Sample Projects

SEP 2007 Student Projects: Chronic Disease Management

• Worked in conjunction with the Health Alliance Plan to implement this program for a subset of Henry Ford market
• Objective of reducing costs and improving overall health for community
• Met with top leadership of Henry Ford Health system, and learned invaluable skills related to being a health administrator
• Became familiar with JCAHO safety regulations
• Served as a connection between Product Line Administrators and Site Administrators
• Participated in the K16 renovation project

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• Met with the full spectrum of UMHS leaders, and learned the importance of cooperation between administrative and clinical staff
• Learned that the essential qualities of effective managers are Availability, Affability and Ability

• Orienting payers to UMHS
• Spotlighted key features and new additions of UMHS
• Emphasized billing relevance
• Learned how to frame information depending on who audience is

• Worked on project to equalize these rates
• Data entry and verification

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• Attended and contributed in top-level management meetings
• Conducted a cost-benefit analysis of newly implemented concierge service
  • Used a survey to assess interest and need
• Gained exposure to a variety of aspects of health care
  • JCAHO
  • Managed Care
  • Administrator/Physician Interaction
• Generated interest in SHAPEDOWN program
  • Geared toward youth, focused on enhancing their self-esteem and other aspects of mental health
• Maternal Info Health Services Project
  • Assisted pregnant women with identifying risk factors and adapting behaviors which will lead to healthy pregnancy outcomes, thus improving infant-mortality rate in area

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• Primarily a Human Resource Intern

Pandemic Preparedness

• An effort to balance the potential overwhelming demand for services against potential shortage of staff, facilitates, etc in the event of such an outbreak
• Developed an A3 pamphlet for health system employees-providing over-view of Pandemic response and health system preparation
• Researched prior work on Pandemic Preparedness conducted by other health systems, UN, WHO, CDC, etc.

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• Great exposure to many areas of healthcare, and management
• Effectiveness analysis (used for grant writing) of tobacco education program at local elementary schools
• Created and instituted an employee wellness/fitness program that culminated with a 5k run
  • Promoted physical activity for employees
  • "More exercise, less stress"
• Six-Sigma (quality assurance process) study of emergency room efficiency aimed at reducing the amount of waiting time in the ER
• Strategic workforce planning

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LEAN (quality assurance process) analysis- Bone Marrow Transplant program

• Data collection
  • 30 min patient interviews
  • Observe red and shadowed physicians
• Facilitated an all-day workshop with physicians, pharmacists, administrators, lab techs, and nurses
• Ultimate goal to devise a plan to make the patient's experience more efficient and convenient
• Generated actual and future state flow charts for the bone marrow candidates experiences
• Compiled an outcome measurement document

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Save Lives, Save Dollars

• Objective to improve quality and reduce health care costs
• Offered a variety of input in many projects
• Exposed to the whole spectrum of the organization's goals and projects
• Education work
  • Including public reporting
  • Driven by providers to bolster reputation
  • Learned the incentives for reporting well

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• Constructed a list of appropriate interview questions to outline mission for the center
  • Board Members
  • Center staff
• Health statistics research on teen immunizations, pregnancy and other facts related to the underserved population in Michigan.
  • Background info for grant proposals
• Wrote three articles for new newsletter
• Created and maintained a blog for the Corner interns for a connection to the leadership staff
• Developed a flyer to recruit and attract additional volunteers for the center

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Hemoue Tutorial Project

• Part of WIC - nutrition for children, government subsidized, pregnant women and children up to age 5
• Project Fresh
  • Encouraging participants to eat locally grown fresh fruit and vegetables
  • Objective to improve children dietary intake
  • Hemoue- a machine to measure hemoglobin- Taught nurses in the centers how to use this instrument and drafted a tutorial

Pediatric Dentistry

• Focused on children infancy to 12th grade
• Assessed specific attributes of patient population
• Researched how to maximize access between the dentists and patients
• Measured patient satisfaction quantitatively
  • Survey

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Diversity Inclusion Action Plan

• Developed initiatives under 5 focus areas and mapped it over a 3 year time frame
• Quantitative analysis- created a template comparing organization numbers of minorities and females to the number of qualitative persons available in the area
• Analyzed discrepancies in pay grade among all employs comparing male and female, and majority and minority

Advocacy Plan

• Analyzed national and state healthcare reform and where democratic candidates stood on certain issues to figure out whom Trinity would support

