Author: hc1

By Lauren VanDenBoom
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August 9, 2021

In the August 2021 issue of Practical Laboratory Medicine (PLM), clinical leaders from hc1 (Diane Janowiak, MT(ASCP) and Wesley B. Wong, MMM, MD) and Quest Diagnostics (Lee H. Hilborne, MD, MPH and Terra White, Ph.D.) share Strategies for Laboratory Professionals to Drive Laboratory Stewardship. 

Focusing on the evolution of effective test utilization and implementation of lab stewardship as a leadership strategy to assure effective test use, they write that “implementing a laboratory stewardship program now presents a valuable opportunity for laboratory professionals to exercise leadership within health systems and to drive change toward realizing aims in healthcare.”

When structured and supported well, a lab stewardship program will organize and guide optimal, patient-centric lab testing. Estimates project that health systems can reduce costs up to $5 billion per year by eliminating redundant tests. Even more savings, and patient satisfaction, can be realized through increasing the use of appropriate tests that diagnose diseases early when treatment can be more effective.

A proposed framework

The authors propose a framework for program implementation that includes five key elements: 1) a clear vision and organizational alignment; 2) appropriate skills for program execution and management; 3) resources to support the program; 4) incentives to motivate participation; and, 5) a plan of action that articulates program objectives and metrics.

Drs. Wong and Hilborne also presented these five elements in May 2021 during a webinar hosted by Dark Daily offering Strategies for Laboratory Professionals to Drive Lab Stewardship to Reduce Cost, Eliminate Waste, and Improve Patient Care. 

“This framework builds upon principles of change management, with emphasis on engagement with clinical and administrative stakeholders and the use of clinical data as the basis for change,” the authors wrote in PLM. “These strategies enable laboratory professionals to cultivate organizational support for improving laboratory use and take a leading role in providing high-quality patient care.” 

A practical example

As an example of their framework in practice, the authors offer a case study featuring an 800-bed, three-hospital system in a metropolitan midwestern region with 17 ambulatory practices and four ambulatory surgery centers. The laboratory manager, informed by a conference that presented strategies for lab stewardship, assembled a small group of laboratorians including the laboratory medical director, the head of the clinical chemistry and microbiology sections including lead technologists in each of those sections, and the associate director for ancillary services. Based on their review, they wanted to better understand laboratory testing trends. Their initial action plan included normalizing the data, selecting specific tests for improvement, sharing the plan to attain leadership’s endorsement and identifying other team members. 

The team chose to focus initially on thyroid testing and identified two target areas: 1) inappropriate coding for patients with known thyroid disease and 2) ordering multiple thyroid tests for the initial assessment of symptomatic patients. For an initial action, the clinical practices agreed to change their ordering menu to promote effective test utilization. Four months after starting the program, generalist panels (initial encounter for suspected thyroid disease) decreased approximately 70%. Use of the incorrect diagnosis code also decreased and finance reported that third-party payer denials declined by 30%. Following the success with thyroid testing, the team received recognition and committed to expanding their efforts to include the diagnosis and management of diabetes mellitus and chronic kidney disease.

“Opportunities to improve laboratory services exist in every organization,” write the authors. “Some of these opportunities may be unique to a specific organization, while many are common across multiple healthcare systems.”

A starting point

Organizations looking for additional guidance in starting their own lab stewardship programs may find the four developmental stages of lab stewardship that Quest Diagnostics’ Donna Cooper, MS, MBA, and hc1’s Zach Berg define in their PLUGs webinar on Enabling Effective Lab Stewardship Programs helpful. The webinar, they help viewers determine which phase of development their Lab Stewardship program is in and opportunities to advance their Lab Stewardship program, as well as describe the features of the technology needed to support a Lab Stewardship program and multiple intervention methods.

If you are looking for guided support, hc1 and Quest Diagnostics can help. Quest, in partnership with hc1, aims to improve patient care and reduce costs across health systems nationwide by enabling Lab Stewardship programs. By combining professional advisory services with innovative technology, Quest Lab Stewardship powered by hc1 delivers real-time lab utilization insights necessary to progress and support at-scale optimization of laboratory testing. 

