In this episode of Unjargoned, we sit down with Roger Neal of Duncan Regional Hospital to unpack what it actually takes to modernize patient access in rural healthcare—without losing the human, community-first culture that makes local care work. Roger traces his “ping-pong” career path from aspiring physical therapist and pre-med student at University of Oklahoma into healthcare IT and operations, explaining how technology gave him a full view of the organization—and the leverage to fix systemic friction points patients and staff feel every day.

A standout thread is how Roger’s time at Cirque du Soleil reshaped his leadership philosophy: obsess over the experience (not the tools), align every decision to the audience (patients), and sweat the details because the details are what people remember. He applies that same lens to patient access—arguing it’s flipped from “how hospitals schedule” to “how consumers expect to engage,” with phone-first convenience now table stakes even in rural communities competing against bigger systems.

The conversation gets highly practical as Roger breaks down what transformation looks like on the ground: why portals cap out as true engagement tools, why text-based workflows outperform logins and inbox queues, and how standardizing intake can remove hours of repetitive work for patients and clinic staff. His “paper stack” story becomes the catalyst: he gathered every outpatient department head and asked them to bring every form a new patient receives—resulting in a comically tall pile, duplicated packets, and even four versions of a single consent form. From there, he outlines a concrete path forward: unify paperwork, move anything that doesn’t require witnessing/signatures into eForms, deliver it via mobile, and support the remaining edge cases with on-site tablets—so check-in becomes verification, not re-entry.