Dr. Gloria Winters - The YMCA's Vision for Preventative Healthcare

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[00:02:35] and receive a special intro offer to kickstart your growth. Go get it. All right, we are live. Dr. Gloria Winters, welcome to the Future of Fitness. Hey, thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here. I say this a lot, but I've been really excited to talk to you and talk to someone from YMCA for a long time. I think like a lot of people listen to this podcast, YMCA was probably my first entry point

[00:03:03] into like gym culture. Like I remember lifting my first weight at YMCA. I was like 9, 10, right? And just that that was the first exposure. And I think for a lot of people, it played a similar role. And it's obviously YMCA hasn't stopped its growth. And before we get into everything we can do here, I was telling you, my research assistant, aka ChatGPT, pulled some really fun facts about YMCA. I think a lot of people don't know, right? How long this thing has been around. If any of these sound wrong, let me know. Talk to winners.

[00:03:33] So established in June 6th, 1844 in London by Sir George Williams, the YMCA aimed to improve the spiritual condition of young men in business. Interesting. It now operates in 120 countries, serving 64 million people annually. That's big. Big numbers, right? In the US, looks like there's about 2,650 YMCA's across 10,000 communities engaging 11 million members,

[00:04:03] including 4 million children and teens. Yeah, you got it. And those are associations and so that doesn't speak to the fact that there's almost 2,700 facility locations across the US. Wow. I got a couple more here. So YMCA reported total revenue of $8.7 billion with $1.3 billion from private donations and $1.5 billion from government support. And here's a really cool one. The YMCA is credited

[00:04:32] with inventing basketball in 1891, James Naismith, and volleyball in 1895 with William G. Morgan. Last one, then we'll get into it. It was really fun for me. During the American Civil War, the YMCA provided medical supplies and services. In World War II, it co-founded the USO and supported troops and Japanese-American internees. Not only is it a large organization, but it's been kind of in the fabric

[00:05:01] of our country's development for a very long time. And all the stuff I want to state is like, how well positioned YMCA is, especially with the access to the youth to be at the forefront of preventative health. And I guess that's where you come in. Dr. Gloria Wendis, if you don't mind, give us a little bit of your background, how you got to be a chief health officer for YMCA and then we'll take it into all the innovation that you're looking to do. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so a little bit about me. I've been in healthcare

[00:05:29] for 25 years now here in Colorado. So anyone that's watching, come visit best place besides Montana, maybe. No, no, no, we're full. Yeah. We're full. I think he doesn't want anybody else. So I've been practicing here for 25 years, had 12 clinics that I manage operationally across the front range in Colorado, treated patients full-time as well. Love, love treating patients and love managing the operation of those clinics. But what I saw over the, and now I've been with YMCA

[00:05:59] for eight years, but what I saw over the last few years of really managing those businesses and treating patients was it was becoming harder and harder for me to deliver quality care because of the compression of the healthcare, the formal, what I call the formal healthcare or sick care delivery system. And so if I was having that challenge and my practitioners were having that challenge, then certainly you as a patient were receiving the downstream end of that, right? Not receiving any care. And so I was always hoping when you came back for your next thing that you didn't really notice

[00:06:29] that, man, my time was really compressed and I was spending an awful lot of time on my tablet rather than with you, right? And that's a problem systemically across all different service lines of the formal sick care healthcare organization. And so I really began to imagine how do we do this thing called whole person health? And what I started to look into was that really the Center for Disease, the CDC says that 20% of what affects health is clinical care or sick care and 80%

[00:06:58] is this behavioral, physical and socioeconomic factors. I also saw that the World Health Organization was defining health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being not merely in the absence of disease or infirmity. And so I was really curious, okay, if that's the case, I'm only impacting 20% of what affects Eric's health and how do I truly affect his behavioral change? Well, what I had also loved doing was building new clinics. And so as I built any new clinic, man, I would put them in a YMCA

[00:07:28] as quickly as I could or as closely located because I intuitively understood, one, it was good for business because it's the walking wounded, right? Wherever the community is, it's walking wounded. And two, there was this really interesting component that happened for any of my patients, whether it was my oncology patient, my neuro patient, my ortho patient to the YMCA, whether it was for a senior coffee, personal training, post-rehab. And they would come back to me and say, Gloria, your care was really good. But when you connected me to the Y,