Watch this informative video or contact us to learn more. 

By Lori Smith, PHR
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April 28, 2021

Editor’s note:  Who we are as a company has been on our minds lately here at hc1. It’s just as important as what we do, because each individual on our team contributes something of themselves to the solutions we deliver. So we asked Lori Smith, PHR our SVP of Talent, to share her perspectives on the team and talent that are hc1. 

A Moral Imperative

As a Talent Executive in a data-driven tech organization, my purpose and vision are to nurture an environment where our team members are able to thrive in a values-based culture focused on diversity, equity, inclusion and holistic wellbeing. Early on, my team and I recognized the connection between holistic wellbeing and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) but were overwhelmed with how to even begin embedding DE&I into our culture. We didn’t want to overpromise and underdeliver on such an important priority. 

What we did know is that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are no longer a set of proactive initiatives managed by “HR” but rather a moral imperative and a competitive response to the shifting expectations of the current workforce. The next challenge was deciding where to start.  

Traditional Metrics Don’t Work—We Needed Our Own

My background in finance taught me how important metrics are when charting a path forward, promoting transparency, enhancing employee wellbeing and holding each other accountable—but what I learned is just because something is an easy measure, doesn’t mean it’s the right measure. 

The tech industry has historically been white and male-dominated, and our company is no exception. On the surface, traditional metrics focus on representation. We didn’t want to lose sight of how we viewed diversity—the breadth of our experiences, backgrounds and visions of the future. It felt counterproductive to rely on metrics and risk an “us vs. them” mentality. Each white male new hire would only add to the denominator of our diversity goals.

Keeping It “CACE”

Committing to diversity for the sake of meeting business goals wasn’t going to be the answer, so we used our core values to refine our approach. When an inclusive culture exists, employees are much more likely to see themselves as part of a high-performing organization that embraces collaboration. 

hc1’s core values:

  • We are Curious. We ask why things work the way they do. We ask what people need. We ask how can we make things better.
  • We are Accountable. We have fun, but we work hard, too. We do our best, and we stand behind our work.
  • We are Collaborative. We’re not just coworkers. We’re family. We succeed together. We celebrate together.
  • We are Ethical. We do our work with honesty and integrity. We set a high standard, and we meet it.

Deepening our team’s sense of belonging and fostering more opportunities for an inclusive workplace aligned with our objectives and felt like the right strategy for our team. We also discovered belonging is the strongest and most consistent driver of engagement; diversity is not.

hc“1” Team

Our first initiative was to restructure our engagement survey platform by removing all the departments and putting everyone into a single group. We realized this structure was a more inclusive and equitable approach, and “One Team” was born. 

Through “One Team” we all get the opportunity to truly live our core values. Our Talent Team is curious to hear everyone’s insights and accountable for taking appropriate action on the team’s feedback. Being collaborative, we can work together to uncover issues and find prescriptive solutions. It is only ethical that we do all we can to enhance an inclusive and equitable environment and ensure each and every voice across hc1 is heard. Because at hc1, we truly are  “One Team”!

By Heather Stith
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July 6, 2021

Chronic diseases, including stroke, diabetes, and cancer, are the leading cause of death and disability in the United States. Healthcare professionals at all levels, and the communities and patients they work with, are therefore invested in reducing the impact of these diseases.

Depending on the role a person takes in a healthcare system, whether they are a public health official, a healthcare organization leader, a healthcare provider, or a patient, they are going to have different concerns and questions about chronic disease and different strategies for addressing those concerns and questions. No matter the level at which people are facing the problem of chronic disease, laboratory testing provides data that is integral to choosing the best way forward. 

Public health: How do we prevent chronic disease?

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is an ongoing program to collect health data from a representative sample of Americans. The survey includes participant interviews and physical exams based on age and gender, including blood and urine tests for cholesterol, glucose, nutrition status, and kidney function. The data from this survey is used to determine the prevalence of chronic diseases and disease risk factors and to set standards for health measures such as blood pressure.

