Tommy Comer, CHRO at HealthPRO Heritage

Show Notes

Easing the Burden: HealthPRO Heritage’s CHRO on Flex Staffing, Connected HR Tech, and Practical AI

Summary

In healthcare, you can’t Zoom in care, so how do you build flexibility, reduce admin burdens, and retain scarce clinicians?

Tommy Comer, Chief Human Resources Officer at HealthPRO Heritage, shares how his team supports therapists across 44 states by blending smart staffing models with a connected HR tech ecosystem.

With 15 years in healthcare HR, Tommy explains how the employee–employer compact has shifted especially for therapists with gig-like options and why leaders must design flexibility around settings and shifts, not location.

He details practical tech and AI use cases that actually give time back to caregivers: automated record audits (Dart AI) for accuracy and reimbursement, voice-to-text documentation, and an AI-powered HR “mascot” that answers policy questions 24/7 so HR can focus on complex issues.

Tommy also breaks down why comp is only one lever, how to link turnover, comp, and scheduling data to find true root causes, and the role HR must play in AI adoption being fluent, peeking around corners, and upskilling the human skills machines won’t replace.

Timestamps

[00:45] – HealthPRO Heritage overview: national footprint and therapy settings served

[01:11] – Tommy’s 15-year path in healthcare HR and why people strategy is different in care

[02:01] – The new employee–employer compact: loyalty, options, and a gig-like therapist market

[05:06] – Flex in healthcare: optimizing PRN talent, cross-setting staffing, and clear options

[07:18] – From silos to systems: connecting turnover, comp, and scheduling data by location

[10:45] – Frontline reality: admin burden vs. mission work—and where tech can relieve it

[11:50] – Practical AI that sticks: Dart AI for audits, voice-to-notes, and an HR “mascot” for policies

[16:02] – HR’s role in AI adoption: fluency, risk balance, human-skills development, and final advice

Takeaways

- Design flexibility around settings and shifts—build cross-setting PRN pools and let clinicians choose where they work.

- Connect people data across systems (turnover, comp, scheduling) to diagnose root causes by market and site.

- Deploy simple, high-impact AI: automated record audits, voice-to-text documentation, and 24/7 HR knowledge bots.

- Reduce administrative friction so clinicians can focus on care; standardize and streamline what you can.

- Treat pay as one lever—pair fair comp with recognition, strong supervisors, and predictable, transparent schedules.

- Make HR AI-fluent and lead adoption while upskilling the human skills (communication, leadership) AI won’t replace.
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Emily Fenech (00:00)
Welcome to HR Voices, I'm Emily Fenech and today I get to chat with Tommy Comer, who's the CHRO at HealthProHeritage. Welcome Tommy.

Tommy Comer (00:09)
Thanks Emily, appreciate it.

Emily Fenech (00:11)
Yeah, I'm so glad that you're here. So HealthPRO Heritage is a nationwide provider of therapy, rehab, wellness services to healthcare organizations. Can you tell us a little bit more about your business, your people, your customers, and your role as CHRO?

Tommy Comer (00:28)
Sure, sure. So I've been fortunate to lead HR at HealthPRO Heritage for about nine months now. And what we do is we provide therapists to different healthcare settings. So long-term care companies, senior living companies partner with us and we provide therapy for their residents. We also have our own pediatric sites where we provide therapy to different children.

variety of different needs and then there's even some home health in there. So it's a national organization. We're in think 44 states at this point. So big.

Emily Fenech (01:04)
Yeah, and prior to that, you've been leading the people function at some senior living institutes. You've been in healthcare for quite some time.

Tommy Comer (01:11)
Yeah, I think 15 years total I've been in healthcare and it's funny, I fell into it, I got lucky. Senior living in particular is such a great field for people strategy because we're not building widgets, it's literally humans touching humans. So the people strategy is very important.

Emily Fenech (01:13)
Mm-hmm.

Nah.

Yeah, can't automate, I mean, you can automate some pieces of care, but you you definitely still need a lot of people.

So maybe talk to me a little bit about healthcare. I know you said you got lucky and I find your perspective really, know, refreshing because what sometimes what I read, sometimes what I hear is that healthcare can be one of the most challenging environments for the HR function. So talk to me about your optimism and maybe what I've been hearing. Like what's challenging about it? What's great about it?

