Data Analysis in Pediatric Healthcare
An Initial Anecdote
Now that I have been in my current role for half a year, I thought I would take time to reflect on this period, the things I do, and the tools I use. When applying for jobs I had a portfolio of projects built in python with SQL sprinkled in. I was also coming from a STEM graduate research program, so I had many of the soft skills that I could apply to interviews, and I use constantly in my data role, but that’s subject for a future blog.
The position I ended up interviewing and eventually taking was for a data analyst position in pediatric healthcare, specifically quality & patient safety. The job listing noted SQL and PowerBI (+ Microsoft office suite) as the required technical skills. Although I had no previous experience in using PowerBI, I was able to leverage personal experience using Tableau for home automation dashboarding and building dashboards using python, a follow-up to my COVID-19 analysis (dashboard portfolio post pending). During the initial interview I was asked by my now boss some general interview questions probing my personality and skillset. These initial interviews are where the soft skills I mentioned really shine, coming across as personable and resourceful goes a long way. I was told by the end of this initial interview that I would be interviewing again with a larger cohort of my future peers.
The second interview was with all clinical people, so there was little to no technical questions asked, this was for an entry level position, but I know similar roles at my organization have been asked plenty of SQL and general data questions. I was lucky in this regard, but everyone should always be prepared to deal with technical questions. The things asked of me by this group were a similar set of questions to my first interview. The interview process for this position was exceptionally smooth and not exciting to write about (or probably read about).
My job over these last six months has required me to be resourceful in obtaining hospital data related to the care we give our patients and making sure we are keeping them safe. In my department. I am the first of the data team, so I had to use the relationships of those I work with and create new relationships to get us started. We have an organizational database and analysts can directly obtain the data they need or use data cubes created by the organizations data architect. I create my own data pipelines from our database for analytics. This has required me to be proficient in SQL to find the data I need and to sequester manageable and analytics ready data from our data warehouse before bringing the data into the analytics tool of choice.
For analytics, I have primarily used PowerBI as our organization has adopted much of the Microsoft technology infrastructure. Honestly, I love it. I find PowerBI to be intuitive, quick, and powerful. I use SQL to build tables from organizational data that I can model in PowerBI to quickly generate impactful visuals and reports. I use the tool to disseminate all shapes and sizes of information because it is so quick to get dynamic visualizations. It is meant to be a low-code solution but even in places that seem restrictive, there is tons of flexibility and hackiness can go a long way. I do not get to use Python as much as I like, but I have started to create data pipelines where python does the CSV/.xlsx managing and transforming. I am hoping to be able to eventually leverage Power Automate along with these python scripts to do more interesting sequences. I still do not know exactly what the future holds for me, but I do know that I am relishing the present. My plan is to incorporate the more interesting topics of my position into blog posts and expand my portfolio offerings to include the most impactful data implementations I can squeeze out of PowerBI!