Using data collected in the NHANES program and other datasets, public health organizations focus their chronic disease prevention efforts on the most prevalent diseases and the major risk factors in their populations. For example, the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion targets the seven (7) most prominent chronic diseases for Americans:

  • Heart disease
  • Cancer
  • Chronic lung disease
  • Stroke
  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Diabetes
  • Chronic kidney disease

The center also encourages people to reduce their risk of developing chronic diseases through healthy behaviors:

  • Stop smoking
  • Eat a healthy diet
  • Exercise regularly
  • Limit alcohol use

Promoting regular health screenings is an important strategy, because such screenings make people aware of medical conditions they have that can lead to the development of chronic disease. Some of these conditions, such as obesity or high blood pressure, are easily identified using a scale or blood pressure monitor. Other conditions, such as high cholesterol, require lab testing, a healthcare provider’s interpretation, and possibly multiple patient interactions with one or several healthcare organizations.

Healthcare organizations: How do we optimize chronic disease care?

Patients with chronic diseases account for 90% of annual healthcare costs in the United States, so healthcare leaders are always evaluating ways to reduce costs associated with caring for this patient population while maintaining the quality of care.  As an important factor in managing chronic disease, lab testing is a critical element of this analysis. 

Appropriate lab test utilization helps healthcare organizations improve clinical outcomes by reducing the risk of missed or delayed chronic disease diagnosis. Inappropriate use can lead to diagnostic errors and unnecessary healthcare costs. Standardizing test ordering, however, is not an easy task. It requires ongoing organizational, clinical, and technological resources and clear communication and buy-in among all the participants in the healthcare process.

Information needs to be shared across disciplines and departments for such an effort to be successful. Technology that compares lab test data from different systems and locations against accepted medical standards, such as hc1 PrecisionDx Advisor, can surface issues that cause lab testing related to chronic disease to be overused or underused across an organization. It can also monitor and measure the success of interventions to change ordering behavior, such as provider education, improvements to EMR test ordering interfaces, or requirements for additional approval for specialized testing. Of course, before the technology can do its job, the organization must do the hard work of gaining consensus on a course of action and implementing the agreed-upon interventions. 

Providers: How do we best diagnose and treat patients with chronic diseases?

There are four main reasons clinical providers order lab tests related to chronic disease:

  • Prevention: Test results for chronic disease risk factors can lead healthcare providers to recommend specific preventative measures to patients that will help them avoid or delay developing chronic disease. Chronic diseases can develop over a long time, sometimes without noticeable symptoms, which is why periodic screenings are recommended for patients with risk factors such as having a close family member with the disease or being middle-aged or older. When diseases such as cancer are caught in the early stages, they usually have a much better prognosis and a reduced cost of care.
  • Diagnosis: For some chronic diseases, the results of a single blood test may be all that is needed for a diagnosis. A 6.5% or higher result on an Hemoglobin-A1C blood test means the patient has diabetes, for example. Other test results are not so cut-and-dried. They may just indicate that more tests, scans, or procedures are needed to establish a diagnosis.
  • Treatment:  Lab testing helps healthcare providers track side effects and evaluate whether a medication, lifestyle change, or other treatments are working as expected.
  • Monitoring: Lab testing can check for recurrence or progression of a chronic disease.

Complicating matters is the fact that many U.S. adults, 40% to be specific, have more than one chronic disease to manage. It’s no wonder that providers want to make sure that they have as much data as possible, so they don’t miss anything.

But too much testing can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment and can cause patient harm. Consider this startling quote from the American Cancer Society Guidelines for the Early Detection of Cancer regarding PSA and other testing for prostate cancer, “Research has not yet proven that the potential benefits of testing outweigh the harms of testing and treatment.” 

Patients: How do we live with chronic disease?

High-value healthcare relies on clear communication between providers and patients, but studies have shown that both parties need to make fewer assumptions and ask more questions when it comes to testing.