Tommy Comer (02:01)
The challenges are real. We can't sugarcoat it. I like to say the employee, employer, compact, value proposition, contract, implied contract, really has changed in different ways. And I like to think we try to lean into that and just...

accept it. I don't think the old adage of here's a job, you should be happy having the job is ever going to come back. And it is sobering though when you look at things like Gallup Research saying almost half the workforce is actively looking for another job. And it does feel like that at times. the optimist to me is still

finding the reasons why someone wants to stay haven't changed all that much. mean, it's the relationship with your supervisor is still critical. It's, are you paid a fair rate? Do you have some flexibility? Are you recognized for a good job? Well done. That is, that has not changed. And I think employers or even just a supervisor does those well, tends to have different outcomes. So that

I think that's where I try to start when I look at that daunting challenge that we have in healthcare.

Emily Fenech (03:16)
Right.

Right. Well, more specific, when you say the contract has changed, can you give me a little bit more context on what you're referencing? I'm assuming you mean that, you know, people aren't sort of as loyal to their employers as they were. Maybe people were hopping around a bit more. Is that what you're referencing?

Tommy Comer (03:33)
Yeah, it's this feeling of what does loyalty mean? What does that define? And I think that's just changed. It's skill-based versus role-based. And I think there's different things people will want, especially in healthcare, where I'll use our industry, therapy.

If you're an occupational therapist, you can go anywhere and somebody's calling you. Somebody has a need. So you have a lot of options. And I think it is, it's starting to feel a little bit more like a gig workforce where, and as an employer, you still want your core full-time tried and true staff, but.

Emily Fenech (04:03)
Right.

Tommy Comer (04:10)
We also need to accept that there are workers that they're looking for very specific shifts, they're looking for very specific settings, and you just want to know who they are and when you have a fit, be able to get in front of them. But you still have those pockets, those leaders who want it the old way where someone's going to stay with you four, five, six years. It's just not as common.

So we have to somewhat accept that. And healthcare is also challenging. We don't always have flexible remote hybrid options the way some of you do.

Emily Fenech (04:45)
Yeah, you have to be there.

Yeah, you have to be there because as you said earlier, know, people serving people. you know, beyond just acceptance, which is actually a big part of the solution, I imagine, how are you rising to that challenge? Like, how are you adapting to a new workforce with different expectations than maybe a decade ago or even five years ago?

Tommy Comer (05:06)
It's hard. Some of the things we try to do is when you have what we call a PRN workforce, your temp workers, people who work various shifts, is to maximize how you use them. I think there was a time where they were probably more role specific. Think of an OT, they work in long-term care, and this one works in schools. And it's shifting to...

being able to work in all settings and finding those flexible workers. That's a way to use flexibility. Choose which setting you want to work in. Some love home health, some don't. But also, you got to use technology as well. Simple things, making sure every active employee knows what's available.

Sounds like a first world problem. Like how is that not the case? But it's, surprisingly hard when you're in 44 states to make sure everybody knows what options exist and technology.

Emily Fenech (05:58)
Now you're not alone in the light.

I met with a CHRO the other day on the program who was talking about something as simple as scheduling at a restaurant. So totally different industry, but you know, basically said the same thing. Like it seems like it should be simple. It seems like the technology should be a hundred percent there and it's not always yet. Like it will assume these things and yet it might, the tech might not have actually caught up in the way that even employees are assuming it should have, right?

Tommy Comer (06:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, think of, I think there is a parallel with like a restaurant in some of our settings in that.

depending on the day, depending on what's going on, the needs or the hours available will vary. And you want technology to predict that a little bit better so that you're not scrambling either because you have needs you can't fill or you're overstaffed. And now what do you do with these extra hours that aren't quote unquote productive?

Emily Fenech (06:57)
Right, right. So talk to me a little bit more about like the tech, how tech has changed over your career, not just maybe for the staffing or the workers that you support, but even as a people leader, right? As just as the technology that the business is using to serve your people, how has that changed?

Tommy Comer (07:18)
One of the things I was thinking about is how much more technology is an ecosystem. Everything connects now or has to connect.

Whereas I think you could get away with it five years ago, even certainly beyond that, where you look at this data point over here in this system and this data point over here in this system. But now you have to overlay everything, turnover connected to your comp system, to your scheduling system, to see the real analytics around what, so you're not guessing, like what's driving turnover here? it's the supervisor. It may not be. Maybe the scheduling practices.

able to connect these dots and use whether it's Power BI type tools or AI tools to take some of that guesswork out and make better decisions and also realizing markets are different.

