University of Iowa Health Management & Policy

By: Zachary Witt (MHA '21) Hello from the Mississippi River!   This summer I had the opportunity to intern at MercyOne Clinton Medical Center with Amy Berentes, Executive VP/COO/CNO. Clinton Medical Center is a faith-based, full-service community health hospital with 163 licensed beds (census of approximately 30) serving multiple rural communities alongside the Mississippi River in both Eastern Iowa and Northwestern Illinois. The organizational structure is unique as there is a sole Eastern Iowa Regional Leadership Team that manages Dubuque Medical Center, Clinton Medical Center, Clinton North Health Plaza Clinic, and three Critical Access Hospitals located in Dyersville, Guttenberg and Elkader, Iowa.   As the lone Eastern Iowa Region intern I had the privilege of observing all leaders at all facilities during my eight weeks. I served as a member of the Eastern Iowa Regional Leadership Team as I participated in every single meeting my preceptor attended – from any small touch base

By: Vanessa Savage Hello from Pittsburgh! I have had the privilege to intern with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) for the last 10 weeks, and it has been everything I could have hoped for and more. UPMC is an Integrated Delivery and Finance Health System comprised of four major areas: provider services, insurance services, international provider services, and enterprise services. My internship is focused primarily within provider services, specifically here in Pittsburgh at Magee-Womens Hospital which is one of 40 UPMC hospitals across Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland. Magee-Womens provides a wide variety of services to its patient population, however it is best known for delivering over 10,000 babies annually in addition to caring for about 1,500 critically-ill newborns in the NICU. My role this summer is focused primarily with University of Pittsburgh Physicians (UPP), the physicians’ group working within UPMC in conjunction with the University of Pittsburgh. The br

By: Brigette Boyle Hello, everybody! It’s crazy to think that in a year that has seemed endless at times, the summer is quickly coming to a close! I am currently wrapping up my time as a Graduate Administrative Intern at Northwestern Medicine (NM). After my initial plan to complete the Administrative Internship Program with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN was canceled due to safety concerns from COVID-19, I was incredibly fortunate to secure another position with NM in the West Region Performance Improvement Office (PIO).   Northwestern Medicine is a 10-hospital premier integrated academic health system that stretches across the greater-Chicagoland area. The West Region, where my efforts have been focused, consists of three acute-care hospitals, one rehabilitation hospital, and one critical access hospital. This is my third summer with NM, and I can truly say that each experience continues to be better than the last.   My work has been a mix of both COVID-related and non-COVID project

By: Ian Rowland Interning with University of Iowa Physicians (UIP) has been a fantastic experience, and I encourage any aspiring healthcare professional to seek a similar experience. The UIP internship has a duration of 10 weeks, it pays a monthly stipend, and it is based mainly in Iowa City and Coralville. UIP takes on 2-3 interns every summer, all of who are current MHA students at Iowa.   When searching for internships, I wanted a position that would be project-based, would require me to practice skills taught during the first year of the MHA program, and would teach me about the functioning of a large healthcare organization. Interning with UIP has not fallen short on any of my expectations. Weekly intern roundings at the UIHC have exposed me to many different departments within the hospital, while my projects helped me understand strategic and financial factors that affect UIP. Most of my work has been with UI Health Ventures (UIHV), which is an organization that UIP and UIHC over

By: Maura Saltzman Greetings from Iowa City! After my original summer internship plans were affected by COVID, I was grateful to be provided with the opportunity to continue my graduate assistantship through the summer as the Community Engagement Intern for the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) All of Us Community Engagement Center (CEC) – we like acronyms! My preceptor is Dr. Rima Afifi, who is also a professor and the Director for Graduate Studies for the Department of Community and Behavioral Health in the College of Public Health. The NNLM CEC oversees the Community Engagement Network (CEN), which was established through a partnership between the National Institutes of Health (NIH) All of Us Research Program and the National Library of Medicine. The CEN consists of eight regional medical libraries and thousands of member libraries whose collective mission is to improve access to biomedical information, support communities with consumer health information, and rais

By: Jake Teumer Hello from Kingwood, Texas. From June 1, 2020 until now I have had the privilege of being the administrative intern here at HCA Houston Kingwood. This facility is a full service 419-bed acute care hospital that provides care to the northeast Houston community. In this position, I report directly to the CEO John Corbeil. From the start the team here was very inviting in making me a member of the hospital’s senior leadership team. During my tenure, I have been fortunate to work with each member of administration in various capacities, affording me a breadth of experiences and tasks. I took an initiative to expose myself to as many clinical encounters, strategic and operational meetings, and executive-level discussions as possible. I intimately learned the responsibilities of hospital directors via one-on-one conversations as well as spent many hours shadowing frontline employees at on-site and off-site departments. I have been able to help facilitate EOC rounds in prepara