The University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging surveyed a sample of adults aged 50 to 80 and found:

  • 25% thought their healthcare providers often recommended unnecessary tests, medications, or procedures. Half of the patients who were recommended a test they thought was unnecessary had the test anyway.
  • 9% thought they needed a test, medication, or procedure that their provider said was unnecessary. Most patients received and understood the provider’s explanation for why it was unnecessary, but some patients didn’t receive any explanation or didn’t understand the explanation they were given.

In the BMJ Open Quality article, “Optimising laboratory monitoring of chronic conditions in primary care: a quality improvement framework,” researchers in the UK describe findings from interviews with patients who had their blood drawn for routine tests. “Patients wanted testing to tell them if they were ‘normal’, and if not, what needed to happen to return them to ‘normal’.” Yet, in many cases, testing results didn’t make a patient’s health situation any clearer. “Results generated by the laboratory were often presented in ways that obscured meaning and were prone to being misunderstood. In addition, results tended to reflect what is normal for a population. They rarely told us what is abnormal for the individual.”

The researchers advocate for a data-driven, systematic approach to appropriate test ordering, but emphasize that the success of such efforts relies on involving healthcare providers in the implementation of such an approach and making patients’ needs the driver for change. As the researchers state, the goal of lab testing should be to help patients and their caregivers make informed healthcare decisions.

Patients with chronic disease want answers they can act on. Tests that are unlikely to lead to any change in outcome cause harm by draining time, money, and energy from people who already have the daily stress of dealing with chronic illness.

To learn more about how hc1 is securely and intelligently integrating, normalizing, enriching, and transforming health data into the signals that identify risk and drive care decisions catering to each patient’s unique needs, click here to download our latest white paper. 

By Lauren VanDenBoom
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October 15, 2019

Approximately 70 percent of medical decisions are based on pathology and laboratory test results.  Studies have shown, however, that 10 to 30 percent of the estimated 13 billion tests performed in the United States each year are either unnecessary or inappropriate.

When selecting from the thousands of laboratory tests available, healthcare providers need the best support possible to choose appropriate testing that will give the most guidance for a patient’s care. Through the support, they offer healthcare providers, laboratory stewardship and utilization programs can reduce unnecessary and inappropriate testing, as well as significantly lower costs and improve patient satisfaction and safety.

According to Guidelines by the National Committee for Lab Stewardship, a key element in successful stewardship programs is a strong commitment from health system leadership. Involvement from leaders helps to ensure the program has the right human, financial and technology resources.

To help ensure a utilization program is successful, health system leaders can:

  1. Declare support for the program. Publish formal statements that the health system supports efforts to improve laboratory stewardship. The statement should come from a leadership committee, medical director or even the health system president.
  2. Insist on cross-departmental involvement. Laboratory stewardship is not a laboratory-only activity. All participants in patient care who interact with laboratory testing and results have a role to play.
  3. Make stewardship an official responsibility. Include stewardship activities in job descriptions and annual performance reviews.
  4. Allocate time. Make sure all participants in the program are given sufficient time to contribute to its success.
  5. Enlist an experienced data partner. Products like hc1’s Test Utilization™ help transform laboratory data into actionable insights. Test Utilization provides a real-time dashboard of standardized and organized lab data from across the entire health system, including in-hospital, outpatient and reference lab data. With all of the data in an easy-to-use dashboard, identifying room for improvement in test utilization becomes simple.

The savings that can be realized through implementing an effective utilization program can more than makeup for the expense of putting the appropriate resources and team in place to do so. Estimates project that healthcare systems could reduce costs of up to $5 billion per year if they were just to eliminate redundant tests.

For more information about how you can ensure success for your laboratory utilization program, request a demo of hc1’s Test Utilization™.