[00:07:57] it changed my life. Now you want to have one of those stories and go, okay, great. When you have story after story after story of that, and not just with me as a practitioner, but my other practitioners, you start to go, what's going on here? So what I really started to find was that that 80% behavioral, physical, and socioeconomic factors was occurring inside the YMCA as a part of their natural DNA. And so that's where I started to really think of business models wherein we could truly bring the two together. I also started

[00:08:27] to really understand that, of course, what I do is downstream, right? So the sick care is after the fact when people are sick and injured and not well. Well, how do we do this health and wellness and prevention thing, what I call upstream healthcare? Well, that's what the YMCA is doing. And so I began to talk to CEOs of hospital systems, of healthcare systems, and then, of course, of the YMCA and landed at, long story short,

[00:08:56] landed at the YMCA as the chief health officer, initially as the chief medical officer, and then it made sense to move it to health officer because that's really truly the space to really create business models where we could bring the two together because we will always have sick people. That's not going to change, but how do we actually go upstream from that and start to show the impact, not just intuitively believe that we're impacting that health, but actually show it and then marry that back to the formal

[00:09:26] healthcare or sick care system and see that outcome happen downstream. Yeah, well said. Everything you said is something that I believe the whole industry wants. Like, we want that. You know, I've alluded to, I started my fitness business career in CrossFit and Greg Glassman had this great vision, founder of CrossFit about, you know, he was the first one who kind of did this sick wellness fitness paradigm that he produced and he put it

[00:09:56] into a framework that we as an industry can kind of understand. That promise really has never been fulfilled. It's being worked on now with CrossFit. They got their own challenges, of course, as a community, but I think everyone wants this, right? We want to be part of that conversation, be at that table, like how do we really develop and we're so well positioned as an industry as well. I guess when I look at and also I think a lot of people resonate with what you're talking about, I just went and saw the doctor for my annual checkup. It was such an incredible waste of time, right? Nice guy. Right. Sure,

[00:10:26] very well qualified, but the system works against him, right? It's not what he wants to do. I can feel it from him. I've always believed that if we're going to make change in the healthcare system or the sick care system, which I like, it has to come from the ground up, right? It has to come from the communities and then kind of force up because as we know, health insurance companies aren't motivated or incentivized the right way to make sure that we stay healthy, right? Or out of sickness. So my first question for you, Dr. Winters, is when you're looking at the YMCA,

[00:10:55] is there a demand for better health? Like, is that what people are asking for? Yes, but it requires defining health with that particular person, right? Because we all have different definitions of that. That's become heavily mental and behavioral health, right? It's become heavily social health and well-being and it still remains physical health for sure. Okay, great. And you, so you're at the helm now of this large organization which we just talked about when it comes to

[00:11:24] the health innovation. So when you see, I would imagine your mouth is watering with all the opportunities here to deliver on the work that you want to do. So where do you start? Like, where does the innovation start? What's the vision that you're working on now and what are you starting with now? Where do you want it to eventually go? Hmm. Well, that's a very complex question, honestly, because the system, the, because the sick care system is so complex and fragmented. So it really requires, I believe, first having

[00:11:53] a strong strategy and vision in order to create a business model that then we can execute. It requires first understanding the problem then in order to create a strategy and have had revision. The problem in a nutshell with the fragmented sick care system is our spiraling health care costs. Really, that sits, I think, at the cusp of it, as you mentioned, with the health care insurance structure.

[00:12:22] So health care costs have been escalating for 50 years. We spend $4.9 trillion on sick care every year in our nation, almost 20% of our GDP. Yeah, it really is crazy. Health care costs increase faster than inflation every single year. The chronic disease costs are 86% of that $4.9 trillion, which, quick math, would be what? $4.1 trillion.

