Summer Internship: Advocate Health Care's Good Samaritan Hospital

By: Weston Riesselman (MHA ’18)

Greetings from Downers Grove in Chicagoland! It has been just over a month since I began here, and what a month it has been.  Advocate's Good Samaritan Hospital is a nearly 300 bed, all-private-room hospital and is the only Level 1 Trauma Center in DuPage County.  It has been voted one of the Top 10 places to work in Illinois numerous times and is a Baldrige Award Recipient.  I have been beyond fortunate to experience Good Sam's palpable culture, people, and participate in their healthcare ministry.  I am getting experience in operations and strategy, as well as access to hospital and system leadership.

I am stationed under Matthew Cross, the director of Oncology, Behavioral Health, and Ambulatory Services.  He has me working on several operations projects such as generating business for their new Bhorade Cancer Center.  In addition to this I am working with clinicians to improve community lung cancer screenings, reduce cancer patient readmissions on the system level, and create new processes for the new cancer treatment programs they are operationalizing.

Weston Riesselman (MHA '18) and Matthew Cross, director of Oncology,
Behavioral Health, and Ambulatory Services at Good Samaritan Hospital

On a strategy and business development level, I am working to manage a project called Crimson.  This program is designed to expand our patient referral network by providing Advocate and non-Advocate providers with an online portal so they can send referrals easily and without any hassle.  Another business development and strategy project involves Uber.  In cooperation with several departments, we are organizing a pilot program to get patients to and from the hospital via Uber, hopefully increasing our capture rate and reducing appointment abandonment.

Access to leadership is an important feature of my experience. To-date, I have attended Advocate’s Presidents meeting with all of the system’s hospital presidents and had individual meetings with leaders including U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the COO and CMO of Advocate, and all of the executive leadership at Good Sam. In addition to these connections, I also meet regularly with our hospital president David Fox and his executive team, both formally in meetings and casually over lunch.  These leaders have been extremely generous with their time.

Although I am busy with my responsibilities, I am not void of free time.  Outside of work I feel as if I have made real friends with my coworkers by sharing golf stories and going out to eat with the crew.   On the weekends I am able to explore the other attractions Chicago has to offer, from baseball to brunch to the many beautiful sights in the City.