Changing technologies
OPPORTUNITIES IN HEALTHCARE IT AND BIOINFORMATICS

Healthcare IT & bioinformatics: fast-growing fields for techies

Companies are looking for diverse techies to contribute to these exciting arenas

By Laura Gater
Contributing Editor

Wheeler Coleman is VP of the IT group project management office at BCBSIL.

WellPoint's Brent Brown is an IS director handling regional systems consolidations.

The job market in healthcare IT looks good for the coming years. More and more techies are needed to keep up with the fast-mounting need for record-keeping and information gathering, says Julie C. Novak, who is an RN, doctor of nursing science, professor and head at the Purdue School of Nursing (Lafayette, IN) and associate dean of Purdue's College of Pharmacy, Nursing and Health Sciences.

"Nurses today spend 30 percent of their time in documentation, so the use of electronic records for documentation, patient safety and continuity of care is critical,"Novak declares. Another large chunk of time must be devoted to hunting and gathering supplies, underlining the importance of the "application of engineering principles for hospital work designs."

Some of the hottest jobs in the field include communication specialists, engineers that focus on healthcare, and biomedical engineers. The Purdue School of Nursing and the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering (discoverypark.purdue.edu/wps/portal/rche) are collaborating to use engineering and IT principles to improve the systems of healthcare delivery, Novak notes.

Bioinformatics: exploring the genomes
IT was applied to biology to produce the field of bioinformatics. It's a complex arena, where researchers use molecular and computational biology to analyze sequence information on the genomes (sets of chromosomes and genes) of various species. Subjects range from relatively simple bacteria to exceedingly complex humans.

Clearly, it's a field that demands the support of very specialized IT folks, often with a strong biology background, to create and maintain the huge databases involved.

Diversity plays a role
As new opportunities open up in healthcare IT and bioinformatics, diversity will play an important role. At the Mayo Clinic, for example, diversity is considered a strategic advantage. The clinic appreciates the varying viewpoints and perspectives in concepts, initiatives and decision-making; the wider range of innovation and creativity; and the broader pool of qualified techies.

At WellPoint, the health benefits company, "Diversity touches every aspect of corporate life, including career advancement, new business development and supplier relationships," says David Casey, VP of diversity and workforce development. The company's focus on diversity helps it "reach out with understanding and sensitivity to an increasingly diverse society," Casey explains.

Dr Yan W. Asmann mines bioinformatics data at Mayo

Dr Yan W. Asmann.

Dr Yan W. Asmann grew up in China and graduated from Nanjing University (Nanjing, China) in 1993 with a BS in biochemistry. She continued her studies in biochemistry and molecular biology and earned a 1997 PhD from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Shanghai, China).

While working for her PhD, Asmann found that investigators at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN) were doing very similar research. She got in touch with them, and was invited to join Mayo as a research Fellow at the clinic's basic research center in digestive diseases. A few years later she moved to research Fellow at Mayo's bioinformatics lab, then a senior research Fellow.

She realized that a deeper knowledge of CS would be helpful to her work. Mayo agreed, and financed her 2002 BSCS from Winona State University (Winona, MN). "The work in CS helped me learn more about bioinformatics," she says. "I could understand both the biology and the CS sides of the field.

"When we meet with groups of computer scientists my CS degree is very useful. I can communicate better with them and understand what they're doing and what they need."

While Asmann was working toward the CS degree, Mayo also sent her to a course at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley, CA) for a certificate in bioinformatics tools for comparative genomics.

With her new CS skills, Asmann advanced to research associate at Mayo's research computing facility and its general clinical research center (GCRC). In 2005 she became a bioinformatics specialist at Mayo's GCRC bioinformatics core. And last year she moved to application scientist at the bioinformatics support core.

Her work as an application scientist includes microarray data analysis for various projects. She no longer works in the lab, but spends her time at the computer, mining data. Sometimes she develops her own software programs to fill in gaps not addressed by commercial data-mining software.

She uses a pipeline of about a dozen software programs to manipulate data, and develops her own new tools for data support analysis. One was an algorithm for probe level analysis, another a binary indexing algorithm to discover cancer-specific markers. She works with Linux, UNIX and Windows platforms.

Asmann has won awards both here and in China for her work in biochemistry. Perhaps she's proudest of her 2005 R25T award in cancer genetic epidemiology from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. She also lectures about bioinformatics and makes conference presentations.

She enjoys Mayo's relaxed working environment and its diversity. "Mayo pays a lot of attention to having a balanced environment," she says, and although most of her colleagues are white males, she also works with people from Africa and China. Her family still lives in China, where her mother is a college teacher and her father a construction company manager. Her husband is a programmer at Mayo.

