The Pinnacle Pod welcomes Dr. Robbie Harriford—Chief Medical Officer at Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center and passionate community health advocate. Robbie shares her journey from research to family medicine to leading one of Kansas City’s Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC). Highlighting how her work bridges clinical care with a strategic vision to serve vulnerable populations, Robbie discusses the power of culturally competent care, interdisciplinary teamwork, and her mission to make healthcare accessible and equitable for all.

Transcript

Maurice Watson:
Welcome to The Pinnacle Pod, the voice of The Pinnacle Prize, an annual award recognizing and supporting passionate people driving significant change in our community. I am Maurice Watson, your host as we hear from some of Kansas City’s dynamic leaders. From subtle changes to citywide movements, join us to listen, learn, and be inspired by the determination of remarkable individuals.

In this episode of Pinnacle Pod, I’m excited to welcome Dr. Robbie Harriford. Robbie is the Chief Medical Officer at Samuel U. Rogers, a health center based in downtown Kansas City, dedicated to delivering high quality, compassionate, and affordable care for all. Dr. Harriford has experience in both urban and rural community health settings with a special focus on reducing healthcare disparities, especially for underserved women. Robbie is also founder of Modern Traditions, an organization that designs immersive travel experiences for healthcare professionals focusing on the intersection of heritage and health practices. The trips include collaboration with local healthcare professionals and community members, offering valuable insights into how diverse traditions influence modern medical care. Robbie, thank you for being here today.

Robbie Harriford:
Thank you for having me.

Maurice Watson:
Let’s begin by having you tell us a bit about yourself, why you decided to go into healthcare and choose this specific focus.

Robbie Harriford:
Sure. So, I always like to start off by saying that I’m an army brat. I’m very proud of that and I think that has a lot to do with just kind of how I’ve evolved throughout all the years. I’m a true Jayhawk. I went to KU for undergrad and for medical school, but unlike most people, I did not go into medicine right away. I thought I was gonna go the research route and started off doing malaria research in Seattle. Quickly realized I’m too much of a people person to be in a lab pipetting all the time. But I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, so I ended up starting my own event planning business and also had my daughter at the time. And so, on a trip to South Africa, I had the opportunity to visit a pediatric AIDS hospice as part of the trip. And that was life changing. It was incredible to see children who were just so sick, but yet so happy at the same time. And then interestingly enough, when I got back to the hotel, I had a message from one of my brides ’cause event planning. And the message was that she was so upset about the color of pink for her napkins, for her wedding. And I just sat there just like, what am I doing with my life? Like I get it, weddings are important, but you know, I had just seen the complete opposite of that, you know? So at that point is when I decided to go into medicine and then, yeah, went through med school, thought I was gonna be an OBGYN, and actually started off in OBGYN at a residency program in Chicago. And during that first year, realized that it wasn’t exactly how I wanted to practice medicine. I did not wanna have to just take care of you when you’re pregnant or just once a year for your well woman or you know, if you needed birth control. But I wanted to be able to take care of you if you had that high blood pressure, if you had diabetes, if you sprained your ankle. I wanted to be able to take care of women in that whole… whole person kind of way. And so then I transferred back here to UMKC. I did my residency there in family medicine and the rest is kind of history.

Maurice Watson:
So, your life has had a remarkable trajectory from doing scientific biomedical research to event planning to back into medicine over a course of how many years?

Robbie Harriford:
I would say eight years. Because I started medical school at the age of 30. So way different than most people. I was anywhere from seven to eight years older than most of my classmates in med school.

Maurice Watson:
But as a result of that, you had a maturity around understanding the world and the challenges.

Robbie Harriford:
Absolutely. I think that’s why I succeeded the way that I did is because I’ve had kind of real-world experience. So, imagine coming straight from college, four years of that, going straight into four years of medical school. I’m thankful that I had life experience to be able to better interact with my patients, to understand my patients, and definitely grateful for all those experiences.