By: Jess Shreeves I began my administrative internship at the Veteran's Health Administration (VHA) in late May of 2020 and since then I have worked from home or from within the walls of the VHA facilities, located here in Iowa City, Iowa. In terms of how I became connected to my preceptor for the internship, Dr. Broderick, Director of Palliative Care and Hospice Services at the VHA, agreed to become my sponsor after our shared Iyengar Yoga instructor continued to persuade me to reach out to her (my instructor knew that Dr. Broderick and I shared similar perspectives related to global health studies). Dr. Broderick and I do share some perspectives which we have individually gained in global health environments. In fact, Dr. Broderick usually leads a group of fellows to Southern India, for the month of December, to gain perspectives on effective community-led health care. On a different note, I do work with very sensitive data and a very unique, vulnerable health population; I think

By: Megan Mitchell Hello, everyone!   This summer I came back to my southern roots to intern at the Alabama Medicaid Agency located in Montgomery, Alabama. I had the opportunity to intern at the Agency last summer when I attended Auburn University and loved it so much that I’m back again.   Last summer, I assisted with the readiness assessment and implementation process of Alabama Coordinated Health Networks (ACHN). ACHN was designed to create a single care coordination delivery system that will be cost-efficient for the State and improve health outcomes for Alabamians. This summer, I am working on contract amendments for the ACHN program including telephonic care coordination. My unique experience has allowed me to see what it’s like to implement a new program and how to manage a program after implementation. My preceptor for both of my internships at the Agency has been Drew Nelson, MPH, Epidemiologist, and Director of Networks and Quality Assurance Division. I have also had the priv

By: Alex Rasmussen I have had the pleasure of interning this summer with the University of Iowa Physicians. My preceptor, Beth Jaggers, has given me challenging and rewarding projects that have gained me a significant amount of exposure to the healthcare field. I have been closely working with the ILI clinic (Influenza-Like-Illnesses) at University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics which manages all the testing and telemedicine visits for COVID-19, as well as working with UI Community Clinics which encompasses all the clinics, UI QuickCares, UI Urgent Cares outside of the main hospital campus. I have been a part of a variety of projects throughout the summer, specifically related to keeping up with the rapidly changing COVID-19 pandemic. I have aided in operationalizing different procedures/protocols for the clinic as well as the opening of a new ILI clinic during this summer. I am also currently co-leading a project ensuring staff safety in the clinics. Other tasks that I have taken on hav

By: Taylor Reber Hello from… you guessed it, Iowa City! What a summer! We started at the bottom, now we’re here. My internship has been spent as an avid learner working with Tim Kan, Chief Growth Officer of University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics (UIHC). Tim has largely spent his career in the healthcare consulting world working as a director for Navigant Consulting. He has developed a depth of knowledge in enterprise & service line strategy, organizational integration, and performance improvement. He reports directly to and assists Suresh Gunasekaran, CEO of UIHC, in implementing the strategic vision for UIHC. Tim has pushed me and our team to discover ways where we can grow as an organization and individually. He really has become a fantastic mentor and is very invested in my future success. From day one, I have been put to the grindstone conducting market research and developing scorecards to highlight potential growth strategies. I’ve built various financial projections to s

Summer Internship: UIHC Support Services By: Campbell Pendleton   Never has an uneventful summer been so busy. Although my internship has officially concluded, I spent the summer with UIHC Application Services under my preceptor, Karmen Dillon, alongside Gina Miller as my co-intern. Most of my work this summer was concentrated around three main projects; third-party insurance enrollment, current procedural terminology (CPT) coding updates, and new service locations.   Through a crash course in process mapping, I learned more about how the different departments in support services function, interact, and well, support the medical side of the system. It was eye-opening to discover and interact with all the relevant stakeholders and number of steps that need to be coordinated in order to function. For example, in regards to the new service locations project, we were asked to research exactly how varying departments within UIHC do so with the ultimate goal of streamlining the process. Doin

By: Cole Malcolm Greetings from Colorado! This summer I’ve had the incredible opportunity of interning at UCHealth- University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, CO. UCHealth is an academic health system affiliated with University of Colorado School of Medicine and has hospitals and clinics located across the state of Colorado. During my time here I have had the privilege of working with Operations team, specifically with Karen Lovett, Senior Operations Director. The internship’s first three weeks operated virtually, and then we’ve been on site since end of June.     The main project I am working on currently is a vendor and contractor management with regards to facility and procedural area access, badging & security, and supply chain and contract management. Pre-COVID we thought we had a tight process when it came to vendor credentialing and badging, but since changing our facility access and visitor management policies due to COVID, we’ve realized that we have opportunities to grow

