Tell us what you do at St. Luke’s.
First let me tell you a little bit about St. Luke’s. St. Luke’s is the only Idaho-based, not-for-profit, community-owned, and community-led health system. St. Luke’s has eight medical centers and about 300+ clinics throughout Idaho. At St. Luke’s I work in a department called St. Luke’s Connect. Connect supports our patients with myChart support, Patient and Family relations, registration for community classes, after-hours nurse triage, appointment scheduling, and more. My job within this system is two fold. I have an IT aspect where I support the maintenance of our applications. On the Analyst side, I support the Workforce Management application, workflow development, ticket submission, and Go-Live support for new onboarding clinics.
How did you begin your career?
When I joined St. Luke’s, I started on the clinical side of things. I was a Certified Nursing Assistant and Healthcare Unit Coordinator. I have always been an analytical leader type of person, and I’ve always been fascinated by how the human body works. My mom tells me stories about how when I was younger, I would ask how things work within the body, and little things like why blood was the color red. I always wanted to be a nurse. I ventured over to the non-clinical side because I was interested in learning more about how the health system operates.
What path led you to St. Luke’s?
Before joining St. Luke’s, I worked for a psychiatric hospital in a very small-town: Kimberly, Idaho. St. Luke’s was the big hospital. I always told myself when I started in healthcare that I wanted to one day work for the main hospital.
What was your first exposure to NICE?
My first time working with NICE is when I became an application analyst three years ago. The analyst position was a new position within Connect and was formed to run the new workforce management application that we started to invest in. I got to work alongside the NICE employees to help stand up Workforce Management within Connect.
Tell us more about your experience with NICE Workforce Management.
Since my position was brand new, I got to dig in and learn all the terminology that comes about with NICE Workforce Management. We didn’t have subject matter experts with workforce management or NICE expertise, so my number one goal was to become one!
What do you like about the NICE User Group (NUG)?
The NUG has been my training manual. Since this was a new program, a new language to all of us here in Connect, I spent a lot of time on the NUG website, cramming all the information I could to help our business more efficient. I am an extrovert who loves making connections, and after all that I learned and the time I spent on the NUG, I wanted to be a part of the governing board that helped structure and directed organizations like mine to the resources that can help make our business run smoother.
Tell us a little bit about you personally.
I was born and raised in Idaho. I know what you are going to say, is must be a mountain country boy, but really, I am very much a city boy which is why I love living in the Treasure Valley.
What do you like to do for fun?
My spare time is always spent with my family. My family is huge on getting together, even to celebrate the small things. When not with my extended family, I can be found reading books during the winter, or camping in the summer. The only thing you will not see me do is swimming because I do not know how.
What about how has COVID impacted your work life?
COVID has challenged us all to do business differently. Before COVID, we had about five percent of our workforce working remotely. Because of COVID, we now have 75 percent of our workforce working remotely. At first, this was a challenge because have always worked side-by-side. COVID has changed how we connect with our patients and our community. Like many hospitals throughout the country, we are continuing to support our patients while making sure our family stays healthy to provide the services we do.
What's the best part about doing business with NICE?
NICE is such a great company to do business with! Our first program with NICE was workforce management. It was hard, it was fast and it changed how we thought out our business. NICE never left our side. They helped us cross those bridges and guided us in the right direction.
What positive changes have you experienced in 2020?
My daughter turned one year old, I got a promotion at work and I joined the NUG Board!
Is there anything else you want to share with NUG members?
Never stop pursuing your dreams. COVID might change how we look at things, but the one thing COVID did not change is allowing us to become and do the things we love to do.