CHIP master's student Vidheesha Patel and alums Sai Tejaswini Velpuri, and Anuradha Bankar all completed their internships this past summer. Their experiences varied, but all concluded that the internship was an extremely valuable component to their master's education.
This past summer, CHIP master's student Vidheesha Patel interned as a Clinical Informatics Analyst at Conifer Health Solutions, affiliated with Tenet Healthcare Corporation. This role gave her the opportunity to apply her academic knowledge to real-world challenges, specifically within revenue cycle management in hospitals and population health. As a part of the Value-Based Care Team, she engaged with claims data analysis, participated in team discussions, and helped problem solve complex challenges. Her individual project centered on analyzing pregnancy claims data without terminating events to understand misclassification of these claims and missing information. Her project analysis suggested that missing procedure and diagnosis codes are often the cause for misclassification or missing component. She commented that, "This experience not only sharpened my analytical skills but also gave me valuable insights into how I can contribute effectively to the field in future roles.”
Dr. Sai Tejaswini Velpuri, is a recent graduate of the Biomedical and Health Informatics program. She began her journey in the clinical field, spending around 4 years researching salivary gland tumors during her undergraduate studies. While working in a clinical setting, she realized the critical role data plays in healthcare, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, which inspired her to transition into healthcare data analytics. Since then, she has pursued a data-driven path through various courses and roles at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the UNC School of Nursing, where she specialized in analyzing clinical data. Recently, Sai completed an internship as a Data Visualization Specialist at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. She said, "during my internship, I focused on visualizing pharmacy operational hours across states using Tableau and ArcGIS Pro Online, while also analyzing the healthcare services provided by pharmacies in different regions. This role taught me how to create impactful data visualizations and gave me valuable insights into applying data in real-world healthcare settings. It was a great opportunity to collaborate with experts and work on projects aligned with my passion for healthcare data science."
Anuradha Bankar is another recent graduate of the MPS BMHI program. She found her perfect internship opportunity at Asklepios Biopharmaceutical Inc. (AskBio). During her internship, she was able to apply the analytical techniques she learned in the MBA 893 class, particularly using SAS JMP, to enhance experimental workflows. Additionally, her familiarity with data visualization tools like Tableau proved invaluable as she navigated through complex data analysis using GraphPad. "This experience deepened my proficiency in extracting actionable insights from experimental data, equipping me with a comprehensive skill set that bridges practical lab work with advanced data analysis. This hands on internship experience was the most rewarding aspect of the CHIP program!"