[00:12:52] Chronic care costs. And what we're seeing is that we have our aging population, we see that they have at least two chronic diseases or more. And we're now seeing by the CDC size that our young adults have at least one chronic condition. So if chronic condition is where the meat of that cost is, and that's only increasing, what's going to continue to happen there? So if that's where we're sitting and that's the problem,

[00:13:22] then how do we drive to a solution? Well, as you mentioned, the YMCA is really perfectly positioned because we are body, mind, and spirit. We are for all. We are the largest child care provider in the country. We have family programs. We have active older adult programs. So we have this really interesting niche in a lot of these different buckets. And if any of my YMCA colleagues or fans are watching or listening, we all drank the Kool-Aid. Like, it's in the DNA to have this mission to really improve

[00:13:51] the health of communities. So then the next piece that we look at is really driving down to that local community and understanding the needs and the demographics of that local community and addressing it in that very particular way and then creating that business model around it. One of the ways to do that, again, is then to connect it back to the sick care system, understanding how the health insurance plans are structured, oftentimes in a central state-run type of component or a private component,

[00:14:20] and then being able to navigate between those two to connect them back to the structures that we hold and the lives that we hold. And we are the service provider, right, for where people live, work, and play. And so that's really, really key to the industry of the sick care system. It's a complicated problem, right? So where do you start? Like, I guess, we're sitting here in Q1 2025. Like, what are you guys currently implementing? What can you share that's getting us,

[00:14:50] you know, getting you guys on track to where you want to go? Yeah, well, I think I would, before I share a little bit of a solution, I would preface it with, again, understanding the next level of complexity or movement that's occurring in the digital transformation, right? So that's a really key piece for us to understand. So we need to be able to, not in a crystal ball sense, but really look into the future and say, where are we headed in this sick care space, health and wellness space? What's happening

[00:15:20] in this digital transformation? Because I believe that component, that rapid expansion of the digital transformation, where consumers are going to own their own healthcare data, then we start as consumers to make our own decisions about our health and wellness journey. And then that actually is going to drive us from a very centralized, big box sick care system to a very specialty component sick care system that may live

[00:15:50] in a different place like in YNCA's, right? Not that we'll be running those components, but they'll actually live together. And so that's going to change the structure of how you go get your care. For example, you can get your prostate screening at home now. You don't need to go to the hospital to have that done. Then you can actually have that diagnostic test come back to you, make decisions about your next steps. We also see wearables really changing, right? So now it's going from these sensors that are in your wearables

[00:16:20] to sensors that are embedded in all the devices around us, in our mirrors, in our toilets, in our toothbrush, with biomarkers, right? These kinds of things that'll actually inform me about my wellness or sickness. And then that's going to drive me to different decisions. So that actually creates a different ecosystem than the one that we're currently living in. We really need to look at what the ecosystem is going to be. We can say that it's going to be 20 years from now, but we see this rapid digital transformation

[00:16:49] where this interoperability, the ability to share data is so heavy now. That actually is going to move this faster than what we expect. So if that ecosystem is shifting, then what business decisions do we make to make sure that we can gather those people in? Does that make sense? Yeah. It's really cool. I mean, it's very futuristic, right? To think that like all these internet of things and the amount of data, like I know

[00:17:18] I'm probably a wearable geek compared to most people, but I have a lot of data out there and I test a lot of these biomarker testing companies and see what they're all about. And then the amount of information is incredible. I feel like we're kind of already there, but it just hasn't been pulled together yet. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's the business model, right? So then how do you actually write a business model and not one piece of it? So that's one piece of it, right? That's like a channel that we utilize to get data. It doesn't actually say

[00:17:47] how that all is supported together to make something that's financially viable for our organizations or actually tells the story at the end of the day. And so what we're needing to do now is take that information and connect it back to what I would call sick care data. And who holds that sick care data? I'm asking. Yeah, the health insurance companies? Yes, exactly. Many people think that it's us, the providers that hold that information. And so they're looking

[00:18:17] at this referral-based model, which is not wrong because you want referrals between the two health and wellness and sick care industries. That's a necessity, right? So that your practitioner that you just went and saw has an ability to feel like there's truly that whole person healthcare. But who actually holds that are the health plans. The health plans have all that sick care data. They have the disease prevalence. They know how much it costs per person to deliver that care and where those are high and where those are low. And so that's what we need to do is in this health and wellness world

[00:18:47] where we're now delivering things at home. We're able to take that data and see it for myself. That now needs to be connected back to the sick care data. And that's where a business model can be created to really hook those two back together. Wow. So what are the barriers that need to be overcome at this point, do you think? Like what are the major things? Is it access to the data? Is it overall accessibility for more people? Like where do you think the challenges are to get to where you want to go with that digital transformation and then the business model

