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Reliably Well brings you thoughtful conversations from those who are shaping the future of healthcare, focusing not just on the technical side of the industry, but on the human element, the stories, the struggles and triumphs of individuals who are driving change. Join us for candid discussions that highlight both the challenges and rewards of working in a field where humanity and healthcare intersect.
Today’s guest is someone who brings deep experience, incredible energy, and a genuine heart for both healthcare and community. Today we’re thrilled to welcome Heidi Blanchard, Relias Healthcare’s Senior Director of Recruiting and Staffing Optimization. Heidi has more than 15 years of experience in emergency medicine and hospital medicine across 13 states. Heidi’s led high-performing teams and turned around challenging operations, earning awards like MVP and GRIT along the way.
She now brings her passion and expertise to help grow, optimize, and continue building a place where every clinician wants to work. Heidi is a delight to work with, and her story is one of resilience, impact, and heart. We can’t wait for you to hear it. Yeah, so Heidi, as we’re diving in and we want to hear about you, I think we’re a product of where we come from a lot.
I think Sumner, you introduced me to the book or you broached the subject, Dispatches from Pluto. That’s right. Richard Grant uses a twist on a quote from LBJ about there is America and in America there’s the South and in the South there is Mississippi. it was during the Civil Rights Amendment time when LBJ was talking about that. And Grant goes on to talk about and in Mississippi,
there is the Delta and his book really, I don’t know if you’ve read the book or not, but it really talks about, you know, there is a multifaceted, you you can be in Mississippi and you really haven’t seen Mississippi if you haven’t seen the Delta. And even if you’ve seen the Delta, you know, if you haven’t seen North Mississippi and you haven’t seen the coast, you really haven’t seen all of Mississippi because the state is multifaceted.
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And while I appreciate that in my own state, I don’t know if there’s any more diverse state than Louisiana because you can be up in the northern portion of Louisiana. It’s a little more like Mississippi, what I’m used to. I think you get down in the Chafalaya, I’m probably mispronouncing it wrong. You get down with some Cajun folks and that’s a way different, that’s the Delta-esque sort of.
world way different than the rest of Louisiana. You go to New Orleans, obviously that’s a different culture there as well. So maybe as you’re telling us about you, tell us about your part of Louisiana too that helps make you who you are. Absolutely. So I love to talk about Louisiana and I love to tell people that Louisiana is like making a gumbo. It’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that and no one ever measures anything but how
However it works out, it all comes together and it tastes really good. It’s always great talking to people that are outside of the state and don’t even realize how different Louisiana is. You can drive 30 minutes and it can be a totally different part of the state. You can drive two hours and you’re like, wait, am I even still in Louisiana? So I live in the heart of Cajun country in Lafayette, Louisiana, where we are a diverse state and I love it. And people don’t realize that Louisiana has multiple cultures of Creole.
versus Cajun and what the difference is. So there’s kind of like the internal state battle. Creole, put tomatoes in your gumbo and Cajun, we don’t do that. It’s a good variety and it’s also the food. I will definitely say being born and raised in a large family, A-Bear is a very popular name in Louisiana. I’m one of seven daughters. You’ll become a food snob and
Our food is so great here that when we leave outside the state, everything is just like, ugh. And when people start saying they have Cajun on their menu, and I’m just like, absolutely not. You cannot tell a Cajun girl you have Cajun on your menu. It’s definitely a part that ingrains in you, whether you want it to or not, is our culture, the food, the diversity. It just makes people, feel, turn out to be really great people. You know, we can just get through anything. We can be in any kind of environment and still.
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thrive and survive. And so I think that that also plays into my character of growing up in a large family. You know, parents, my dad was a sheriff’s department officer. My mom was a pre-K teacher. They knew everybody and everybody knew them. My dad was the only man who wore cowboy boots with his police uniform. So his nickname was Country. And so it’d be funny, you’re walking around the city and people would go, hey, Mr. Country. hey, Mrs. Country. And it’s like, why are they calling you that?
You know, my story is I grew up with great parents who worked really hard to give seven kids, seven girls at that, a good enough life to be able to survive and go out into the world and just become good humans and do good things and also make good things of themselves. So I wanted to join the military and I was ready to go. I did two years at the Naval ROTC Academy and my very Catholic mother.
cried so much that I, and made me believe that the world’s gonna end if I left her that I said, okay, mom, I’m not doing it. And so that definitely changed the path. And you know what? I believe everything happens for a reason. If it was intended for me to do it, that path would have opened and it would have opened freely. I always say a prayer that whatever I do, the door’s gonna open and whatever I’m not supposed to walk through, that door won’t open for me.
