March Seminar Reflection

Leslie Martinez

Hahn School of Nursing, University of San Diego

HCIN 548: Seminar

Dr. Boone

March 23, 2023

 March Seminar Reflection

This week’s seminar consisted of three guest speakers that all have years of experience

in the healthcare industry, are informaticists and very familiar with EPIC. Two out of the three

guest speakers have worked locally at Scripps Hospital.

Catherine and Dr. Boone have known each other for about eight years and first met on

the EPIC training team. Catherine is the Senior Director of Patient Application. Epic is one of the

largest applications she uses and has much experience with. She first started off as a new grad

nurse in 2000 and managed the Med-Surg unit for about 15 years. It wasn’t until 2017 when she

transitioned into informatics when she helped transition the Green Hospital to Epic. Their

director at the time was great at engaging them on new projects and challenging her with new

tasks. She supported the go live and implementation which took years to prepare. This

implementation helped ITS and clinicians collaborate with one another for the first time. Moving

forward it was clear that the ITS department needed more clinicians in their department to better

understand the impact of their work. Now, there are teams of Clinical Informatics Nurses (CIN)

that support the acute and ambulatory departments. Catherine was part of the first trail blazers

that helped start the implementation of Epic and is now training CINs as they continue to

improve the systems we still use today.

For someone like me, who does not have clinical experience, it is important to maximize

other skills and showcase my awareness and knowledge of the healthcare profession.

Something that came to mind when reevaluating what skills I can bring to the table are my

public speaking skills and ability to organize a team. Creating processes and procedures for the

team to understand and follow through on are crucial in the early stages of working together.

Everyone may have different, individual responsibilities they are responsible for, yet there must

be a clear understanding of our vision and end-goal.