Rotation 4: Nontraditional - Amb Care Administration

Posted by Josephine at Saturday, November 18, 2017

Block 4: Non-traditional - Ambulatory Care Administration

This rotation was truly a whirlwind rotation for me, meaning that everyday was different and I often had to shift gears fairly quickly. The hours were generally 8 AM - 5 PM, but in the world of admin, that time constraint means very little (some days I would leave early or stay later, and occasionally stay up really late to finish spontaneous rotation work).

Despite this, I was very fortunate because my preceptor strongly believes in bringing the P4 student along in everything that she is already doing. This means that I got to attend various meetings and that my schedule ended up being very fluid (some days I would have chunks of project time, while other days I would have back-back meetings the entire day). This rotation also required me to think on my feet and shift gears quickly, which were skills I hadn't really practiced before this rotation, so I was grateful to have this experience.

Unfortunately, I can't really talk about the specifics of the projects that I did (my preceptor likes to call it "admin HIPAA" due to the sensitive nature of the meeting discussions and project content). However, I can say that I did a profound amount of data collection on MiChart, a lot of data analysis using Excel, and made/edited several presentations to Michigan Medicine leadership. I also learned my fair share about the following: team dynamics/interpersonal interactions, conflict navigation, utilizing connections, giving feedback to employees, how to run a meeting (utilizing time, moving agenda items forward), how to overcome pushback from collaborators, practice change management, initiating a clinical service, project management (reporting results, informing stakeholders, process improvement, etc), value proposition, and billing.

Unlike in my previous rotation (where I mainly had context with 3 other P4s), during this rotation I was, for the most part, attached to my preceptor's side. This was a huge benefit to me because this preceptor is a pretty dynamic, forward-thinking, vision-casting type of person, with multiple connections and projects happening around the state. In a different administration rotation I might have been mainly based in a hospital, attending meetings within that institution. But during this rotation, I was able to see things happening across institutions. Consequently, I felt that I got a taste of the "progressiveness" that characterizes the Amb Care space.