And so instead of going into the military, I went into finance and started working in the mortgage industry and then started helping out a friend who started a nurse staffing company. And then it made these connections in the healthcare community. And then I was asked to do an interview for a large healthcare company. And then that just kind of opened the path of me getting into healthcare. So Diane Camp is somebody that you’ve said mentored you. I do think that we’re all
products as Dr. Johnsey has affectionately said over the years by the people we meet in the books we read. What was it about Diane that made such an impact on you that you would still kind of reference her to this day throughout everything you’ve done in your career? So Diane Camp lived in Memphis, Tennessee and worked in healthcare for about 40 years. And when I met her, she scared me and not many people scare me ever. Like I’m just whatever. She scared me a little, but I
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was so drawn to her love and passion for what she was doing that I literally just everything she said or did, I was just willing to take it all in. I was just like, my God, this is amazing. She definitely had the approach of I’m going to throw you out this boat and you’re going to sink or swim. And it taught me a lot. It taught me how to be really strong and resilient in healthcare because as we know, you really have to be resilient in healthcare and you have to be able to pivot and adapt and to change at any moment.
And she just had the greatest impact. And I still talk to her to this day. We text, I reach out to her. She’s enjoying the retirement life. I’m still working. But there’s so much of her that she taught me that I still utilize in my everyday life. And one of the things that she would always say that would make me mad and annoy me, but secretly go, my God, she’s so right, was you can’t make people do what you want them to do.
And so like, always like tell myself that just because I want you to do that doesn’t mean you’re gonna do it, but I gotta figure out how do I get you to do it. So she’s always playing in my head over and over. So she just made a really big impact on me and my professional and my love and passion for healthcare and in my personal life. That’s awesome. I would love to meet Diane. I would love to share a cup of gumbo with Diane that is the appropriate type of gumbo. Okay, all right. I’m gonna hold you to it.
As we’ve gotten to know you, Heidi, one of the things that’s really clear that you prioritize, you’ve had all these titles, you’ve worked and have done very well for yourself, but in my short time knowing you, what I recognize is the title that you care the most about is mom. Talk to us about your family and what you enjoy doing outside of work and why that title of mom is so important.
Absolutely. It’s my favorite title. Now my husband and I, are a blended family. So we have a son, a daughter, we have a 23, a 22, and our baby who is 15, just turned 16 and just got a driver’s license. And I’m battling trying not to let her drive because I’m not ready to let go yet. I think it’s the most amazing thing to watch someone that you’ve created and you’ve raised and watch them grow up to be a good person.
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And I always told myself that as a mom, the one thing that I want to accomplish is to raise a good human. And if you’re a good human, then I did my job as being a good mom, because being a good human will help you and guide you in making the right choices and decisions in every part of your life. And when I look at my kids, it’s like, that is just the awe of everything in my life. And I’m so proud of them and their own successes. My son is in hospitality in Florida. You know, I feel like when your kid is strong enough to leave, you did your part also.
My daughter graduated from LSU and she wants to work in criminal justice, but also work with the coroner’s office. And she’s been doing that moonlighting in the community. And then my daughter just became a phenomenon wrestler that we never expected to happen. And now she’s winning all these titles. And when I watch my daughter wrestle, like this past few weeks ago, we were in Missouri and they’re wrestling and they go out of bounds.
and she happens to fall on the other coaches and hits them on accident. And I’m watching my kid get up, look at them and go, are y’all okay? I’m so sorry. And I looked at my husband and I said, we did good with that one too. So I think being able to see what you’ve worked so hard to build character into these humans and watching them become their very best version of themselves is a great accomplishment as a parent. And being a mom is my absolute favorite thing to do. And you also
Figure out, or from what I understand, you’re involved in the healing house. And so not only is your title of mom to your own children, but because of your own story of grief, you’ve gotten involved. Tell us a little bit about the healing house. And I’m amazed at all that you’re able to do, but you also clearly make an impact both in our organization and in clinicians’ lives and in your kids’ lives.
but in other kids’ lives that have undergone really tragic circumstances. Tell us about your role in the Healing House. Absolutely. So my husband sits on a board of Acadian Homebuilding Association and has given his time quite a bit. And we went to an event together where we raised money in the community to give back to community groups. The Healing House was an organization receiving a check.