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Communication Department Intern

• Drafted press releases
• Internal communication- messages from CEO
• Created a document to define acronyms for new employees
• Letter to editors for Detroit Free Press for CEO
• Attended and Contributed in management meetings

Home Health Aid Project

• Aids have one-on-one contact with the patients and families, but get paid less than other staff and have poor communication with administration
• Conducted 29 interviews, distributed 42 surveys assessing the overall engagement with Hospice of Michigan
• Analyzed data and compared differences between different regions of state, varied greatly
• Ultimately recommended a new position and newsletter for the home health aides, a liaison to help bridge gaps
• Wrote a short summary and report for CEO

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• Worked on policies for center and pharmacy protocols and applications
• Helped with budget
  • Wrote a budget narrative for a school-based clinic
• Annual Report
  • Kept track of what organization is doing to help donors see how money is spent
  • Also helpful for marketing and development of new building
  • Included general information and as well as information on Board of Directors, financials, mission statement, and testimonials from doctors, patients and staff

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• Met with many related area community organizations
• Researched implications of Federal Tort Claims Act- community health organizations don't have to worry about malpractice law suits

La Vida Program- support for victims of intimate partner abuse

• Helped with further program development and organization, and increased level of organization and created a standard way of evaluating and helping participants
• Implemented practice of keeping statistics - important for funding
• Created a database to keep track of clients and to group outreach data
• Devised a reporting system
• Helped develop a strategic plan and future directions outline for the program

REACH - reducing risks of Type 2 Diabetes and its complications

• Involving the community in research and results
• Participated as a guest speaker and small group facilitator
• Prepared presentations and helped with programming at one of the satellite sites
• Helped with maintenance and administration of the programs
• Identified challenges of relations with the funding research organization, brainstormed solutions

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• Worked with Chief Nursing Officer to achieve "Magnet" rating
• Planned an Ice Cream Social
• Organized a Back to School Rally
  • Objective to prepare Detroit youth for a healthy academic school year, partnership between local faith-based organizations and Detroit Receiving Hospital
  • Coordinated the vendors, assigned tables, and discussed what each group would contribute
  • Event included immunizations, registration for insurance, hearing and led tests

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• Worked with corporate compliance and quality improvement inititatives
  • Involved in Project Fresh program
  • Also worked with a pediatric dentristry project - encouraging children 0-5 to see the dentist
  • Launched in order to emphasize the importance of oral health
  • Created presentations to help market the program

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Latino Oral Health Project

• Worked on an outreach effort to change perceptions about dental health in the community and help promote healthy behavior and habits in this population
• Created a survey to asses the current perceptions on oral health of people in the community
• Organized meetings and established initial contact between the interviewees (representing the community) and Mott

Internal Cultural Competency

• Facilitated a workshop to increase staff capacity in this area
  • Taught many of the staff members to speak conversational Spanish
  • Basic words and health phrases
  • Handed out a laminated sheet summarizing what they had learned
• Helped with the interpreter policy, made it more useful
• Created a list of cultural competency recommendations to be implemented throughout the whole organization

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• Challenged with marketing a small community osteopathic hospital in a tightening completive external arena

Service Excellence/Strategic Planning

• Engaged in strategic planning - researching other competitive systems analyzing their breakthrough strategies in relation to what Botsford was doing
• Measured employee engagement to increase patient, a standard greeting for inpatients
• Assisted in negotiations for a proposed Cancer Treatment Center affiliated with Botsford Hospital
• Explored alternate ways to bring Botsford Hospital into the surrounding communities, namely through promotion of wellness/lifestyle opportunities
• Investigated market research data in order to gain a better understanding of the southeastern Michigan health care market

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• Researched the background of BSBS, used to forecast the direction of BSBS in Michigan and on a larger scale, projected for Managed Care in America

Policy Development and Reimbursement Strategy

• Defining Urgent Care vs. Emergent Care - where money is being lost by managed care organizations
  • How to reimburse for different services, analyzing data
  • Redefined an inpatient stay

Sequential Coverage

• Helped make policy recommendations, participated in meetings between different providers

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Diversity Inclusion and Cultural Competency

• Strategic Plan- Increase workforce diversification
• Educated staff overall about diversity inclusion and cultural competency through workshops and presentations
• Contacted managers throughout organization to update job descriptions
• Drafted a cultural competency statement to be used throughout the hospital

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