COOL FOR THE SUMMER: Interns learn that every person has an impact on the patient journey

By Ryan Clark

CHS Communications Director

This week: Kinsey Gilbert

Sometimes, good things really do come to those who wait.

Ask Kinsey Gilbert, a 21-year-old Clinical Leadership and Management major from Orlando, Fla., who wanted a summer internship. She got one — she just had to wait a bit.

“The first time I became aware of the internship was through the CLM Speed Dating Internship Fair,” she said, referencing a class where students could interview for several potential opportunities at once. “At the time, the position would be working on a new remote patient monitoring program, and it would be an unpaid internship about 24 hours a week. I was interested, took his business card, and gave him my resume.”

Then three months went by. She hadn’t heard a thing, until a representative with the internship came to speak to her Health Information Management class.

“He mentioned he was about to post the internship, (which had become) a paid internship opportunity,” she said. “I asked my professor to talk me up since they were very close friends from college and worked together for a short period of time, and she did. I applied instantly.”

After an interview, Kinsey was able to accept a summer internship as a digital health associate with Baptist Health and Evan Harmon, MHI, RHIA.

“I work in the systems services department of Baptist,” she said. “I never thought I would get into the tech side of healthcare, since my only other previous experience was patient-facing at senior living facilities. But I love it.”

Depending on the day, Kinsey can be found:

• Reporting – running reports from the Current Health RPM system.
• Extracting key performance indicators from these reports to share with senior leaders.
• Helping quality check the reports, and working with Current Health report developers to fix items needing improvement.
• Working on a project to improve patient wearable / peripheral RPM device utilization and overall patient engagement.
• Participating in go-live activities for the Current Health Interface alongside the Homecare Team.

“I love the setup of my position being 24 hours a week and remote so I can work from anywhere and create my own schedule around important meetings or projects,” she said. “Something I learned through this internship is that every single position in healthcare, patient facing or not, has an impact on the patient’s journey — health IT is just more behind the scenes.”

She credits Harmon, her mentor, with creating an environment where she can learn and succeed.

“It’s good to intern, especially in college, to help figure out what you want to do and what kind of organization you want to work for,” she said. “I would have never applied to a health IT job before this internship, but now I could see myself heading in that direction. I also did not realize how important it is to like the organization that you work for and ensure that their mission, vision and values align with your own.”

In the CLM department, Kinsey says there is a strong emphasis placed on interning — and that, paired together with classroom experience, can give students a full picture of what the professions are like.

“Just getting my name out there is great networking and the knowledge I have learned this summer is invaluable to my career,” she said. “Not only did I learn new skills and systems, but I learned a lot about myself including my strengths, weaknesses, how I prefer to be communicated with and how to manage my time between two jobs and summer classes. It was invaluable.”

Each week we have featured a student who is participating in a summer internship.