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and I sat in that room and this was probably two months after my dad passed away unexpectedly. And the story the director Heather said about the healing house spoke to me. And I said, I was like, no matter what happens tonight, I’ve got to talk to this lady. And I had a private conversation with her and I said, I feel it’s so heavy in my heart that I need to be a part of this. She sent me some information.
So I signed up to go take the training courses to become a volunteer. And even though we, as an adult, are working with kids anywhere from the ages of four years old to 18 who have lost a caregiver, they were healing a part of me that was hurting from the loss of losing my dad. And so I became very passionate about it because you sit in a room.
And I work with middle school kids, which are the ages probably from 10 to 13. Every other Tuesday night we get together and the healing house is a safe space for kids to be able to go to, be able to talk about their feelings and have someone that is there to support them. And if they don’t want to talk about their feelings, they don’t have to. And if they do, they’re able to. And so sitting in this room and you hear these kids talk about, know, my mom died, my dad died. And you just figure out like,
that kid is moving on with their life. They lost a parent and it makes you as an adult realize like, okay, yes, I’m grieving, I’m hurting, but this too shall pass and life is gonna continue to go on. And so the healing house was so important to me because not only was I there to help kids be able to talk about their grief, it was helping me to heal and process my own grief at the time. So I’ve been doing that for about four years now and I absolutely love it. And I tell everyone about it that if you truly wanna understand,
how it is to process grief, you should definitely donate and give your time back to the community in doing this. So shifting a little bit, Heidi, from personal aspects and I guess maybe shameless plug here for the Relias side of things. Relias has our five passions, our people, our innovation, our quality, our value, excellence. Which of those passions speaks most directly to you? I think this is definitely an easy one. Of course, it’s going to be the people.
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The way Relias prioritizes the people, because I feel like the people is the nucleus of everything. If you have people that are drawn in and passionate to do what you believe you’re doing, everything else is going to fall in place. The values are going to be there, the excellence is going to show up, and the people that we get to work with, we’re all on the same page. We’re all excited to do what we’re doing. We know it’s hard, it’s not easy, but we’re all there showing up every single day and giving it our all.
And the passion that Reliance has for their people, their clinicians, and their partners in these facilities that we work with is what drew me to want to be a part of this. And so there are people that we work with that influence us. And hopefully all of us have the opportunity to influence those that we work with because we were influenced by somebody else. You talked about Diane Camp professionally and how she really kind of
You caught the bug from her and she’s still involved in your life today. Talk to us a little bit about your mom personally and how she influenced you. can’t imagine raising seven girls right at time. That really is like an amazing thing in and of itself. But talk a little bit about her influence on you and just what it’s like to kind of continue to bring her legacy into your own family.
Yeah, absolutely. So my mom recently passed away in March, which was also a very unexpected loss. And I was given the privilege to be able to write her eulogy and be able to talk to the priest about my mom. listening to other people tell stories about my mom was a reminder of how selfless she was. would always, growing up, my mom would always say, you’re just like your dad. You you’re hardheaded, you’re strong-willed, you’re just like your dad.
But then I started to realize as I got older that I was like, but I’m also a lot like my mom and I love to nurture. I love to give back and I love to care for people. My mom is literally the most selfless people, person that I’ve ever known and probably will ever know. She was the type of person, it didn’t matter who you were, where you came from or what you had. If you needed a hot meal, she had an extra one on her.
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on her dinner table. Even if there was not enough to share, she figured out a way to make it enough. If you needed clothes, she’d provide something for you. If you needed a hug, she was the best hugger. She was the mama that if her grandkids that are 20s, in their 20s were sitting on her lap, leave, she would cry because they were about to leave her. She was the definition of what you call a mama. My mom’s selfless heart to love everybody no matter what their story is something I absolutely admire.
There was never any judgment of anyone in her life. And I would love to be more like my mother because it was a great example to give back and just be a good person. I wish that I would have had a chance to meet her. She was pretty cool. She’s only like 4 foot 10, but she was very mighty. Heidi, what’s the biggest challenge that you think that we’re facing or you’re facing in our current?
professional environment. Obviously, what we thought was a status quo five years ago is not a status quo now. There’s been an evolution in what the ED looks like for what healthcare is looking like going from an inpatient, in hospital world to an out.
patient setting, but obviously over the past five years that evolution has been influenced greatly by the pandemic and all of the other trends and forces that got set off. What’s challenging you and your role now the most? So think for me and what I do, it’s the shortage of people actually going into medical school that is going to continue to create a supply and demand issue for healthcare.