[00:19:16] that evolves around it? Yeah, we have capabilities with all these open API integrations and things like that to marry that back. But I'll speak for the YMCA and this is probably has some consistency with other organizations. The data is living in fragmented places and there's so many different systems that have that data, right? Like you just said, like if you look at different data for whether it was a Fit On or a Garmin or an Apple, right? Well, those don't come

[00:19:45] into one base of aggregated data. So we need to be able to pull that information together, pull it up and then connect it over. And that feels very fragmented still and that's something I work on every day. I'm talking to all kinds of different digital platforms to integrate. And one's not going to solve all of those issues, right? I don't expect that to, but we have so much technology fatigue amongst us as individuals and then in the industry as well.

[00:20:14] So I can't just keep adding another tech to all of my facility locations and expect them to enter in clean data and have that roll up well. I mean, look at all the different fitness systems, right? Whether it's a Precor or a TechnoGym or an E-Gym. We're starting to gather great data. Where does that information go? How do we roll that up? So that's what I'm working on in that integration. And the health plans, mind you, have been very, very interested in this discussion

[00:20:44] because there hasn't existed, to my knowledge, something at scale that they could actually see health and wellness and prevention data married back to that. They intuitively believe it, but no monies are going to, significant amount of monies are going to go into health and wellness and prevention when you haven't proven it out. That's really what we are wrestling with is something that can really pull that together and read that health impact data both at a population level and at an individual level. Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. And there's a lot of people

[00:21:13] working on that data issue. I know like, you know, we were at Connected Health and Fitness a couple of weeks ago and the guys at Rook won an award for what they're doing, which is super interesting. I mean, they've been working at this problem for a long time, but a lot of people still don't have wearables, right? A lot of people still don't have these tracking devices or any ways to get more data on them. So, I mean, do you, when you look at like that potential timeline, I mean, we first have to get kind of, I guess, more immersion of trackers and things like that and data inputs for more people, right?

[00:21:43] Where do you see that path going? Like, what's the trends on that? Yeah, I would, I always try to keep things as simple as I can in this very complex world. So, I start to then go back to what we're already living, eating, and breathing every day, which for most of us, even in probably some of the folks that are listening is membership. So, people are coming into our facilities. Now, we don't always know what they're doing in a facility, but they're coming in that sense because they're coming in some kind of regular fashion. It's improving

[00:22:12] what they determine to be their health and wellness. What if we were simply measuring membership utilization and comparing that back to sick care data? Could we start to see some statistical significance about how that, as that increases, sick care decreases, right? And so, understanding how to measure some of those things that maybe all of us can do at scale, even if you're not having, because they're having to check in in some capacity. So, that's kind of a simple measure that's not truly

[00:22:42] a high-tech component as of yet. There's, again, down the way, we can get into a lot more specifics of those wearables, but that's kind of where I end up landing most days is what if we were just doing that piece? I think it would be really powerful. And what if we were, not just the YMCA, right? Great, that we're forward thinking in this, but there's a lot of lives out there to do this with because as an industry, if we were doing it, the power of that

[00:23:12] would certainly then push the sick care industry to take notice. Yeah. So, I've had people who've been in the industry for a very long time on this podcast over the years and a lot of people believe that the integration into healthcare, specifically like having insurers pay for someone's gym membership or, you know, that kind of preventative health model, that's never going to happen because the incentives aren't aligned. we're health, you know, health insurance companies are, for the most part, incentivized to keep us

[00:23:42] unwell to some degree, right? Do you think it's possible? Like, do you imagine a day where, you know, a doctor or someone writes a prescription to go to a YMCA, right? And this is your, this is now what you need to do for your health. Like, do you think that's a thing that can happen? but you're talking to someone that has double bias, right? all my patients to the YMCA. God bless you. For their particular need. And I would call the Y

[00:24:11] and say, Holly, like, you need to do a personal handoff on this one with my patient who has cancer, right? And, and I'll just take a moment, like, the relationship-centric component of the YMCA and hopefully in other organizations is the key to these people's behavior change. They want relationship. It wasn't that these programs, the programs are fantastic, but they really want time with people. They want the relationship-centric component. So, just, just a small little flag right there.