Individual locations will be different and it's not a one-size-fits-all and I think that that's some of the hardest part is it's not always this big swath wide-ranging Fix it's a very specific fix here and it's a very different fix here and That's not easy. That's not easy. But technology has to help us with that

Emily Fenech (08:33)
Yeah, it's like there's, there's no such thing as an easy button, right? Or else you would have smashed it already. You would have already done it. Yeah. So it really is that painstaking work of being kind of surgical about it. Um, and tiny little 1 % gains. It's like, you have to build the habits that build up to long-term impact there. Again, there's no, um, yeah, as, as much as we all wish there were, I know some days like, why is this not easier? I mean,

Tommy Comer (08:38)
We would have already done it.

Great.

And it's

a good example is it's, it's, there's still folks I think out there that think, we'll just pay more. But if that would, if that solved everything, there would be organizations just doing that. It's not that that's one small, that's one piece, but it's not everything.

Emily Fenech (09:16)
Yeah, your comp strategy is one piece of, cause then it would be the schedule or then it would be career potential or it be something else, Talk to you about some other challenges maybe of, know, I'm assuming, you know, you're a great HR leader, most great HR, they have a listening strategy. What are you hearing from your people? Like how would they characterize their biggest challenge? Cause I know the business, you know, is trying to get predictive schedules and is trying to retain talent. What are they struggling with?

Tommy Comer (09:44)
It can vary a little bit, but I think from a frontline standpoint, it's balancing the continued complexities and administrative burden that you have to have in place for capturing data, it could be for reimbursements, there's an administrative piece of it that continues to grow in complexity, but at the end of the day, what they're really...

there to do and what they love to do and why they do this is to help people. And it's trying to find better ways to alleviate that side of it so they can do the mission work they were meant to do. And that's probably most organizations. And I think for us as the leaders of the organization, it's how do we do that for them? How can we get there? Because productivity's...

continue to be more more important. You have to deliver more and deliver more. Resources are scarce. how do we get them to a place where that's all they have to worry about? And that's challenging.

Emily Fenech (10:45)
Absolutely. One of my best friends is an occupational therapist and she talks an awful lot about, mean, she, she's one those people that just wants to help, the born helper. She wants to help everybody. Heart of gold hates paperwork and there's just so much paperwork and I'm sure you hear that all the time, but is technology sort of improving to allow people like her to, to spend more time actually servicing at the end of the day, your customers.

Tommy Comer (10:58)
Yeah.

I think it is, and it's trying to keep up with it. An example would be, I use an example of a solution we're implementing. It's a Dart AI, and it's all around auditing records, making sure they're accurate so that there's no missteps, whether it's a reimbursement that's government related or getting information to a client.

it can do it at a speed that no human can. So it's getting some of that work done automatically. think there's more, I think of entering notes in a computer. Now you can voice the notes and it's perfect and it's accurate and that saves time. So there's just, it's trying to keep up with all these tools. But again, like you said, your friend's experience is exactly what we do. The occupational therapists, they want to deliver

occupational therapy. That's what they're meant to do. That's what we love doing.

Emily Fenech (12:03)
Yeah, go figure.

Yeah. mean, even I mean, I think I think the lesson here for like AI tools and tools in general is that often it's like the most simple use cases that people.

They, you know, start small, right? I think there are tools out there where if an occupational therapist in home health can voice note in the car, driving to the next appointment and the AI can capture those notes perfectly, right? Like that's a victory that compounded over your entire workforce probably saves hours, keeps the schedule on time, keeps them happy. Right. So I love finding out about those types of use cases, the ones that are just so like practical that it hurts. Are there any other use cases?

Tommy Comer (12:33)
on.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Emily Fenech (12:45)
like that that you've sort of seen in healthcare.

Tommy Comer (12:49)
It's a really small example, but my last organization, I was in senior living, I was in an organization called Commonwealth Senior Living, and we implemented an HR mascot, which is a simple AI tool. But what was neat about it is...

we could have it assigned to know all of, basically all of Commonwealth, every policy, every procedure, every little thing. And the idea was sometimes a leader just needs a quick answer. They don't, and I think, and this is where I think sometimes in HR we're not as helpful.

