University of Iowa Health Management & Policy

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...

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 proc...

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...

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 hea...

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 oth...

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 wil...