Summer Internship: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

By: Bryson Kruthoff

Greetings and Salutations from the ‘Burgh,

At the time of this blog entry, I have just started the third week of my summer internship at UPMC in the Heart and Vascular Institute (HVI). Though I have only been here a short amount of time, I have had a great opportunity to contextualize much of what we learned in class, and my projects will certainly lead to a better understanding of new and difficult concepts.

Although my internship is through the Physician Services Division (PSD), UPMC is making strides toward a collaborative care model through service line integration, and at this point in time, HVI is one of the more developed service lines in the organization. This model has allowed me to learn more about not only practice management, but also how a large health care organization can foster successful care coordination through multi-specialty collaboration.

 A couple of my projects are specifically related to this this idea of collaboration. First, I am working on writing a grant proposal for a heart failure discharge clinic. Research has shown that post-discharge heart failure patients are much less likely to be readmitted if they receive follow-up care within seven days.  Though UPMC is not the only organization with such a clinic, we are hoping to implement new and effective procedures to increase follow-up visit adherence.

 Second, we are working to implement a care management program for atrial fibrillation patients covered by the UPMC Health Plan. The goal of this program is to reduce average length of stay and overall readmissions, as well as the high costs associated with treating AFib patients. Needless to say, I am very excited to continue to develop and implement this program.

Outside of these two projects, I have been working on a handful of smaller assignments. Through Microsoft Excel, I have been creating programmatic dashboards for our atrial fibrillation program and our trans-aortic valve replacement program. I have also been put in charge of exploring opportunities to increase the usage of the UPMC patient portal, MyUPMC, to meet current and future Meaningful Use requirements. Similarly, we are exploring opportunities to increase our provider-to-patient secure messaging capabilities.

In my free time, I have been exploring the various sights and sounds that Pittsburgh has to offer. There are many different neighborhoods in the area, each with its own unique style. I have also been attending Pirates games at beautiful PNC Park, and have no plans to stop attending in the near future. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time so far in Pittsburgh, and I imagine it will be hard to leave when my time is up, but I will be happy to be reunited with my classmates, as well as welcoming the incoming class of students.