References

  1. Dickerson, J. A., Fletcher, A. H., Procop, G., et al. (2017 Sept). Transforming laboratory Utilization review into laboratory stewardship: Guidelines by the PLUGS National Committee for Laboratory Stewardship. JALM. 259-268.
  2. (2017 May 30). Advancing Value-Based Healthcare: Laboratory Medicine’s Essential Role. https://www.aacc.org/health-and-science-policy/advocacy/position-statements/2017/advancing-value-based-healthcare-laboratory-medicines-essential-role
By Lauren VanDenBoom
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November 12, 2020

On Tuesday, November 10, hc1 CEO and Founder, Brad Bostic, was honored as Indiana Chamber’s 2020 Dynamic Leader of the Year by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce during their annual Awards event. This year the event was held virtually online.

Brad has been a leader in Indiana tech-based organizations for more than 20 years. He founded hc1 nearly a decade ago with the purpose of personalizing healthcare. Since then, he and the team at hc1 have removed silos and streamlined the process of turning raw healthcare data into actionable insights for better patient care at lower costs. 

Since its launch in 2011, hc1 has integrated over 22 billion clinical transactions and over 160 million unique patient profiles – numbers that grow daily. hc1 is the best in the world at identifying the signals, or hidden risks, in data to make precision health accessible to all patients.  

“We are in position to do something really special here as we emerge from the pandemic, and I look forward to putting Indiana on the map for the leader in bioinformatics for making the world we live in a better safer place for us all,” said Brad in his acceptance of the award. 

Click here to view the recording of Brad’s recognition during the event. To view the full awards show visit here.

Read more about Brad’s story from Bizvoice Magazine. To see all of the honorees and learn more from the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, visit here.

By Lauren VanDenBoom
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September 14, 2020

A recent study published in BMJ Open found that 72% of the 98,000 opioid-naive patients studied received a prescription for opioids following outpatient knee arthroscopy between 2015 and 2019. 

With more than 70,000 patients receiving opioids for the first time, I wonder how many received the risk assessment and monitoring that guidelines recommend.  

While the study doesn’t assess patient monitoring activities, 36% of the patients received a dosage higher than the recommended threshold of no more than 50 MME per day and no more than 6 days supply. This suggests to me that for at least a little over a third of the patients guidelines weren’t strictly followed. 

It’s just knee surgery. It’s just an average 5-day supply, a median tablet count of 40 tablets and a dosage of 250 MME. Why does it matter?

  • Because some patients may have a personal or family history of addiction.
  • Because sometimes the first prescription isn’t enough. Some patients will need a refill and begin a longer opioid treatment regimen than initially expected. 
  • Because some patients may have members of their household who are tempted to misuse improperly stored or disposed of opioids. 
  • Because opioids are a highly addictive controlled substance. 

An opioid-naive knee surgery patient doesn’t usually become an overdose statistic overnight. They start out taking their initial prescription and maybe have more pain than expected. They get a refill. Then maybe another refill, but at a higher dose, because over time as their body has become more dependent on the opioids the lower dose isn’t working as well. Then their first prescription isn’t working well enough, so they start taking more pills in a day and run out early, so they get a second prescription maybe even from another doctor. After a while, the second doctor becomes uncomfortable with prescribing more and they seek another source, maybe another family member or a friend. As the costs add up or sources become harder to come by they may start to dabble with illicit drugs too. Over the course of weeks or months a bad situation has developed.  

There are many other possible stories that could be told, like a teen or caregiver borrowing from the medicine cabinet or a sober alcoholic now tangling with a new addiction. No matter the situation, at multiple points in the progression from the knee surgery to opioid misuse to opioid addiction a healthcare provider who was carefully monitoring the patient’s opioid use with laboratory testing and PDMP checks could have spotted the concerning behavior and taken action to stop the progression. 

The right test, the right prescription, the earlier the intervention, the better the outcome for the patient.