[00:24:40] Now I'm going to blank on what I was, what I was going to answer for you. Yeah, like, do you think the integration into healthcare is reasonable? Yeah, so right now, Medicare Advantage plans, 99% of them have a fitness benefit, right? We see 10,000 adults aging into Medicare every single day, every single day. So, anyone that's running business, take note, look at your demographic, look who is living around you, and you're going to see your adult population

[00:25:09] moving into this space. So, really, really important strategically to take note of that. And what's generally the age that that happens at? 65. 65, okay. 65. So, now we've all been paying into Medicare all our lives, and so we have, most of us have an expectation of a benefit coming back towards us once we move into that space. One of those benefits is typically well understood by that Medicare population of this fitness benefit. And the Y

[00:25:37] is the number one most requested fitness benefit in that space. Yay for us. the health plans want the Y in that fitness benefit. Now, it doesn't mean that the physicians, the practitioners are saying, hey, go get your fitness benefit and utilize that, but the health plans are quite aware of that. And the health plans in their business internal organizational needs, they need more enrollees, they want to retain those enrollees, and they want those enrollees to be satisfied. So, this fitness benefit

[00:26:06] has a heavy weight in that component, I believe. And then we could get into the commercial space because they have the same Medicaid, we could get into that, they have some of those same needs. So, that same business structure is consistent across the board of how we can help to solve for their needs. So, again, as you mentioned, it's not necessarily this altruistic need to get the person healthy, it's a business need. So, and yes, then it translates to a healthier person, and if we can track that back, then there's even heavier weight there. But, so I do believe

[00:26:36] that that is essential. I also think that the practitioners want that as a wraparound type of service, pre-med, post, just like what I always use because it made my patients better. And what I want for my patients is when you went and saw your practitioner, he just wants you to be well, and he's frustrated, probably, that he just doesn't have the time. You only get one complaint, you got a second one, you got to come back to me another day, and I'm really not assessing this whole person health.

[00:27:06] With the vision that you're laying out here, Dr. Orz, I have to believe that we have to up our game as far as like the fitness professional himself or herself, right? Like, type of education that they're getting, you know, scope of practice is always something that we need to tiptoe and make sure we're doing well, right? So, when you look at, and you're right, like, people want accountability to a person. They don't want accountability to an app. They don't want accountability to, you know,

[00:27:35] a program. That's why group fitness is so successful, right? So, where do we need to change the actual profession of fitness to kind of get into this wellness preventative health? Where do you see that going? Well, every state has different regulations on their practice acts for fitness. So, I think as organizations, we need to just be very aware of that and max out that practice act, right? So, get to the highest level that you can

[00:28:05] of whatever that state will let you practice. So, even when I came into my local association, YMCA, as the chief medical officer, that was one of the very first things I did because I wasn't actually super familiar, even with my background, in exercise and sports science and fitness and things like that, I didn't know what our state practice act was. So, I looked into that and then immediately started programs for all of our personal trainers to practice at the highest level. Educate, educate, educate, invest, invest, invest, because our members love spending time with our

[00:28:35] group exercise instructors, our personal trainers, relationship, relationship. One of the other things we did was really career-wise cross-train our group exercise instructors because the group exercise always personal trainers, but they have the strongest following. And then once you cross-train them into personal training, now they've actually just upped their game and they're also loving their careers, right? So, they stick around. So, locally, that's how I would go about it. And then what we did also as well is we looked into the

[00:29:05] specialty fields, right? Because so many people now are coming, they're active, living, working, playing people with two or three chronic diseases, right? They're not that we need to have some level of education in order to be able to navigate that and then push that back to Dr. Eric when it's required, right? And those pieces are really key for the appropriate referral infrastructure that we create at the local level. Yeah, amazing.