Brent Brown directs IS at WellPoint

Brent Brown.

Brent Brown is an IS director at WellPoint, Inc (Denver, CO). WellPoint, one of the Fortune 500s, is big in healthcare, and Brown is responsible for systems consolidations for the company's western region. He's been with WellPoint for twenty-eight years, the last eleven as director of IS.

Brown and his sister grew up in Columbus, OH. His mother was the CEO and general manager of the Central Ohio Transit Authority, and his father owned a business.

Brown began his career in 1975 as an application developer for the State of Ohio. In 1977 he moved to Bank One where he developed apps in the Visa credit card department.

In 1979 he joined Anthem Healthcare (Worthington, OH) in apps development, eventually creating and expanding a client server team. In 1997 he became a director of apps development, responsible for Indiana and Kentucky national division applications. He also completed a BS in ops management at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business that year.

In 1999 Anthem was preparing to merge with WellPoint. Brown was asked to support pre-merger activities, with responsibility for process improvement and admin software. In 2000 he relocated to Denver, CO to lead IS for the newly created western region.

In his current role as director of IS, Brown manages a staff of more than forty techies supporting WellPoint's systems conversion and migrations strategy. That, he says, helps reduce administrative expense through elimination of redundant apps.

"My job is to get us to a single claims engine, thus reducing costs for mandatory and regulatory projects such as HIPAA," Brown explains. "It feels like a never-ending project because as soon as we get a system converted we acquire another company. But I enjoy it."

Over the years Brown has been on WellPoint's technology steering committee, west operating committee and west leadership council. He continues as the point of contact for the Colorado and Nevada technology and ops group. In 2003 he received a "modern day technology leader" award.

He has also been a member of the company's diversity council. "If we're going to be successful, we need to have a management team and an associate base that mirrors the populations we support," he explains.

Brown lives in Denver, CO with his wife, Debi. They have three grown children and two grandchildren. On weekends he works part-time as a ski instructor because he enjoys helping others learn the sport he enjoys so much.

Louise Shah directs a program delivery team for Perot Systems

Louise Shah.

Working for Perot Systems Corp, Louise Shah directs the program delivery team at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC). Her job is to streamline the organizational infrastructure to be sure HPHC meets its financial and operational objectives.

Shah has come a long way from her native Dublin, Ireland, where her father was a hops manager for the Guinness brewery. Her parents, two brothers and a sister still live in Ireland.

Shah graduated from University College (Dublin, Ireland) in 1990, with a BS in CS and math. While still in college she worked as a programmer for DEC, and after graduation she went to work for Fujitsu-International Computers Ltd. She designed and ran training courses in C, Unix, distributed online transaction processing and Tuxedo.

In 1993 she took a job at Open Environment Corp (Shannon, Ireland). As education manager, she designed, developed and delivered high-margin training for senior consultants at companies like Hewlett-Packard, IBM and DEC. She managed the company's European team and facilities in Shannon and Cambridge, England, and established a training center for other company trainers.

Shah came to the U.S. for a brief tour of duty at Open Environment's Cambridge, MA, HQ, met her future husband and remained.

In 1994 she and her new husband started Partnering Group Software, Inc (Cambridge, MA). She designed and implemented a decision support system data warehouse, which, she explains, gave retailers and manufacturers the ability to manage categories of products as individual business units.

They sold the company in 1995, and Shah joined i-Cube/Razor Fish (Cambridge, MA), another startup. As director of best practices, she managed programs for high risk, high margin and high stake technology re-engineering projects.

In 1999 she became a delivery management leader for a Cambridge, MA subsidiary of Perot Systems. She restructured the delivery management team, rescaled the company's technology and services delivery capability and did other management tasks.

In 2001 she finally got into healthcare IT when she became a group program manager for deNovis, Inc (Lexington, MA). She led the project management organization as deNovis evolved from an R&D-focused organization to a product company, and became director of methodology in 2003.

Shah was promoted to product manager in 2004, and established requirements for key features of the company's member enrollment procedures. Next she became director of professional services, involved in apps from automated claims adjudication to membership, enrollment and billing, and contract and financial management.

"I gained a lot of experience in a short period of time working at deNovis," she says with a smile. "I liked working in healthcare IT, and found my niche in delivery management.

"Healthcare is going through a lot of changes and challenges, and there are lots of opportunities in the field for improvement in technology. Healthcare IT also affects you at the end of the day, as you realize you can have an impact on the quality of people's lives."

Shah returned to Perot Systems in 2004 as a senior project manager for the HPHC account, based in Wellesley, MA. Now she was managing design, development and deployment of business processes and technical systems to support the sales, underwriting and account services organizations. The next year she became resource manager for a team of two dozen project managers, managing their assignments and contracting outside help as needed.

