Summer Internship: Kaitlin Boyle
When I arrived in Kansas City, I was eager to learn about the for-profit world of hospitals and how an extremely successful organization was developed; however, I was a bit worried that I would get lost in the shuffle of a large hospital system, and that my assigned projects would have a minimal impact on the company. WOW, was I ever wrong!!! I have been given projects that would normally be tasked by senior leadership, and working with all professions on any given day—Lets take today for example to give you a glimpse on the various projects I am a part of.
I arrive in the office and start off every day informally rounding on all the departments of the hospital. This is something that is ingrained in the administrative theory practiced at the hospital, and provides me with the opportunity to interact with all staff. I go to each department of the hospital, ask the staff how everything is going, if they need anything from administration and what their schedule looks like for the day. This normally takes about an hour or so, but today was a bit different; there was a tornado a few days ago. During the tornado, all patients were moved into the inner corridors of the hospital, staff and visitors were in the designated tornado shelters, and I was assisting in the command center with the CEO. Rounding today was focused on the tornado, specifically what was learned from the tornado and what can be improved. I learned that the overhead tornado alert system could not be heard in one of the operating rooms, flashlights were suggested to be placed in different areas, and that all patients and staff were extremely pleased with process. When rounding in the Operating Room area, I was asked to scrub-in and speak with an equipment vendor, and the ENT physician that was performing a procedure. The physician was using a piece of navigational equipment that he would like the hospital purchase. I observed the procedure, talked to the physician about why he thinks that this piece of equipment can improve the quality of care, and explained the capital allocation process that goes on within the company to the vendor. This specific piece of equipment is something that our hospital has been looking at for a few months now. Later this week, I will be performing a return on investment analysis, and presenting results at the division capital allocation meeting.
I arrive back at my desk only to quick leave again and go off-site for a meeting about an Ambulatory Surgery Center. This is the major project I am working on, and I am crossing my fingers that I get to see construction start before I leave. Today I met an architect and mechanical engineer who flew in from Nashville, TN for the day to see if the surgery center design will fit into one of the Medical Office Buildings owned by the hospital. The surgery center will be jointly owned by individual physicians and HCA. The project involves working with corporate to ensure capital allocation, physicians to solicit the plan, gather interest and ultimately become part owners, in conjunction with construction and design of the location and services provided. Since starting this I have become well versed in design and construction, as well as legislative requirements and workflow processes for a surgery center. The meeting went extremely well, we wandered all throughout the inside and outside of the building looking at various structural and mechanical aspects of a building. I hope to know by the end of the week if this surgery center will work in this existing building, or if a new building needs to be constructed from the ground up.
The day wrapped up with the weekly O’s meeting. This is a dedicated time that all the administrators meet to discuss the organization. Topics often include census, budget, growth, and quality of care. Today’s meeting was centered on capital allocation. Next week we will be presenting our capital needs to division, during this meeting the task was to rank order our capital “wish list”. This process looked at the return on investment for over 50 capital submissions, along with the projected growth, and quality of care. From the list of 50 we were able to determine our top 5 which will be presented to division in hopes of capital approval.
Other projects I am working on include analyzing employed physician referral patterns, a nurse practitioner alignment agreement, transferring an outpatient imaging department to a orthopedic physicians office, developing and implementing a discharge phone call plan, and designing a strategy map that looks at where hospital patients are from and how the demographic has changed year over year. My time in thus far Kansas City has been amazing, and I know I will draw on the experiences and lessons learned from my internship in the years to come.
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