ePortfolio: Initial Reflection 1

ePortfolio

Initial Reflection

Submitted to:

Dr. Tony Rosales

Prepared by:

Amrit Virdee

HCIN-546-02-SU18 - Capstone
ePortfolio: Initial Reflection 2

Initial Reflection

There are various aspects of the Masters in Health Informatics degree that have helped

me progress with my goals both on a professional and personal level, for example there were two

opportunities during the degree that we had to record videos, one to introduce ourselves and a 3-

minute elevator pitch about my idea shared with my peers. Both aspects were new to me but the

process allowed me to gain further confidence as video was not a platform that I had used

professionally before. The degree also involved reading various books which I thoroughly

enjoyed but in particular I enjoyed ‘First, Heal Thyself: How to survive spiritually in the

healthcare industry’ by Kassity-Krich and Jones which allowed me to discover new and powerful

concepts such as ‘Near-Enemy Practice’ where the person who antagonizes us the most is seen

as the greatest teacher and ‘Quantum Leadership: Advancing Information, Transforming Health

Care’ by Porter-O’Grady and Malloch which stated that ‘being less ambitious ensures that focus

does not get lost in order for significant progress to be made.’

I was able to utilize the learnings from the modules such as developing business plans,

learning about missions, visions and purpose The learnings let me reflect on three qualities of

good leaders; 1) Visionary, have a clear vision and have the ability to effectively communicate

that vision, 2) Emotional Intelligence where leaders need to be able understand how people are

motivated and how one can achieve positive results and 3) Being great coaches, having the

passion and ability to coach people to be successful. This helped me when I was devising my

elevator pitches for PillView, a prescription medication recognition platform that uses images to

recognize prescription medications. Furthermore, learning about privacy, security, conducting

audits, electronic health record (EHR) implementation, finance and statistics has greatly

expanded my healthcare knowledge with respect to healthcare informatics.

ePortfolio: Initial Reflection 3

I was also able to learn a new language such as Structured Query Language (SQL) and

for the first time be able to learn and use Microsoft Access. I was also able to learn advanced

Microsoft Excel techniques that really helped me appreciate this software futher. The knowledge

from the Statistics module directly helped me with my machine learning courses. The Systems

Design and Analytics module really helped me understand the complexity of introducing an

Electronic Health Record (EHR) system into a practice. The implementation of a strategic

proposal requires the input of all stakeholders and factors such as management structure, costs,

strengths, weaknessess, opportunities and threats need to be considered.

My career aspirations post-graduation is to continue further developing and working on

PillView as well as looking at opportunities that will allow me to utilize my learnings in the

Masters of Health Informatics course and compliment them with machine learning in order to

improve health outcomes.

ePortfolio: Initial Reflection 4

References

Kassity-Krich, N, Jones, J. (2010). First, Heal Thyself: How to survive spiritually in the

healthcare industry

Porter-OGrady, T., & Malloch, K. (2011). Quantum leadership: Advancing innovation,

transforming health care. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.