And I’ve tried to do a lot of reading about this to understand like, you know, why are people not going into healthcare anymore? And I feel like we’re, in this weird phase of the different generations that exists. So you have your generations that have, it would work no matter how long it takes. And then you have a newer generation that even when I look at my kids, that they have become accustomed to instant gratification. It’s, know, you don’t have to go to the library.
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pull five books to do a research, you can say to your phone, hey, I need you to get me this information and you have it immediately. And so I think that the fact that it takes so long to go through school to become a clinician, I think it’s a turnoff to the newer generation of they’ve become accustomed to that instant gratification and the instant being able to get what it is that they need or want. And I think that the supply and demand and the lesser people that go into healthcare or have a passion for healthcare.
the more we will struggle with being able to have enough people to cover all of the openings that everyone has across the United States. I also think we’re in that transitional phase of generations where you have the older crowd that still want to touch and feel that clinician and be in the room with them. And then you also have the newer generation that says, hey, just talk to me through my phone, tell me what’s wrong with me, and I want to go on about my life.
So I think it’s like trying to be able to satisfy and fulfill all of those aspects of healthcare while healthcare continues to grow and pivot into new technology and new ways of doing things. Yeah, it is. think there are a lot. There’s probably always been some of that generational change, but I think the same way that we’re seeing a lot of speed up of technology changing, I think we’re seeing a lot of speed up of generational desires change at a
at a faster pace too, as you say. so, you know, that pace at which this evolution is going for everybody is so much more rapid, but yet it’s harder for us to adapt to that rapid desire for what people really want. And like you said, you got to serve both situations and that’s really challenging. And I think there’s clinicians, there’s some of them that still want to have that personal interaction.
And then there’s some of that newer generation that they really don’t necessarily get that engagement so much of the face to face. They’re much more happy to be indirect. And so it is a weird space that we find ourselves in right now. Yeah. And Heidi, you probably talk to more clinicians than anybody I know.
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When you like, and so you probably have a good stault or a kind of a gut feel of like, this is gonna be a good fit or this is not gonna be a good fit. What’s something that you look for as we’re in this transition period of everything you just spoke about where you’re like, he or she’s gonna really fit in this complicated environment that is healthcare today? Yeah, so I try to understand every clinician’s right now aspirations versus
what the long-term is because you’re just getting out of residency and you’re going to work. Your right now focus may be like, I want to make as much money as possible and I want to pay off all of my student loan debt. However, when I start a family, I want to pull back down and I want to be in a different community. And so there’s always certain questions that I think are important that create and build the conversation. What do you want to accomplish right now? What’s most important to you right now?
And in five years, is that going to adjust or adapt? And where do you see yourself in five years? That helps me to understand, do I put this person in a slower pace, smaller community-based facility? Or do I put this person in a high acuity, high volume to where they are capitalizing on all of their training and they’re ready to move quick. So I think that when you get to know them and you understand what they’re looking for right now, what they’re looking for in five years, and even what they’re looking for in 10 years,
we can be proactive of understanding, okay, right now this is a good opportunity for you. But listen, in five years, we’re gonna talk about this next opportunity and this is where I you as being a good fit. And as we continue to adapt and grow, me having that knowledge of each clinician will help me to be proactive with having those conversations with them so we can be proactive in getting them in the right place and keeping them happy in the space they’re in. And I had the privilege of sitting with you in an interview or an
her introductory call this past week and we hung up and I immediately picked up the phone and called our chief operating officer and I said, Blake, Heidi, like she doesn’t need me. Like I feel like I was holding you back from fully, I was so impressed with your ability to navigate that with somebody that you’re kind of, it’s almost like going on a blind date, you like you don’t really know the person, but you’re trying to feel now, like, this going to be upset or not? So I was,
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I was totally, I was like, all right, I just need to be more like Heidi. Well, I definitely needed you because you talked about a lot of the stuff that is not my expertise. Well, yeah. So tell me about goals that you have kind of for working with clinicians at Relias, maybe kind of folks that are already involved in our organization that might be leaders and then maybe
a goal for people that you hope to bring into the organization to take care of patients with us? Absolutely. So my biggest goal is to deliver the red carpet service to everyone, existing, new. Even if someone doesn’t want to join us right now, they may join us in the future. So I think that as we continue to grow and we develop our recruiting department, we’re going to be the best in the business and deliver that red carpet service so people are drawn to us and they want to be a part of Relias no matter where that.
facility opportunity is. And so as I continue to get to know all of our clinicians that currently work for us and work with our leaders and get them on board of that red carpet service, it’s only going to flow down in a positive way. And as we continue to talk to residents and build those relationships with them and be a partner with them while they’re transitioning, it’s going to help us to be stronger in that relationships and the states that we’re in so that they will continue to remember, man, rely us when above and beyond.