[00:29:35] So, I want to get into the business model. I know you're working on it. It's probably things you don't want to share completely yet, but I'd love to get insights on what you can share. I think of specific programs like what Jeff and the Lifetime team have built in Meora, focused on longevity, but integration of preventative health measures, a lot of fun stuff going on there. So, what are you guys currently doing at Williams? What's active? And then what can you tell us about kind of the business plan without divulging too much? Yeah, well, I've always said this

[00:30:04] in business. Again, unfortunately, there's enough sick lives for everyone. So, even in my practices, I would have competitors that were right next door to me, but I'm like, look, everybody, just do the best job that we possibly can, and we're going to win at the end of the day. So, one of the things that we're really doing is we are working with health insurance plans to contract for their covered lives so that we can actually see, we can access more lives. Now, more than ever, we have less non-insured people than ever before

[00:30:34] with Medicaid expansion. So, we really want to, and we're the YMCA, so we want to do this for all. So, we've had some really nice inroads into a business model where we contract directly with those health plans. It's a very complex, fragmented system. Thank goodness I have some sitting into that space for 25 years to understand some of the complexities of it. But when anyone says they're an expert, I'm like, how do we get to be an expert? Because it's just, it's always changing, it's always dynamic, it's always disruptive. But that's what we're really seeing

[00:31:04] that is providing an expanded access for those folks. In addition to that, of course, as I think you're aware, we have a long laundry list of menu items that were really affecting change in behavioral, physical, and socioeconomic factors. So our normal list of programs from zero to up, whether it's a kiddo program, youth sports, swim lessons, to an active aging older adult program, to diabetes prevention,

[00:31:34] diabetes self-management, cancer survivorship, neurological programs like Parkinson's programs, multiple sclerosis programs, all of these kinds of scope, cardiac types of post-rehab programs, prehab, post-hab. So all of those more clinically oriented evidence-based health interventions are ones that we're doing at a pretty nice scale across the country. They're definitely more complex, they require higher levels of certifications, they are further

[00:32:04] to scale, but those are things that are really, really, valuable to impacting that when someone is already currently sick, right, and those upstream components. How much research is out there on the effectiveness of fitness towards one's health? You know, we all know and believe, we've been in this industry for a long time, but we talk about cardiac rehab, cancer rehab, obviously diabetes and the fight against obesity, all that stuff. We know it works, but where can we lean on as far as

[00:32:34] the actual research to prove it? Yeah, that's where we need to up our game, all of us, all of us. And so that's one of my days, fall prevention, right? Falls are the number one health care costs in the country, period. You fall, you break a hip, go to the hospital, you get pneumonia, and you often don't make it. Number one health care cost. So, I mean, all of these things, we need to gather aggregate data on it. So what are, and again, across all of our YMCAs, we take data on these pieces, but we don't always pull them together. They're on

[00:33:03] different systems, they don't read. And then even if that worked all in one system, which we have worked hard on even for the past 15 years, I would say before my time with the YMC, where is that married back to that sick care data? That's a key component that we are now working on connecting back. We do have some early use cases where we have seen significant changes. So we've had say 3,000 or 4,000 participants in membership and programs such as I

[00:33:33] mentioned, and then we married that back to the sick care data and we're seeing millions of dollars of savings on those 100 people that we pull out of that 3,000 or 4,000. So that's just a small end, that's just a small start if we were to be able to, I think in the next five years as we do that at scale, we're going to be able to start really telling that story and then allow others to join in the game with us, right? Because there's enough sick people for everybody. Yeah, we'll do it best. Yeah. So, I mean,

[00:34:03] we've talked about the partnership between the medical community and the YMCA's, right? Have you, are you guys actively considering pulling like the health clinic into the gym, right? Where, you know, we're doing stuff like breaking the skin with needles and pulling blood samples and, you know, even something as simple as like a blood pressure cuff, right? Things like that. Like, is that something you imagine happening in YMCA? It has been done. Has been done. Okay. Now, tell me about it. Now, that, yes, the more detail on that is we typically will lease space,

[00:34:33] we'll share space, we'll build on space. There's, I would say, across the country, when I came into the Y, I said, Gloria, our number one partner is with healthcare. And I said, well, what does that need, right? Like I said, I actually would lease space inside a YMCA to run my business. So, I don't foresee or really highly recommend that us as even the Y take on those, start hiring practitioners in that space. There's so much compliance and

[00:35:02] regulations and fixings that occur on that side of the mountain, actually. But living together, yeah. So, just down the street from me, our YMCA here, we have, we built on, we own the land, and then we had a project manager build the space to lease out 13 different medical practices. So, we are now the one-stop shop in that area, but we also have a little restaurant there. So, we have restaurants, 13 different medical locations. When people come in to go to their primary care or so,

[00:35:32] rehab, imaging, they can drop their kiddos off in our childcare as part of the deal and then go up and have their visit and then go work out, right? And so, that is what I'm talking about with this decentralized, big box healthcare system, specialty moving into where we live, work, and play. And now you're actually having your one-stop shop there. I know my kiddos, I go to Walmart, I go to the Y, I go to the school, and I go to work. And so, that's that, Eric, you and I were talking about earlier, that third home component.