Soon after that she moved up to her current job of program delivery team director. She runs the program management office, which now has about a hundred people.

"Healthcare is very woman-friendly," says Shah. "Women play a very strong role in healthcare organizations. You have an opportunity to grow and promote yourself."

Shah is the mother of a three-year-old daughter and a sixteen-month-old son. Her husband continues as an entrepreneur.

Kathiravan Periasamy of BCBS of Florida

Kathiravan Periasamy.

Kathiravan Periasamy says it's the logical thinking he learned in engineering and CS classes that impelled him into a career in IT.

"I wanted to get into business management, so I went into software to apply my analytical and logical interests in engineering and business; that's how I ended up in computers," he explains.

In 2002 Periasamy became a technical manager, working on contract at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida (BCBSFL, Jacksonville, FL). He managed a team of engineers and a variety of software products, and moved up to project architect.

In 2005 he became a direct employee of BCBS as a technology architect III. Now he helps technicians develop business processes and solutions for customers, which includes some relationship management and marketing. He and his team are currently implementing technology at the new BCBS call center.

"There are many opportunities for me at BCBS, says Periasamy. "I might eventually like to move to a different department, where I can add more value to the enterprise. I would like to contribute more in analytical, logical and technological areas."

Periasamy is a native of India, where his father owned a lock shop. One of his brothers is a chemist and the other a professor. Periasamy graduated from Thiagarajar College of Engineering (Madurai, India) in 1992 with a BS in engineering. After two entry-level engineering jobs in India he moved to the U.S. in 1996, joining General Electric Co (Plainville, CT) as a software engineer supporting MRP systems.

Soon he went on to J.D. Edwards Co (Lexington, KY), a consulting firm, and was placed with Lexmark (Lexington, KY) as a consultant. He got into manufacturing, process automation and computer application, a good learning experience.

His next stop was Datasoft Technologies (Atlanta, GA). As a software engineer he helped customer companies match business processes to high-level software solutions. The work was fun, involving applied math, customer relations and travel.

At BCBS he enjoys the company's diversity; he's not the only Indian working there, as he was at some of his previous jobs. However, he notes that India has sixteen official languages and some twenty different cultures. Food, clothing, language and education systems are different in different parts of India, so the chance of meeting folks he can relate to closely are slim.

But that's OK. At the end of the day he comes home to his wife, a six-year-old son and three-year-old daughter.

Wheeler Coleman: IT VP at BCBSIL
After graduating from Northern Illinois University in 1983 with a BS in applied data processing, Wheeler Coleman went to work for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBSIL, Chicago, IL). He's been with the company nearly twenty-four years now, but in his current position, VP of the IT group project management office, for just a few months. He completed an MBA at the University of Notre Dame (South Bend, IN) in 2004, while working for BCBSIL.

Coleman grew up in Chicago with one brother and four sisters. His father still operates the successful barber shop he's owned for the past forty-five years.

"When I was in high school in the late 70s everyone was talking about computers. So when I got to college, knowing computers were hot, I took a class in CS, enjoyed it and decided it was what I wanted to do," says Coleman.

His new job responsibilities involve managing the project management office and overseeing teams of project managers working on all IT group projects in Illinois, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

The projects range up to multi-millions of dollars. "I make sure we have the right people in the right positions to run them right," Coleman explains.

He's also responsible for fulfillment planning, anticipating and assessing current project capacity and lining up resources to meet upcoming project needs.

Before taking his VP job, Coleman worked in various management positions for eighteen years. Most recently he directed financial and corporate apps. Before that he managed applications for medical and dental claims processing. He started at BCBSIL as a developer, writing code for medical and dental claims systems.

BCBSIL is a business of Health Care Service Corp (HCSC) Although it's headquartered in Chicago, HCSC and its subsidiaries have 15,000 employees at fifty-two locations in the U.S. The largest non-investor-owned health insurance company in the U.S., it has won awards for its commitment to diversity and has many women in upper management, according to Coleman.

"Whether you're a minority or not, when you're in IT you have to prove yourself all the time," Coleman notes with a smile. "So you always have to improve yourself."

Coleman feels sure that IT and healthcare are two areas that will continue to grow. The wide range of jobs available in IT make it a promising career.

"IT isn't rocket science," he says. "All kinds of people can learn IT and become very good at it."

Coleman's current goal is to "be the very best I can be in my current capacity." So far he has half his team in place and needs to bring in about sixty more people.

He's been married for twenty-three years, and has a seventeen-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter.

D/C

Laura Gater is a freelance business and medical/ healthcare writer based in northeast Indiana.

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