Man, Relias did this. I want them to say their name every time someone asks the question of, man, what’s a great company? Or if someone hesitates about working for a group like ours, they go, no, you don’t have to worry about that. Relias will take care of you. That is my ultimate goal is that every clinician, whether they’re working with us today or five years from now,
have nothing but great things to say about Relias and the red carpet service we’re going to deliver. Yeah, there’ll always be a job that’s paying more somewhere. There’ll always be, you know, a job on the coast or in the mountains somewhere that we don’t have a lot of mountains in Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama that we can give them. you know, the coastline is not necessarily what they have in Florida and in California, but you don’t get to see it very much from the ED or from the hospital when you’re working anyway.
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but if we can show them that we know who they are and we care about them, that’s what’s important. Absolutely. And connect with them. So, what would you look back on? What would you say of the accomplishments that you’ve, the achievements, the recognitions that you’ve received? What are you most, what makes you most proud that people recognize you for?
in your past. So I’ve received several awards in my career in healthcare. think grit is probably my favorite and probably explains me the most. The most thing I’m proud about is still getting cards in the mail from clinicians I hired 13 years ago to say I still appreciate you and if I’m ever looking in that area I’m going to call you and also team members.
that I like to be a leader that looks to see leadership opportunities in other people and understanding what makes them tick. And for me to be able to watch people that I have worked with grow into leadership roles is a great accomplishment for me and it makes me the most proud. I still get texts and calls today to say, okay, we miss you. Your impact was so big, we definitely feel it. So I think that being able to look at the awards that sit on my desk and go,
Okay, I did that, but I still gotta work harder, because what’s the next level that I wanna be at? And then having the people that still remember you because you made an impact in their life is probably my greatest accomplishment. So one of our goals in this podcast, Heidi, is we talk to really accomplished people like you. And maybe folks that are listening are like, is Heidi like a human being? like, does she like?
Does she have dirty laundry or like, does she like, there toys still left out at the house? Like surely like nobody can be as excellent and everything. From what I understand, you take a lot of pride in yard work. So, we like to say prove to us you’re human by telling us something that would be a little bit off the wall. So what’s up with the yard? Okay. So,
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I love the smell of fresh cut grass. I love to have the lines perfectly aligned. My husband is always like, no, this is my job. I’m going to do it. And then I go, no, but you’re supporting me in my exercise. Just let me do it. You know, I make up an excuse to back off and let me do it. I love to be able to stand in the middle of the road and look at all of my edges and see not one piece of grass touching the sidewalk.
And that just makes me happy. Like, it’s like nothing better than putting the headphones in and going, okay, do I want to do diagonal lines in the grass today? Do I want to do horizontal? What do want the grass to look like? And so when you pull up into the neighborhood, the Blanchards have the pretty green fluffy grass that is very much cut neatly.
Have you done like any type of LSU shape in the grass or like national champion? No, not that good. I can put some yard signs that may say LSU and UL. But yeah, it makes that, mean, that’s just one of my happy joys. mean, people, some people were like, what? You like to cut grass? I’m like, yes. And I love to look at it afterwards. And when I’m leaving and I’m pulling back up in my house, I’m definitely checking out my grass going, I did that.
So get a sense of accomplishment right away. Yeah, I get it. And fresh cut grass smell is wonderful. Exactly. It’s a wonderful Should make a cologne out of it or something. You get it. There you go. Well, Heidi, it’s a joy to work and co-labor with you. And I appreciate your vulnerability, not just about there’s a right way to make gumbo and that your yard is better than everybody else’s. also that amidst your story.
that has had a lot of hard providences and grief that you’ve turned that as an opportunity to help and serve other people. So we’re better to know you. And I think that those that have listened are better to have heard your story. So thanks for sharing it with us. Absolutely. Happy to do it. Thank you guys for inviting me. This has been great. Wonderful talking with you.
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Thank you for joining us on Reliably Well, where we explore the intersection of healthcare and humanity. We hope these conversations inspire you to see the people behind the policies, the passion behind the practice, and the purpose that drives innovation in healthcare. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. Your support helps us to continue sharing these important stories.
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