Primary Responsibilities

Thus far, I have been focused on recruiting for the organization. With the COVID-19 crisis, staffing has been difficult as safety concerns are prevelant when it comes to providing care in someone's home. I have been following "warm leads" as well as "cold leads". Warm leads are through a list of rehireable old employees, or prospect employees that never finished the hiring process. This means at one point in time, all of these people were either working for or interested in Together Homecare. Cold leads are through applicable resumes and licensure from sites such as careerbuilder or indeed. These are just people we believe would be a good fit and we reach out to them, rather than waiting for an application. I make many phone calls throughout the day, and when someone is interested, I complete a quick questionnaire with them to discuss availability, location, and experience. Lastly, I schedule an interview for a later time.

Learning Objectives

Operations Management and Quality Improvement

• • • This objective directly relates to HSM through the coursework to practical setting concept. I have not made any progress with this objective as I have yet to shadow our HR representative. I was supposed to sit in on a group orientation for new employees, but unfortunately, was not notified when it was starting, and I was unable to observe. Before my time is over at Together Homecare, I am. hoping to gain more HR experience.

Phone Communications

• • • This objective directly relates to HSM through the effective communication with diverse stakeholders concept. I have made great strides in this objective. I actually started talking on the phones my first day! Currently, I am constantly on the phone due to recruitment, but I have also made phone calls to staff and patients regarding client satisfaction surveys, and payroll adjustments. I am still nervous to pick up the phone for incoming calls throughout the day because I do not feel like I can answer questions successfully as I am not fully knowledgable on what the organization offers, or about staff and clients. To get more comfortable, I have been answering incoming calls, asking questions, and connecting them witht the correct person. I have become more comfortable and am learning more about employees and clients this way.

Work with many disciplines then independently

• • • This objective directly relates to HSM through the effective work in a team setting and individually concept. I have shadowed the recruiters, schedulers, payroll, and PA speciliast. I have gained skills in all of these departments but mostly in recruitment. I have spoken with my supervisor about gaining additional experience with payroll and the PA specialist as these disciplines really interest me. We have planned on doing this within the next few days. Once they believe I am prepared enough, they let me venture out onto my own, but they are always there to answer any questions I may have or offer assistance.

Communication/Customer Service

• • • This objective directly relates to HSM through the gaining transferrable skills in a professional environment concept. This objective goes hand in hand with phone communications. While working in an office there is not much communication that is not over the phone. This can be hindering as they can not read your face and body language. Misinerpretations can happen. I have always remained professional and helpful over the phone whether it is in recruiting, client satisfaction surveys, or just reaching out to adjust payroll. I believe I can gain more experience by answering incoming calls, and being more observant of my colleagues. If there is a situation going on where they are all communicating with each other, I will always ask questions to better understand the situation and see how they decide to handle it. Observational learning is very effective if you pay attention!

Recruitment/Hiring

• • • This objective directly relates to HSM through the determining a professional fit within a health-related organization concept. I have gotten tremendous experience in this discipline! I have been making recruitment calls, listening in on patient referrals, observing paperwork and filling out questionnaires, scheduling interviews, and even sitting in on interviews.

Expectation VS Reality

Expectation: Reality:

Office Setting Office Setting

Shadowing Hands-on/Independent

Administrative Duties Administrative Duties

No Patient Contact Semi Patient Contact

No Pets Office Dog

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

As an intern, I was learning as I navigated through systems I have never seen before such as Continulink or CellTrak. When something popped up that I had a question about, my coworkers did not hesitate to teach me. I have learned how to efficiently communicate with others whether it be the office staff, employees, or clients. I have also learned how to navigate their system, verify license/certification status, complete a background check, adjust employee schedules, input timesheets, log conversations, and more.

My role as an intern was to help the office staff and gain experience for myself. With that being said, I have not completed any specific projects. I helped where it was needed. Some things that I took off my coworkers plates was client satisfaction surveys, in-services, sifting through old employee files, recruiting, inputting time-sheets, etc.

With the internship coming to an end, I can say my colleagues were of great assistance and I was able to learn such valuable information when it comes to healthcare administration. Coming into this internship with absolutely no experience besides my textbooks, I can now say I have staffing, recruitment, and payroll experience!

ACADEMIC CONNECTIONS

What I have learned in the classroom and what I have learned in my internship are fairly similar. Two courses really stand out in connection with my internship: Healthcare Delivery in the US (H120) and Operations Management & Quality Improvement (H345).

H120 directly relates to Medicaid authorizations. I learned in class that Medicaid provides health services for low-income individuals. This is the specific population that my internship services. In H120 I also learned that there are 3 major stakeholders in healthcare: consumers, providers, and payors. As I stated above, that is what Together Homecare is all about. Working collaboratively with their clients, staff, and physicians.

H345 related to my internship in terms of teamwork, collaborations, scheduling, and capacity management. As I learned in class, there are different types of teams such as: functional teams, cross-fuctional teams, task force, project team, etc. Being able to identify these different types of teams allows you to dive into your role and responsibilities. At Together Homecare, I believe we are a functional team. We all have defined membership through our individual positions but we work towards a common goal together. In regard to scheduling and capacity management, I wish we would have been taught about the atmosphere of home health care. We learned about staff scheduling for inpatient and outpatient facilities, but never home healthcare, even though it is very prevalent in today's society.