References

Ukert B, Huang Y, Sennett B, et alState-level variation in opioid prescribing after knee arthroscopy among the opioid-naïve in the USA: 2015–2019 BMJ Open 2020;10. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/8/e035126 

 

By Heather Stith
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09/15/20

Diversity in drug clinical trials and other drug research is important because patients often respond to the same dosages of the same drug in different ways. The drug can work exactly as intended in one patient with minimal side effects. Another patient might not see any improvement or, worse yet, might experience severe side effects. Documented variations in drug response help prescribers to determine which drugs will work best for their patients.

These variations occur because patients’ bodies process drugs differently. The term for this process is pharmacokinetics. Pharmacokinetics involves several stages: absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion. Patient characteristics and drug chemistry determine how pharmacokinetics work when a patient takes a prescription. For example, patients who metabolize a drug quickly may need a larger dose for the drug to work as intended or may need to take a different drug to see any benefit. Patients who metabolize the drug at a medium rate are likely to experience the full benefit of the drug. Patients who are slow metabolizers may need a smaller dose of the drug to avoid side effects or may not be able to take the drug at all because of the severity of side effects.

To help prescribers predict how a given drug will affect an individual patient, research has identified many patient characteristics that affect the pharmacokinetics of drugs. Age, weight, sex, liver and kidney function, and diet all have proven pharmacokinetic implications. Even with this information, prescribers face obstacles in determining the right prescription because many patient factors that affect pharmacokinetics are harder to pinpoint. As a result, patients often endure a prolonged trial-and-error prescription process as prescribers go through the cycle of adjusting dosages, monitoring effects, and trying different drugs until they find the right one to meet an individual’s needs.

The goal of pharmacogenetics, which is the study of how variations in genes affect how a patient metabolizes certain drugs, is to prevent side effects and shorten the time it takes to establish the most effective medication plan for a patient. A pharmacogenetic (PGx) test involves taking a sample of the patient’s DNA and evaluating it for the genetic variations in the enzymes that metabolize drugs. The results of this test must be evaluated against current knowledge about how specific drugs interact with specific genes.

Developing this type of personalized medication plan across a large patient population takes coordination, organization, engagement, and monitoring, and that’s how the award-winning hc1 PGx Advisor® can help. It unifies PGx test results with the latest PGx drug information and facilitates patient engagement and monitoring to ensure that patients get the maximum personalized prescription benefit from PGx testing. Click here to learn more about how hc1 PGx Advisor® can improve patient outcomes while reducing overall medical costs.

By Lori Smith, PHR
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May 27, 2021

Editor’s note:  Who we are as a company has been on our minds lately here at hc1. It’s just as important as what we do, because each individual on our team contributes something of themselves to the solutions we deliver. So we asked Lori Smith, PHR our SVP of Talent, to share her perspectives on the team and talent that are hc1.

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, and as hc1’s Talent leader, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the impact of the past year – both personally and professionally. I feel effective role modeling from leadership is one of the most powerful drivers in ensuring people take care of their mental health. The shame of talking openly about mental health is finally diminishing, but it’s no secret mental health has historically had a negative stigma associated with it. 

I can say that from an HR perspective, the increased awareness around mental health is an invaluable outcome of 2020. As a human, I also recognize there is a crucial difference between May 2020 and May 2021 – we have all lived through 14 months of pandemic life. 

Work. Sleep. Repeat.

When the office first shut down, we were all isolated but with purpose. My team and I went into overdrive, reaching out to our people and making sure they felt supported and connected. The escalated focus on employee wellbeing that erupted during that time helped remove some of the awkwardness as we were asking people how they were feeling. There was mutual value being exchanged between me/my team and our team members. 

Before we knew it, the two-week office shut down quickly turned into ten months. On many levels, self-care was missing and/or severely lacking. For me, I couldn’t pinpoint on just one or two things. It wasn’t just work, personal or hearing about COVID nonstop – every day felt like it was groundhogs day and frequently felt varying degrees of “feeling off” – just in a different hc1 shirt. Enter Phase Burnout…

Clear as mud. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is “a state of wellbeing in which the individual realizes his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” 

What is considered “normal” stresses of life? A pandemic isn’t “normal”. What does “work productively” mean exactly? I’ve had many days when I showed up physically and made contributions to my work/team, but mentally, I was exhausted and ended the day feeling incredibly unproductive. How about “can cope”? If that can be defined by putting on a clean hc1 sweatshirt and almost clean jeans, then I had been killing it – right? 