By: Bradley Jessen Hello Everyone! This summer I’ve had the amazing opportunity to intern at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Lurie Children’s Hospital is a not-for-profit freestanding pediatric academic medical center located in the heart of downtown Chicago, Illinois. On top of their nationally ranked academic medical center, Lurie Children’s is accompanied by outpatient centers, primary care locations, and affiliated physicians across the Chicagoland area. During my internship, I have been fortunate to work under two amazing preceptors, Jill Keats, Vice President of Program Development and Ron Blaustein, CFO and Senior Vice President. Both have longstanding careers dedicated to Lurie Children’s mission of bringing top of the line care to children and furthering pediatric medicine.   During my time at Lurie Children’s I have been fortunate to work on wide a range of projects including daily employee screening for COVID-19 operations and planning, home health

By: Gina Miller Howdy from Iowa City, This summer I was blessed with the opportunity to intern with the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in the Health Care Information Systems Department. Specifically working under Karmen Dillon and the HCIS team to work on specific projects such as Annual CPT Code Changes, 3 rd Party Insurance Enrollment, and New Service Locations. I worked with various project managers to develop process maps as well as specific data analysis on these projects within my 10-week internship. To break down my specific project work I specifically worked on the new service locations project to Create a Source of Truth list of UIHC facilities and I i nitially began using “Master” spreadsheet for all facility locations. For the CPT specific project, the purpose of the project was to develop process maps/ workflows to detail out the CPT changes and their process and identify recommendations or changes to improve the process. We met with specific departments to defin

By: Ashley Lawler Hi everyone! Sending you all a virtual hug from Evanston, Illinois and hope you all are enjoying your internship experiences. This summer, I am interning with NorthShore University HealthSystem at their Glenbrook Hospital. NorthShore is comprised of five hospitals throughout northwestern Chicago suburbs. Last week, they officially announced they were entering negotiations to acquire a sixth hospital, which is very exciting as NorthShore continues to expand and provide quality care to the northwestern Chicago community. When COVID-19 hit, NorthShore chose to designate one hospital to house and treat all positive inpatients. Due to the location in the community and the ability to manipulate airflow on the floors, Glenbrook was chosen as the “COVID Hospital”. Imagine my surprise when I found this out on my first day! My preceptor is the hospital president, Jesse Peterson Hall. I have been able to attend corporate meetings, meet with all the members of the senior manageme

By: Nicole Graf Hello from Iowa City, IA! This summer I have had the opportunity to intern at MediRevv under Founder and CEO, Chris Klitgaard. In addition to working directly with Chris, I have worked very closely with the amazing group that makes up the rest of the Senior Leadership Team at MediRevv. MediRevv is a revenue cycle management company that specializes in maximizing revenue for various healthcare organizations through a wide array of service lines such as full end-to-end revenue cycle management, patient pay, A/R wind down, and coding. MediRevv serves over 30 clients across 27 states and is growing quickly as outsourcing of revenue cycle management continues to be an evident trend seen across the healthcare industry. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so far this summer I have been mostly working remotely, as MediRevv transitioned to work-from-home at the end of March and is continuing to do so with the prevalence and resurgence of COVID-19 across the country. Even though I have

By: Zoe Horak Hello!   This summer I am interning with the UI Physicians Group (UIP). UIP works with nearly every single aspect of the hospital in some way or another – the division that I am working with is the Patient Access Center (PAC). PAC includes the Integrate Call Center as well as the Admissions and Transfer Center. They are a non-revenue generating portion of UI Health Care/UIP, and their primary focus is patient throughput. My preceptor is Beth Jaggers and she is the Administrative Director for UIP, but I work most with Keri Semrau, the Director of PAC, ICC, and ATC.     So far in my internship, I am working on roughly 3-4 various on-going projects. My main project is Template Optimization; Keri gave me the opportunity to become Project Lead, so I dove right in! We are looking at each department within UIHC and seeing how their provider templates can be improved and more standardized so that the clinic is functioning at the highest level of productivity. My other smaller pro

By: Nikki Haas Hi all!   I’m writing from Iowa City where I am interning at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. So far this summer, I’ve had the privilege to work alongside numerous people in various departments across UI HealthCare, such as surgeons, financial analysts, coders, etc.  This includes my preceptor, Mark Henrichs, UIHC’s CFO and Assistant VP for Finance.   This summer I am primarily working on the Clinical Documentation Improvement initiative. It is one of twenty hospital-wide initiatives that have been chartered for FY21. The goal of this project is to create a standardized methodology that providers use when documenting in the patient’s electronic medical record. In effect, UIHC can assure more complete and accurate documentation, which will positively impact the adequacy, continuity, and quality of care, as well as improve reimbursement.   My specific role in the project is I am creating a Clinical Documentation Improvement Handbook that will be used as the CD