Summer Internship: Columbia St. Mary's

By: Chip Rank

I am very fortunate to be an Administrative Intern with Columbia St. Mary’s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this summer. Columbia St. Mary’s is comprised of four hospitals, over 60 community clinics and several Urgent/Express Care Centers throughout Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Sheboygan counties. Columbia St. Mary’s is a part of Ascension Health. Ascension Health is the largest nonprofit healthcare system in the United States with hospitals and related facilities in 20 states.

My preceptor for the summer is Travis Andersen, President/CEO of Columbia St. Mary’s Health System and an alumnus of the University of Iowa MHA program. He has done a phenomenal job of making me feel like a member of his team during my internship. Travis managed my internship with an open door policy to almost every meeting/event that he attends. One experience in particular that I find very interesting is attending the Integrated Health Network (IHN) of Wisconsin meetings. IHN is the state’s first multi-system, clinically integrated accountable care network and one of the first of its kind in the United States.

This summer I had the opportunity to work on various projects. My main project being a neuroscience market analysis where I identified market trends, conducted market share analyses, areas of opportunities and constructed pro formas based on our recommendations from our research. My second project involved working with the Director of Patient Experience to implement a mobile rounding app to be used throughout the entire health system to improve interaction with patients by logging and tracking provider interaction. This rounding app is an important aspect as Columbia St. Mary’s relaunched their hourly inpatient rounding initiative. I helped create the user friendly app, trained leaders on app functionality and analyzed trends to improve cycle time to help improve HCAHPS scores – scores that I quickly learned keep many healthcare leaders up at night. Third, I helped facilitate our Senior Leadership 90-Day Planning Work Session, along with creating and consistently adjusting our 90-Day Planning Matrix. During this goal setting exercise I was fortunate to spend time with many senior leaders and learn about the importance of accurate goal setting and task alignment for associates. Finally, I conducted a Direct Consumer Product Study researching different devices, apps and technologies that are focused on improving the patient experience. I presented my findings to different senior leaders. One area in particular I acted on was to improve the financial patient experience. I identified our areas of weaknesses and worked with our system CIO and CFO coordinating meetings with different app vendors to improve the payment process for patients and help improve the overall patient experience.

Outside of work, it has been the summer of weddings and catching up with friends. My sister got married in late June and two of my college basketball teammates got married in July. In addition, I have been spending a lot time in Northern Wisconsin on the weekends at different lakes enjoying the sunshine. I look forward to hearing about everyone’s experiences back in Iowa City.