Summer Internship: Mercy Health Network

Khusbu Patel (MHA '18), third from left, and her colleagues at MHN
while visiting the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, IA.

By Khusbu Patel (MHA '18)

Hello from Des Moines! This summer I have had the opportunity of interning at Mercy Health Network (MHN) in Des Moines, Iowa.  Founded in 1998, MHN is a joint venture between Catholic Health Initiatives and Trinity Health, which are two of the largest Catholic not-for-profit health organizations in the country.

Mike Trachta, Vice President of Network Critical Access Hospital Operations, serves as my preceptor.  Because of his role, this internship has given me exposure to multiple critical access hospitals throughout the state.  As no two hospitals are exactly the same, I really enjoy visiting the different facilities, learning about each organization, and meeting the individuals associated with them.  

As we work closely with our affiliate hospitals, many of my summer projects focus on how we can best serve the hospitals from a network perspective.  One of my big projects aligns with my interest in psychology and mental illness.  MHN recently created a Behavioral Health Task Force after affiliates voiced concerns about safety and quality of care for patients with mental health concerns in emergency rooms.  We had our first session this week!  The task force consists of passionate healthcare providers and administrators from central Iowa, process improvement leaders, experts in telemedicine, legislative advocates, and law enforcement.  Our hope is to streamline a process for facilities to best prepare staff and providers to treat behavioral health patients in the ER with the same urgency and care that they would provide to a patient who walked in with chest pains.

I have received great mentorship from the executive team, and I have been able to work alongside them on multiple projects. Some of my other projects include creating a request for proposals for a security information and event management project, developing an emergency tele-psychiatry business plan, analyzing finances to create interactive maps on Adaptive Insights (a data analysis tool), and helping with the strategic planning and development for the new MHN vision.

This summer is flying by! Outside of work, I have enjoyed many of the festivals downtown and the amazing farmers’ markets.  During a work trip to Guttenberg, we stopped in Dyersville to do some touristy things at the Field of Dreams. My preceptor was disappointed when he realized Administrative Fellow Catherine Hillestad (MHA ’17) and I hadn’t seen Field of Dreams or Twister.  Luckily, I was able to make it up to him and the rest of the team when I taught them how to take fun Boomerangs (a new video app)!