Episode 256 - Maeve O'Neill

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I think part of it is I'm sort of lucky in the sense that behavioral health is the only field I've ever worked in.

I think sometimes people go to different fields and they can bring different strains to those.

Maybe go from health care to another industry or another area and bring that expertise.

I've always been this one field, which probably somewhat gives me some blinders, but also gives me some expertise in just one area.

And I always joke that if you give me a new treatment center, I've done every job in that treatment center except for the cook.

I don't cook.

I'm not a nurse.

And you probably don't want me like being a maintenance person.

Those are three not skills that I have.

But otherwise, I've done all the jobs.

I've done everything.

I know kind of how things go and what that looks like.

So I can usually find a way to get someone to understand how what we're building can help them.

to make the job easier and there's a better, different way of doing it.

And because to me, compliance was like the aha of like, wait, there is a reason we do this.

It's not just because so-and-so said, so it really is a purpose.

I was on a survey recently where someone said, you know, These books of standards that we have, whether it's a state regulatory body or an accrediting body, these are not success stories, right? These are things that have happened in organizations that hurt people.

So now there's a rule to help you prevent that hurt or to detect it if it's going to happen.

obviously correct it right so all these regulations aren't our enemy they're actually if we do them they're actually going to better serve those that we're trying to serve so oftentimes we get pushback or people don't want to do that or they want to do it the way they've always done it which isn't new or current or really helpful so i love that open mind of like let's figure this out together let's learn together and really it's only going to make everything we do more successful when

When you start to see those light bulbs come on after you explain something or after you come with some credibility because you've done that job before, talk to me about how that ends up sort of changing maybe the course of a particular program or the level of involvement of that individual.

Well, you know, I think back to my first full-time job as a compliance officer, I was really lucky in that leadership team hired me and they said, Maeve, we're not sure what this is, but we need help with these areas, right? Better client care, better staff understanding, you know, better policies, managing of incidents.

And, oh, this is compliance.

You need a compliance officer.

That's what I can do, you know? Yeah.