Ahmed T. Eldafrawy is on the verge of completing his MS in Health Informatics. He’s also on the verge of an exciting career at Cerner, a company that develops custom care-coordination systems for healthcare facilities across the country. He told us how he balances full-time work as a consulting analyst with his course work, and how he balances his undergraduate degree in kinesiology and a lifelong desire to work in healthcare with his newfound passion for building systems.

How did you get into Health Informatics?

During my junior year, I started volunteering to satisfy graduate program requirements for physical therapy schools. And, honestly, I started losing interest. I realized that it really wasn't for me. When my wife and I were still dating, she was in the bachelor's program in Health Information Management. She loved it. Seeing what she was doing, and the opportunities that came with it were very attractive to me. I looked into the master’s program and felt that Health Informatics would be a great fit for me.

Did you have any tech background at all when you started?

No, I did not. And it's weird because I’d never really thought about tech or programming before. And since I've been in the program, I've felt like my whole motive has changed. It felt like my interest and energy levels just shifted to a whole other level.

What do you find most exciting about the field?

It’s exciting to be part of something that’s changing and growing so much. Electronic health records (EHRs) have been around for a little while now, but they’re still relatively new. There are so many questions still to answer. To feel that you can be a part of when it all started – that's very cool. Here at work, it’s interesting to see how our products develop during testing. When we get the final solution, it’s very cool.

What’s the role of technology in helping people?

Technology plays a huge role in how efficiently caregivers can do their jobs and, indirectly, it can affect patient outcomes. If we're going into a client site and we're assessing what they used to work with compared to a system we develop and implement for them, we can see how much more efficient they'll become. Once that foundation is established, it's great to see improved coordination of care, more efficiency, less time spent in waiting rooms, things like that.

How do EHRs and other systems improve the patient experience?

Their experience should be much more satisfying because you're not answering the same questions that you might have just written down on a piece of paper. The automation allows caregivers more time to spend actually treating patients. On top of that, it's going to also decrease error because EHRs eliminate the need for humans to re-enter information by hand.

What about cost savings?

If you think about the amount of paper that’s reduced and the reduction in medical error, those two factors alone amount to cost savings. And when EHRs can be transferred to different healthcare providers and insurers, patients don’t have to repeat expensive tests and procedures just because they switch providers. It’s so common that patients have to repeat labs or imaging because the original results weren’t available. Multiply that experience by millions of people, and that's a lot of money. Better coordination of care allows everyone to access results, making it much easier to make accurate diagnoses and provide collaborative healthcare.

What are meaningful use and interoperability, and what’s their role in the work you do?

There are a lot of moving parts, and we’re dealing with human lives, so these two key concepts are crucial to electronic health systems. We want the system to be relevant to optimal patient care, and we want all the moving parts to work together. We want to make sure the patient is always number one. At the same time, healthcare is also a business. And we see that when meaningful use is driving your systems, revenues grow dramatically.

What do you do at Cerner?

Once a system has been implemented, I go in and provide hands-on training and troubleshooting when we turn the system over to the client. I help providers with certain workflows they might need and tweak some of the code to customize sections based on those needs. So you still get to work directly with people in a healthcare setting. Oh, absolutely. I've always wanted to be in healthcare. I do a lot of facilitating and teaching. I feel like I have good social skills, so this position is a good balance.

How do you manage to work full time in your last semester of school?

I’m actually in Kansas City right now. We've been going back and forth for some training and doing some go-live conversions at some hospitals. It's been a very busy couple of months. Thomas Martin, my professor, has been very flexible, and we have a phone call once a week. You've just got to do what you have to do just try and get through it. And hopefully, it's all going to work itself out.

What are your plans for the next few years?

I would like to be in a leadership role, whether in project management or maybe in an engagement leader role.

Where do you see the field going next?

I don't know if I have the answer to that, but I'm sure we’ll keep working for more efficiency. And you can always go faster. What impact has the program had on your career? The faculty has been amazing. The courses themselves have given me a lot of exposure to the things we do here, such as workflow design and meaningful use. For example, I use what I’ve learned in Intro to Project Management at work, and my job gives me a greater context for what we learn in the program. It’s a great two-way street.