Onvida Health in Yuma, Arizona is the only hospital within 180 miles of the US-Mexico, and a migration surge once sent 8,000 people a day through its doors. Robert J. Trenschel, DO, MPH, President and CEO, leads a system that treats every patient with the same compassion, from long-time residents to someone just crossing the border.

He talks with Dr. Shah about navigating that surge on razor-thin margins, why healthcare ROI should center on the individual, and how a new medical school partnership aims to rebuild rural primary care.

We cover:

- Running the only hospital within 180 miles of Yuma

- Absorbing 8,000 daily border crossings during a migration surge

- Standing up a transitional care program for chronic disease patients

- Using AI ambient documentation to reduce physician burnout

- Partnering with University of Arizona on a three-year medical school

Phil Huang, MD, MPH (Director/Health Authority @ Dallas County Health and Human Services) sat through an Austin ordinance hearing that ran past midnight, restaurant owners lined up to testify that going smoke free would put them out of business. It passed. Nobody closed, and adult smoking in Texas went from around 24 percent to under 10.

On this episode of Moving Health Forward, Dr. Huang shares why tobacco control is the model for chronic disease and what it takes to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

We cover:

- Why policy change beats education on individual behavior

- The economic studies that answered the restaurant owners

- Making tobacco status a vital sign at every visit

- Why COVID data arrived by fax and what changed

- Where AI is already useful in a health department

- The 23 year life expectancy gap across Dallas zip codes

Moving Health Forward is produced by Phamily.