good.Absolutely. I think I think it
should be a one hundred percent satisfactoryjust because because I think I think everything's
great, especially with the like thelittle place that you can get like powerade,
or you can get like a gatorade, or you can get like a

(44:04):
water or something like that over nextto the front desk, and just the
facilities and everything. It's the cleanestand that's the biggest thing. The cleanest
place I have ever been in outsideof an actual like actual legitimate but like
a hospital and everything. It isliterally to medical hospital greade cleanliness that I
don't think you could even match anywhere. Like it's I love it. I

(44:25):
love it. I love appreciate that. And that's why I skipped. I
will completely bypass the trial. AndI was like, sign me up.
I'm just gonna do it anyway.I mean I may now I'll get in
there every week or every other week, but I definitely will be in there
again. I gotta get I gottaget my button gear, that's for sure.
But anyway, if you've got nothingelse, Louis appreciate I've got nothing
else than anything else at this point, I want to thank you for coming

(44:47):
out here. Um, every singleperson that you've had come over here to
do interviews with me and do thispodcast with I appreciate them. Brittany Linda
jeff In, I don't think Idid her, so I don't think she's
the one. She actually is thecoordinator of Fit for Thrive, the cancer
program. She's the one to certifythe ACSM certified and yeah, and so

(45:08):
she works with all those paces.Yeah, because I think jeff did the
Fit for Thrive thing whenever he wasin here could last. And then Amanda
obviously the most recent one. Everybodywas wonderful. Everybody's been great, approachable,
friendly, especially when I've been downthere. So I appreciate every single
one of them. I appreciate youfor coming in. You know, there's
nothing else we've got. We're ana signer off here. And that was

(45:30):
the WVU Community Health Forum presented byWWU Medicine cam new Clark. Louis the
director over at the Health and WellnessCenter. I appreciate it, and we'll
see you guys in the next episode.