Maurice Watson:
So, let’s talk a little bit about your focus in caring for the healthcare needs of women. We don’t often hear about that as an area of concern that women have special healthcare needs, special challenges, and in many cases our systems and our policies have ignored those needs and interests of women. Tell us something about how you got interested in this area of healthcare.

Robbie Harriford:
I think part of it is just me identifying as a woman, being a mom, seeing some of the disparities myself. You know, I, when I had my daughter, she’s going on almost 20 now, which is crazy. But at that time I wasn’t in medicine. I didn’t realize the experience that I had was not a normal experience. So, looking back, obviously hindsight is 20-20. So that greatly affected me having a C-section that I questioned if I actually needed, but just went with it because that’s what the doctor said. And just throughout the years, just seeing how women are often kind of considered to be almost like second class in terms of medicine, not often believed, not hearing the voices and just like the lack of access is a huge issue. It’s becoming more prominent for people to understand. But I don’t think people truly understand the depths of what it’s like.

Maurice Watson:
So, our state of Missouri ranks 44th in the country for maternal mortality. How do you approach the many factors that contribute to this?

Robbie Harriford:
I’m lucky that I work at a Federally Qualified Health Center or FQHC because we see those patients that are represented in that ranking, right? If you look at some of the stats, women who are on Medicaid, which are the vast majority of the patients that we see, so either Medicaid or self-pay, but women who are on Medicaid are eight times more likely to die. That is crazy when you think about it, when you see 80% of your patients that are on that. So, the way we look at it, we look at it as everybody’s welcome in our clinic. And I think that’s how it should be. We provide an access that a lot of patients and a lot of women wouldn’t be able to get because of the fact that they are on Medicaid or are self pay. So, we provide all the things that you could possibly need in one setting to make it easier as well.

Maurice Watson:
Tell us a little bit about some of the specific factors that you are addressing in order to close this disparity, including, you know, maternal health homes. I think you’ve been very involved in the doula practice and the evolution of that practice. Tell us something about all of those approaches and strategies that you’ve been involved in.

Robbie Harriford:
Sure. So two years ago we were given a $2 million HRSA grant to help kind of lower this maternal morbidity and mortality statistics that we are aware of. So the thought process was, we currently have a patient-centered health home, which is where you take patients that have chronic conditions, usually multiple. So think, you know, you have a person who has both diabetes and high blood pressure. Those are your high-risk patients, but if you can give them more care, more wraparound services, more kind of one-on-one, the outcomes show that it improves. So we wanted to take that idea and convert that over to the idea of a prenatal and postpartum health home or a maternal health home. And so what we were able to do with that $2 million over two years, we added on certain positions that we knew we needed. Because if you look at our patient population specifically at Sam Rogers, it’s extremely diverse. And so there’s a lot of language and cultural barriers that could prevent people coming to their appointments, prevent them from following up at the hospital for, you know, if we had to refer them out. So we added on care coordinators. So these are people who, you know, if somebody misses an appointment, they are getting your report and they are calling that patient to just remind them like, “Hey, you missed your appointment. Is everything okay? Let’s go ahead and get your reschedule as quickly as possible”. Or if somebody had a referral, they’re helping them schedule that referral and getting them transportation. We also added on some CHWs or community health workers to help out with different resources. The part that I’m the most proud about, which you alluded to, we were able to work with doulas. And so our number one language is Spanish at our clinic. So I was very intentional about seeking out bilingual Spanish speaking doulas so that way our patients will feel comfortable.

Maurice Watson:
Robbie, can you tell the audience what a doula is?

Robbie Harriford:
Absolutely.

Maurice Watson
For many of us, that might be a new term.

Robbie Harriford:
Sure. So, a doula is a nonclinical support person who has training about the process of pregnancy and postpartum. And they’re the people who are there alongside the patient when they’re in the hospital in labor. They also see them throughout the pregnancy, kind of teaching them different topics about like breastfeeding for instance, or you know, about mood disorders. And then they also provide postpartum help, whether it’s with a visit or they go to their home and maybe they’re doing simple things or maybe not so simple things like, you know, helping with food or dishes. But they’re really that advocate for the patient in the moment.