It's like, well, the policy's here, do this. And it's sometimes they just, they just need that life preserver real fast. And the mascot was available 24 seven. And it not only would say, the policy's hit this or here's the form. Here's what you do next. And it would just, it would be very quick and simple and easy. And it also freed up our team from feel from not having to feel the kind of mundane to really, when that person calls, no, they

a real challenging issue, that's why you're here. Not to direct them to policies. Again, it's just trying to do those things at scale over and over. Where are those opportunities in the organization where it's not AI's... I'm using a lot of AI. AI is not going to replace every position. It's going to change them.

Emily Fenech (14:11)
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like there's been something that...

You know, lash, I feel like in 2025, everybody said, you know, you're not behind on AI, you're not behind. And I think we've got to start changing that in 2026 because for things, for use cases like that, if you haven't looked across your organization, whether you're in healthcare or you're in SAS, or you're in a restaurant, if people are asking you questions and you haven't set up AI powered knowledge bases for them, whether it's, we have a tool called OneUp that manages our security reviews and sales, common sales questions, right? It is such a time saver.

Tommy Comer (14:39)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Emily Fenech (14:44)
And for things like what you're just mentioning, like the first tier questions that HR gets, I spoke with another woman who had 15,000 emails she audited in a year of just simple questions that AI is now assisting on answering. If you haven't set that up yet, I'm going to start changing my tune in 2026 to say, I think you are behind. I'll say it. You're a little behind if you haven't tried that yet. So.

Tommy Comer (15:03)
Yeah, I would agree. I would agree.

And what's interesting

is that the continued use of AI, like you said, every organization has probably some variation, if I always say so, but it's gonna change some of the things we do in HR because there's inevitably gonna be mistakes and issues and things we're not thinking about and it's going to be complex and then it's fragile. So how, we become architects.

of this solution. It's not just IT. It's really everybody, but in a people business like healthcare, it's like we have to be out in front of how we use it.

Emily Fenech (15:43)
Yeah, absolutely. What do you think HR's role is in this transition? think, you know, we've talked, I've talked to people about, you know, HR has a place, the tech team has a place, legal has a place. What do think HR's role in sort AI adoption in the organization is and how's that changing?

Tommy Comer (16:02)
I think HR has to be fluent, pretty well fluent in AI and how it's used and understand how each area of the business is using it. It'll help with peeking around corners, like those unintended issues and consequences that...

we're not thinking about. think HR can be helpful in that and have a different lens. Your legal departments have a very specific lens. Love legal departments, don't get me wrong. But they're very risk averse. mean, you can't be totally risk averse. But it's also, I think on the flip side, the human skills are the hard skills. And we, on the flip side, we have to be really good at

Emily Fenech (16:29)
You

Tommy Comer (16:44)
developing those and upskilling people with those types of skills because the things that AI is replacing, there's still humans that need to do some really hard work, whether it's in communication and leading people, it's not gonna take the place. So HR can really help develop those skills along for their workforce. But I think that to start, you gotta figure out where your gaps are.

Emily Fenech (17:07)
Yeah, that's a good point. Well, I've really enjoyed our chat today. Is there any sort of advice you have for our listeners, people who work in HR who, advice or encouragement? I always like to end there.

Tommy Comer (17:18)
Yeah. Well, I think I love HR and what I love about it is it just keeps growing. I mean, it's but it's more complex today than ever. And I think my advice to whether you're young in your career or CHRO is

You be curious, be creative, and don't shy away from innovation because it's a blank canvas out there in some settings. I think that's a great opportunity for our profession to just demonstrate value and you be the one bringing up the wild and crazy ideas that may actually stick and may actually solve something.

Emily Fenech (18:02)
Yeah, I love it. love you're an optimist and a creative. you don't see that every day. So.

Tommy Comer (18:08)
Well, my claim to fame is I have 14 year old triplets. So this stuff's easy, right? I mean, this is kind of an easy work.

Emily Fenech (18:13)
Yeah,

yeah, you buried the lead on that one. Yeah, that puts a lot of things in perspective. It makes sense now. Awesome, well thank you so much again, Tommy. I really enjoyed chatting with you.

Tommy Comer (18:22)
Thank you, Emily. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Emily Fenech (18:24)
Take care.