Summer Internship: HCA Houston Kingwood

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 preparation for JCAHO. I have been able to observe multiple medical procedures which has been a phenomenal opportunity to see the impact the staff members make on patient lives. This included cases in the Cath lab, trauma, and emergency cases, one of which was brought in by AIRLife. A personal highlight was shadowing a 4-hour CABG surgery, where cardiovascular surgeon was very engaged in teaching me and allowing me to ask questions throughout the procedure.

Some of my key projects have included:

·       Leading a 30,000 ft. shell space asset relocation in preparations for a $15 million-dollar, 40 bed expansion project scheduled to start at the end of the 4th quarter. The shell space was filled with bulk items and equipment from multiple service lines, broken or outdated capital items, old furniture, and much more. While leading this project, I was able to work with every department within the hospital. I communicated and set up meetings with over 113 leaders to get a better understanding of what was being stored, why, and what we can do with it. Additionally, I worked with multiple vendors, who will auction removed medical equipment and will cut us a percentage of the sales revenue.

 

·       Created two report templates for the plant operations team. One to assess work order completion percentages for the senior leadership team. The other to provide Intel on all pending maintenance requests to all leaders within the hospital. This also including me personally training plants ops staff on communication methods within the engineering central system.

 

·       Improved and renovated the physician lounge and sleep rooms. Executing this project, I worked with the plant operations team to remove old furniture and met with physicians to gain a true understanding of what they wanted to be included in the space. We were able to supply new beds, nightstands, additional blanket storage, and new living room furniture all within the bounds of a very conservative budget. I worked with IT to get quotes on new TV’s and computers, as well as a Vendor for painting and fixing the walls.

 

·       Designed a Cath Lab quarterly inventory tracking system identifying $21,566 in savings while decreasing paper usage and human error.

I have had an unforgettable and most rewarding experience here at HCA Houston Kingwood but I am excited to get back home, see family and friends, and to start my second year within the MHA program.

Go hawks!

Jake Teumer