Maurice Watson:
How do they differ from a midwife?

Robbie Harriford:
So they actually aren’t delivering, they’re hands off, they are solely there to advocate for the patient and keeping the patient’s like birth plan in mind or you know, if the patient has questions, they’re able to maybe get the point across to the medical providers. So a midwife has medical training. A doula does not specifically have medical training, but they’re often very knowledgeable, sometimes even more knowledgeable than some of like the midwives or some of the other providers that are on site.

Maurice Watson:
So is a doula likely to be present when a woman is delivering?

Robbie Harriford:
Absolutely. The goal is for them to be there for the delivery because that’s the most like high stake moment. And research shows that when doulas are present, you’re less likely to need pain medication because they are able to walk you through different methods to help out with that. And you’re also less likely to have a C-section. So the evidence is clear that doulas work.

Maurice Watson:
Do doulas remain involved post-delivery?

Robbie Harriford:
They do, yeah. So everyone’s a little bit different, but the ones that we were working with specifically did have postpartum packages where they’re either, you know, have a single visit or maybe they’ll follow up with them a few times just to kind of get an idea. And it depends on the patient and their needs as well.

Maurice Watson:
Women’s healthcare is evolving every day. Tell us a little bit about what you think might be the horizon for how we prioritize addressing the needs of women in healthcare in the Kansas City community.

Robbie Harriford:
I think there’s a lot going on, a lot behind the scenes that people don’t know about. I think this concept of a maternal health home is what’s going to be in the future, a big part of the success of lowering that mortality rate. I also think we’re gonna see more and more doulas coming through. You know, we helped with that process by creating a doula pipeline program. And we had our first cohort that were bilingual in several languages, so not just Spanish, to go out into the community. We are seeing improvements, you know, Medicaid right now will reimburse for doula services. So that’s great. And I just think as a whole in Kansas City, people are seeing how, how bad it is. And so people are rallying and not just medical providers, I’m talking about all different types of groups that are coming together. So the local doula groups, you know, we have other philanthropic groups that are coming to the aid, we’re even getting Missouri Medicaid involved because they understand that if we don’t have a healthy mom going through a healthy pregnancy, the future is in trouble with children, families, everything else. So the key is making sure these they are birthing parents are healthy.

Maurice Watson:
How closely are you following the debate around, uh, Medicaid and the diminution of the, or the contraction of that program? And to what extent do you believe it will affect, uh, some of the programs that you think are so important to closing the disparity in healthcare for women?

Robbie Harriford:
I can’t even tell you the number of sleepless nights that I’ve had since all this has come about. I do think that federally qualified health centers will be affected, but I am hopeful because, you know, just even in Missouri we have bipartisan support. People understand the importance of community health centers, federally qualified health centers, so I’m hopeful that the effect will be minimized. But I also think that’s–I’m optimistically cautious about where things are going. You know, there is a vested interest in the health of birthing parents and so I do think it will become a priority to the extent of the changes. I’m not sure, but it is something that I am thinking about constantly and constantly staying up on.

Maurice Watson:
Let’s switch to the work that you’ve done through an organization called Modern Traditions. What inspired the idea of offering healthcare focused travel?

