Holiday Holiday HOLIDAAAAY

I, for one, am SO EXCITED for my holiday vacation. On Saturday I'm waking up early and hitting the road with my fiance to spend 11 glorious days in North Carolina.

Last week and this week have been very deadline heavy, which is fine - but the break is much needed and rewarding. On my to-do list before my vacation:
-Get that newsletter out!
-Report on CODE-H
-Update a policy about CODE-H that I wrote
-Web updates
-Some things for the upcoming February Board Meeting


There's some little things mixed in there but it's nice having a list to cross off. It reminds me that I'm getting closer and closer to some R&R (which, at 25, I just realized means rest and relaxation).

SO....what are your plans for the holidays? Are you taking any time off? What do you have to get done before some vacation time?

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I GUESS I'LL ANSWER MEREDITH

Before I get 5,000 questions again, I should probably answer the Blog from last week.

So where do I start? Every project is rewarding in it's own way, and how does one measure the reward? Is it personal reward, corporate or otherwise? For the sake of the question, and for what I'm sure Meredith is going for here, I'll assume the reward is personal. More specifically, what has made me better or smarter.

Again, where do I start? On one hand, there is the QSC, and on the other there is the numerous IT Projects I've worked on so far this time. (I'm assuming my first time here is not part of the question.)

The QSC has been the biggest project in terms of importance (which is almost irrelevant in a corporate setting, as everything anyone in the company does is important) but if you look at all the IT projects, they're right on par. So lets name all the IT projects:

Dual Monitors - Completed - Purchasing and installing dual monitors on everyone's desks
Computer Replacements - In Progress - Purchasing and replacing old computers
MIL (Master Inventory List) updates - Always In Progress - updating the MIL project from my last time
Automatic Email Signatures - In Progress - getting everyone set up with the automated service
PerfectIt - Completed - Purchasing and rolling out the PerfectIt software for Marketing & Communications
Policy Pak - Always In Progress - updating and maintaining software I purchased last co-op
And the multiple high-level IT issues I had to handle.

Each of these is rewarding in it's own way, as is the QSC. However, I do have to pick one. So, in terms of knowledge gained in ONE project, it would be the QSC. Learning how to coordinate multiple departments and how cross-departmental work will be very rewarding in the future.

Rewarding Projects

 

I have had zero interesting tasks/projects.

 

HAHA TOTALLY KIDDING. I have been learning more and more about the Experient program which is the portal we use for HM13 registration. It's very scary and when I register someone I feel like if I mess up one little piece of information I am going to pee my pants.

 



 

I was just asked to do a mail merge and send out certificates to those who attended the AHA meeting in October. I am super good at putting things into envelopes and I love sticking labels on things so this is actually something I am enjoying because I can put my talents that I thought were useless to good use. I think it's awesome that we send out certificates acknowledging each attendee's participation and I'm sure they enjoy getting those certificates, I mean who doesn't enjoy getting an award? It's also kind of cool to see how many people attended and where they all live. Okay well now that I read that back to myself it sounds kind of creepy but it's a lot like looking at people's license plates on the highway, or am I the only one who does that too? #procreeperstatus #notashamed

 

Who is excited for all of the holiday festivities coming up? I am SUPER excited!



What has been your most rewarding task or project during your co-op with SHM so far?

Ever since starting here at SHM, JoAnne has slowly started giving me more and more tasks to work on for SHM's project on MARQUIS.  From entering patient data to creating excel spreadsheets for hospital sites, I've really been able to appreciate more the behind-the-scenes work for patient quality and improvement. It reminds me more and more that you are able to serve in healthcare not only by directly making patient contact, but helping improve their stay in hospitals and prevent patients from re-entering the hospital.

Especially for entering med history for patient data into QuesGen, I am constantly reminded how lucky I am to be healthy (for the most part). Seeing patients taking 30+ medications at the same time really reminds me how painful it is for a lot of people who are struggling physically with their health. With all those medications, it also encourages me to continue studying more to become more knowledgeable in pharmacology so I am able to effectively care for my future patients.

My Most Rewarding Projects

Since working here at SHM, I would say there have been two projects that I have worked on that I would say have really been rewarding and beneficial to my career development. The first project is the monthly work done with the Communications Dashboard. This allows me to take into account multiple communications channels such as social media, HMX and Cision/Google Alerts. Doing this monthly project has really given a great window of opportunity to learn a lot about Marketing and PR as a whole. It also has been great because Brendon and Ashley have been allowing me to do my own work with this project and as a team we have worked together to create what we believe is a strong Communications Dashboard. With this project I am learning a whole lot of information and skills that I can use in my future career development. 

For example, I had no idea what Cision was until I started working here at SHM, but Brendon and Ashley let me do the monthly reporting of media on SHM in Cision. This is a great skill for me to have at future jobs to say I created media lists as well as created Excel documents using Cision. Another thing that the communications dashboard allowed me to do is do social media reporting and tracking using Tweeter Feed and Google Analytics to see how well SHM is doing using social media. This really has been a great way for me to measure myself on how I am doing with social media and what I could be doing better to make SHM social media more successful. 

Another project that has been really helpful for me is the creation of the 2013/2014 Media Kit. This has taught so much not about just PR and Marketing at SHM but SHM in general. Leading the Media Kit project is awesome for me because its letting me learn a lot about myself as far as work ethic and making timelines. So far Brendon and Ashley have been an awesome help with the whole process and again are giving me awesome feedback when I need it. It is going to be great to see what the final project looks like when I am done and look back and say I did that! These are what I think have been my most beneficial and rewarding projects so far!

PS. This is random but I still need to be tested if I know the lyrcis to every Lil Wayne song! hahaha Feels so long since having that meeting where we had to answer Meredith's crazy questions!

I knew eventually there would be a really difficult blog question and I guess today is that day.  I was hoping this was going to be another question where I could write about my dogs.  I really like my dogs, but ok time to be serious.

The most rewarding project I’ve worked on during my co-op so far was the project with market research.   Market research was something I was interested in before starting my co-op here at SHM and I was very excited when I learned I could be a part of it. 
 
The website for making and sending surveys was not user friendly and it didn’t help that the marketing department wasn’t familiar with it.  Through trial and error, we figured out how to use the site.  It was a very frustrating and rewarding experience to learn this skill along with my department.  I didn’t feel like a co-op, I felt like a full time employee because my ideas and opinions were important to completing this project.  I look forward to future market research projects.  For example, analyzing the results of the surveys and creating surveys for the membership department. 

And for the record this is my rating for Surveymonkey’s tec. support team:

What has been your most rewarding task or project during your co-op with SHM so far?