[00:36:02] That's where I think it's headed. And so, YMCA has forever have had, you know, blood pressure cuffs and things like that. We have a blood pressure self-monitoring program, but this is driving me deeper into a structure where now we have such a high penetration because we're where people live, work, and play. Yeah. Yeah, it's a very unique advantage that you guys have. One other thing I would add to what you're thinking is something I always think through when we look at who else is getting into

[00:36:32] this space and trying to drive at these same solutions. That was my next question. Yeah. Look at that. Simpatico. You look at the Amazon Health, Google Health, Apple Health. I mean, Berkshire Hathaway was getting into this space. Dollar Tree was getting into the space. Walmart had their health and wellness clinics. They, I think, did, you know, around 12 plus of them over the last five to seven years and then they just closed all, they started closing them, right? Why? Well, they have, they understand that there's a need to solve for this and look at who's primarily doing that,

[00:37:02] their technology organizations. Who's the service provider in that? We are. So we need, and that's that relationship centric piece, right? We're the service provider. We need to retain that piece of where we live, work, and play. We might need those industries around us, the Amazons, the Googles, the Apples, to really help us create sophisticated systems to integrate. But we really need to be advanced enough thinking to prepare ourselves to do that and not have somebody that doesn't understand the

[00:37:31] service industry take that space. So going farther into that area of like who else is doing it, what about specifically across our industry? So let's just talk about maybe the health club and gym industry. Like who else do you see is doing some really cool work in bringing healthcare into the fitness model or the fitness model into healthcare? Is there anybody you were looking at and you're like, okay, they're doing something interesting? I don't know that my exposure is significant enough into that space to really vet that thoroughly and give

[00:38:01] a report card on that. I work more with the different technology industries, with the different product industries like the techno gyms or the e-gyms, right? And they continue to develop things all through all of this vision and strategy at them and business modeling at them and say, what can you do with this to help me get to where I'm going? That's more the play that I'm looking at because it's such a big thing that, and I've had little forays into other

[00:38:30] industries that are talking about this, but then what I found is, I mean, it's just so challenging, right? And so they may stop only a quarter of the way down the road because it just becomes so complex. We've figured out some mechanisms to be able to be safe, secure, and compliant. SoC 2 certified, which is just a, you know, there's SOC 2 certified, there's high trust. These are some of the highest compliance measures that you need in the sick care industry, and then we've now had them in the community based organization. So there's those pieces

[00:39:00] that just are required in order to play and be safe, and I haven't seen that a lot of other industries are there yet. Yeah. Yeah. But call me if I'm wrong. Yeah. I have a lot of introductions to make for you. And Egym's great. I've been working with them. They're a sponsor of this podcast, and I've known those guys, that whole team for many years and the way they've developed and their focus on, you know, health and the data and good,

[00:39:30] clean data that we can leverage in numerous ways is really impressive. One of the things I want to touch on with you is, you know, just the sheer timing of all this, especially in the United States. Now, RFK Jr. was recently appointed, right, to Trump's administration, and I don't want to get into anything political, but it seems like to me that that designation has at least opened the conversation more broadly about the state of our health. And it seems to me, I'm hopeful once again, but not sure yet, that we may have the political will now to really

[00:40:00] make an impact. So, you know, where are you? Are you hopeful? Are you waiting and seeing what's going to happen? Like, are you actively pursuing those types of relationships with, you know, that with that? Yeah, yeah, I love that, right? So I frame that as little P and big P, little policy change and big policy change. And so I'm actively pushing this little policy change at all the local levels and all of our states. And then we do have a government advocacy entire department that is working on big policy change. And so I work

[00:40:29] with that healthcare side of the house all the time to say, to align and say, how are we moving this forward? And I do think that there's window of opportunity. I tend to be a realist that has an optimistic lane because I think that's how we get stuff done, right? You push that positivity out into the future. But that's what we're here. We have Dr. Oz coming in too, right? So the one that points first to the weights and says, this is where it's at, doesn't make behavior change, but it could make policy change that then leads that downstream.