Robbie Harriford:
So my clinic actually, so we see a lot of refugees and we had a large group coming from Afghanistan specifically. And I noticed that those patients would be scheduled, but a lot of times they weren’t showing up. And so me with my kind of Western mindset would get frustrated ’cause we go, I mean we schedule you for a lot of appointments. It’s anywhere from eight to 12 visits each pregnancy, which is a lot. So I signed up for a webinar that was put on, I believe by HRSA which is a government agency. And it was specifically about prenatal care and Afghanistan. And my mind was blown. They said there that on average there, there’s only four visits. And that just really got me thinking about we have people who are coming here who are not necessarily from here and we are expecting them to kind of assimilate right away into what we do. We’re not really thinking about, you know, the trauma that they’ve gone through or what it’s like for them, this is not something that they’re used to. So why are we not doing a little bit more to meet people in the middle? But that comes from wanting to learn more. So that kind of spark sparked modern tradition. So we have the modern medicine, which you know, we can provide, but we also need to take a look at the traditions and the culture that people come from and how we can better integrate those two to improve patient outcomes. So with this, I think a big part of it is going to where the communities that you serve are going to be. So you can do that locally, you can do it internationally. I find it more fun to go internationally. So that’s where we’re gonna start.

Maurice Watson:
Tell us something about some of the opportunities you’ve had to travel abroad and what you’ve learned through those experiences.

Robbie Harriford:
I am the biggest traveler. Everybody at my clinic knows, like every two to three months they’re like, where are you going next? So I’ve gotten to go to Guatemala… lots of times in Mexico, South Africa, like I’ve mentioned lots of places in Europe. And each time it’s always just interesting to see how cultures are in their element. You know, we see people here in the States, but going to those countries and seeing market tours and eating the foods that they eat there that are so fresh, visiting different landmarks, doing different workshops if you can, it really just emphasizes just how beautiful the traditions that cultures have there that tend to be lost sometimes when they come here.

Maurice Watson:
Tell us something about what you may have observed in terms of strengths in meeting the needs of women in healthcare in other countries as compared to the us.

Robbie Harriford:
There is a strong sense of community and that I think is beautiful. People rely on each other. They have been doing this for hundreds of years, these are traditions that are passed down. And yes, there’s gonna be some, some issues with some of the more modern-day concerns that we have. But the beauty lies in that community that is formed and just how strong that is. And sometimes I don’t think we necessarily have that, although at an FQHC, that’s the closest you’re gonna get in a clinical setting because we form a little community.

Maurice Watson:
Was the doula concept borrowed from another country or another culture?

Robbie Harriford:
In essence, yes. It’s kind of like, it parallels with a midwife in a sense, other than that they don’t deliver so, there is that. So in certain Latin American countries, they do have their form of a doula, but oftentimes they have like, there’s a word called “comadrona”, which is like they will deliver, but they’re also providing that advocacy and that extra support there. So it’s kind of like a combination of such, we’ve more or less kind of divided that out in a way here.

Maurice Watson:
How can our community and the listeners become better advocates for women’s health in our community?

Robbie Harriford:
So one, I think, listen, that’s a huge thing. Be aware of what’s going on, not only nationally, but more importantly locally. Get to know your local FQHCs, there’s a bunch of us, and really throw your support behind what we’re doing. Whether that’s volunteering, donating, we could always use outside knowledge coming in. You know, there’s always opportunities within each of these different sites and, and vote, that’s the biggest thing too.

Maurice Watson:
And lastly, how can people connect with you?

Robbie Harriford:
Sure. So I’m on LinkedIn, Robbie Harriford on LinkedIn. I’m also on Instagram, so I have a like a personal account where I post some things. But then Modern Traditions is also on Instagram, modern underscore traditions underscore travel (modern_traditions_travel). And then we have a website, moderntraditionstravel.com.

Maurice Watson:
Thank you to our listeners and thank you Dr. Harford for joining us today. The Pinnacle Prize believes in the power of one person sparking collective change. If you enjoyed hearing directly from Leaders Pushing Kansas City Forward, please share this episode with your friends and family. To learn more about people creating change in our community, follow The Pinnacle Prize on LinkedIn. Check out previous Pinnacle Pod episodes and sign up for our newsletter at pinnacleprizekc.org. Thank you.

Hosted By Maurice Watson

Maurice is a recognized community leader and has more than thirty years of experience working in law, social and public policy and board governance as a lawyer, advisor, and board member. He is the co-founder and principal of Credo Philanthropy Advisors.