Reconnecting with Purpose

So what is the difference between “normal” mental health and mental disorders? Sometimes it’s clear – and well, sometimes it’s just not. If someone feels bad and it affects their day-to-day life, it’s a mental health concern. 

We can’t expect people to go through 14 months (and counting) and assume everyone will come out the other side being fine. Those effects should be considered, even if we’re walking around maskless and vaccinated. 

Many will recover uneventfully; for others, the pandemic was a disruptive inconvenience, but it has been unexpectedly punishing for a lot of us. Key takeaway – not only is mental health hard to measure, but it is also even easier to ignore. 

Making sure that you are meeting your mental health needs is critical. Like I said before, the past 14 months haven’t been easy, and recognizing that you are struggling is okay. The below resources can help you learn more about how you can support Mental Health Awareness Month and your own wellbeing. 

By Lori Smith, PHR
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As today marks National Intern Day, we are taking a moment to showcase and thank our talented group of hc1 interns including Evan Klein, (Butler University), Benjamin Huang (Purdue University) and Srikar Namburi (Rose-Hulman) who all took part in hc1’s summer internship program.

Exploring is a vital part of the college experience. While the overarching goal of higher education is to prepare students to achieve success in their future careers, the purpose of an internship is to provide real-world experience and use that opportunity by putting what has been learned into action.  More importantly, it helps them decide whether or not it’s a path they can picture spending their career doing.

hc1 recognizes internships are a great way for students to acquaint themselves with the field they are interested in. Gaining important life skills can be considered crucial aspects of career preparedness, the hands-on work experience interns receive is invaluable. 

“hc1 is an incredible company and gave me a lot of insight as to how tasks are assigned, different teams communicate, and how a successful software company operates. Not only that, but I felt that hc1 provided valuable experience and familiarity with popular industry-tools like AWS Lambda. I couldn’t ask for a better way to learn and apply my skills in a constructive way.”  Srikar Namburi Software Engineer Intern

Our interns contribute by utilizing exposure to the latest technological trends to provide innovative ways to solve problems. We encourage them to try innovative ideas and find new ways to overcome challenges. We like to think of it as a fresh pair of eyes reviewing and finding kinks within our existing processes. 

Learning the specialized skills of a particular field, as well as transferable skills such as communication, teamwork, and industry knowledge, gives them a leading edge as they enter the workforce. 

“My time at hc1 has been a great learning experience that has allowed me to expand on the current knowledge that I have gained from pharmacy school and apply it to the technology that hc1 has developed to improve many areas within healthcare. Seeing the way that different teams collaborate throughout hc1 shows the unity that everyone has towards each other and really makes for an enjoyable work environment. I’m very grateful to have had this opportunity to work with an awesome group of people who have passion for what they do.”  Evan Klein PRx Intern

Mentoring and guiding others has always been an incredibly rewarding and motivating experience for the interns and hc1 managers. The relationship that is cultivated over the summer has a lasting impact long after the internship ends. 

“My mentor, Scott, inspires me to do my best work every day. During the onboarding process, I had to configure and install a lot of stuff and I ran into a lot of errors, but Scott was very understanding and helped me work through them. He’s also extremely knowledgeable and I invariably get an answer when I go to him with a question.”  Benjamin Huang Software Engineer Intern 

As members of our next generation of leaders, these summer interns brought the same energy and determination to hc1 that led to their selection in the first place. Their energy could be felt by the team and greatly enhanced our company culture.

Thank you for all of your efforts, commitment and dedication! We are all honored to be at the start of your professional journey! 

By Lauren VanDenBoom
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Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting some of the new features in hc1 4.0, beginning with the Create Opportunity Wizard, which streamlines communication across departments – without derailing sales opportunities. (more…)