[00:40:59] So I'm always looking at that upstream component. How do we change? So here's how I often explain that, Eric, and hang tight with me, but I frame it as a house. And at the bottom of the house is data and platforms and that's your foundation, right? And so I call that your plumbing and your electrical. It informs a lot of how that house works. And then we've got the body of the house. So we have the living space, right? The living space includes sick care, as we've defined on the beginning of this call, and health and wellness and prevention. Well, what we know right now is that sick care takes up

[00:41:28] three quarters of that house with that $4.9 trillion, right? Health and wellness and prevention, much less. And then we have the roof of the house and they call that care enablement. Care enablement being your financers, your intermediaries, your regulators, those kind of things that really are telling the top of the house how to structure down below. So that's how I really look at it and I position that where we're at now and where is this headed? And so that's how I try to make my informed projections about where we're headed in the future of health, where I

[00:41:57] said earlier that data and platforms, it's right here now and smaller, but it's actually going to scale really, really quickly to be larger and inform the rest of how that house works. And then this care enablement top down will also inform that so there's going to be, I believe, a shift in the size of the living space of that sick care. Sick care doesn't go away, it shifts where it lives. Where it shifts where it lives will then also allow for a change in potential sources of revenue and competition.

[00:42:27] And as we look at the change in source of revenue and competition, then we need to be prepared for that in order to move on. So that's great. I love that. For a guy who likes a lot of pictures in his books, that's very helpful to understand. And thanks for hanging with me. Because in a complex structure, we need to simplify it, right? In order to be able to have directives to know what decisions to make as we move forward. Yeah. Awesome. This has been really, really interesting and very uplifting, I think,

[00:42:56] for a lot of people who may. It's easy to fall into despair nowadays on occasion, right? We're like, wow, these are insurmountable problems. You know, everything there, everyone has something to stress about because we get some information thrown at us every day. But I love what you're doing. What do you, next question or the last question I always ask is what do you need help with? So people are listening to this, you know, maybe they want to reach out. Who do you want to hear from? What do you want to hear about? What can we do for you? Well, you can see how frank and honestly

[00:43:26] transparent I've been in the work that we're doing. Again, to beat a dead horse, the reason is because we have so many sick people. We have so many people that aren't moving. So we need to be able to riff together to come up with great ideas, great innovations, great strategies, and then do them collectively. Teamwork is how things get done in this world. You can't do it alone. You can't have one person with a great idea that starts to drive it, but you can't do it alone. And so I'm a super competitive person, but not afraid of the

[00:43:56] competition because we really need to have these ideas vended together. So I would say that's where in this really complex, fragmented world where the formal sick care system is really fascinated about this. They love it, but they don't necessarily have the time to say, what is the fix? Which is the problem that I'm sitting in, which is why I switched seats, right? And so we need to have some more think tank people that can say, what about this? What about this? And how do we actually solve this together?

[00:44:25] Yeah, fantastic. And if people want to reach out to you, what's the best way? Is it connecting on LinkedIn, email, website? Where would you like them to go? What's best for you? I'll go ahead and give my email. I have to say, I try to detach from social media to some extent. Good for you. So that my brain keeps working as I tell my children, you need your, hey y'all, you need your frontal cortex. It's as primed as you can and too much of screen time will actually ruin that. So Gloria.Winters at YMCA.net is probably the best way to get ahold

[00:44:54] of me. Awesome. This is great. I would love to get you back on maybe in about a year's time and see the progress that you guys have made. I think it's, it's super interesting for the industry. And like I said, you guys are so uniquely qualified with the assets that you have built over the last 150 years now or whatever it may be. 75 next year. So anyway, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for coming on. I'd love to have you back on again. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Gloria.Winters. Thanks, Eric.

[00:45:24] Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Fitness. If you did, I'm going to ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it. iTunes, Spotify, CastBox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your

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