It’s hard to believe that I am halfway done with this fellowship. Where has the time gone?!!! In honor of the halfway mark, and to provide a little insight into Challenge Detroit for those of you applying to be a Year 4 Fellow, below is the speech I gave to my host company’s, Hospice of Michigan (HOM), executive team on Tuesday. They asked me to provide a recap on what I’ve done at HOM and with Challenge Detroit these past six months. Although some of the specific items that I have produced for HOM might not seem relevant to you, I wanted to leave them in here to show the wide array of assignments my host company has assigned me. I appreciate their concern about making sure I am exposed to many different areas of this business. If you become a future fellow, I recommend working with your host company to provide you with that experience. Enjoy!
“First of all thank you for being a host company and for your support of this program. Applications for Year 4 Fellows is now open through March 8th so this has been a time for me to reflect on where this program has brought me. It’s hard to believe I’ve already been here for 6 months and only have 6 more to go. During my time here, I have been primarily
HOM allowed the fellows to use their conference room for a Friday working session
working with the data analytics team, focused on the At Home Support Program. The team has allowed me to take over the production and distribution of many of the regular weekly and monthly reports. One particular item I take pride in is the redesign of the monthly dashboard. Some of the executive team has seen the prototype and it will be circulated to everyone next month but by using slicers, we were able to have trending data for all partners in a clean, one page format. The report will hopefully be utilized and no longer viewed as just numbers on a page. Outside of the analytics team, I worked with COO Patrick Miller and Director of Marketing Tracey Pierce, to find a new scrub provider which will save our nurses and aides over 25% on uniform costs. Past fellow, Kirsten Bondalapati, started to create a Green Team before the end of her term and I was able to pick-up where she left off. We have about 8 members here in Brush Park. As you know, we launched the recycle program at the end of January. It has been going well and I greatly appreciate the support that the executive team and Property Manager Chris Peraino has provided. We are looking forward to receiving our Bee Green Business certification from Green Living Sciences by the end of March.
On the Challenge Detroit side of things, we just wrapped up our 3rd challenge last Friday. On behalf of Challenge Detroit, I would like to thank you for allowing us to use the conference room during one of our Friday work sessions. Our first challenge was focused on community
The logo my amazing team created for our non-profit partner Youth Energy Squad.
engagement. Our nonprofit partner was Recovery Park whose mission is to create jobs for people with barriers to employment. Our second challenge was focused on the transportation issues in the city. We worked with the non-profit partner Vehicles for Change, a company based out of Baltimore, Maryland who is looking to come to Detroit to help families with financial challenges achieve economic independence through car ownership. Our last challenge was in a blitz style format so we worked with six different non-profit partners focused on education in Detroit. My team worked with Youth Energy Squad, an organization that cultivates the next generation of green leaders by engaging young people in hands-on service learning projects to make their homes, schools and communities more sustainable. These challenges have exposed me to many different types of organizations and I’ve been developing skills entirely outside of what I’m exposed to in a normal workweek.
One thing I appreciate about this organization is that you are very forward thinking. Despite being known as Hospice of Michigan, you have diversified your portfolio. My time here has really opened my eyes to how this country grossly neglects end of life care and what a disservice that is to not just the patients but also their families. I’m trying to play a small role in the improvement of that by not shying away from the topic but having frank conversations with my family, friends, and the other fellows about the importance of end of life care.
I hope this provided you with an overview of the impact your participation in the Challenge Detroit program has had on me.”
