Corporate Partner Profile: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
With its main campus located in University City, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) sits less than a mile away from Drexel University’s campus. CHOP was the nation's first hospital devoted exclusively to the care of children and has been providing life-changing, compassionate care since its founding in 1855. CHOP’s network now spans Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, and hosts a research enterprise that is home to one of the largest pediatric research programs in the country.
CHOP’s bronze-level Corporate Partnership with the College of Computing & Informatics (CCI) is a continuation of the hospital’s close relationship with Drexel University. CHOP’s Information Services cooperative education program was established in 2011, and since that time, over 81 students from universities including Drexel have gained exposure to the cutting-edge information systems technology and the latest trends in healthcare through their co-op and internships positions. Students who hold CHOP co-op positions work in data management, analysis, communications, and complete project work related to CHOP’s strategic initiatives.
Maintaining the applications and networks that keep care providers and researchers connected requires an experienced staff of analysts, developers, engineers, and other information service specialists. CHOP offers the unique opportunity for students at all levels (undergraduate, graduate, and PhD) to hold cooperative education and internship positions lasting from twelve to twenty-four weeks. In the seven years since CHOP has offered these opportunities, over 18 students have transitioned into full-time positions following their cooperative education experiences. CHOP offers a wide array of career opportunities for CCI graduates including biomedical engineering, digital health, informatics, information security, IT service management, project management, service desk, systems engineering, technology administration, and web/app development.
The culture at CHOP can be described as collaborative and high-performing. Members of the Information Services team strive to support patient and family care while also supporting each other. CCI students who pursue a co-op or full-time position at CHOP should expect a culture of professionalism, continuous quality improvement, efficiency, safety, transformative research, and investment in the patient experience. CHOP also offers resources for professional growth through the CHOP Leadership Institute (CLI) which is part of the HR Talent Management Team and CHOP’s internal leadership development center.
Daniel Lopez (pictured above) completed his MS in Information Systems in 2017 and held an information services co-op position at CHOP during his time as a student. Lopez transitioned into a full-time position as a Systems Analyst after he graduated. Describing what he learned during his time as a co-op, Daniel explains, “As a co-op I received hands on experience with the Oracle suite of IAM tools as well as experience with SPLUNK, a data monitoring and analytics tool. I was allowed room to, and was encouraged to, experiment and learn with these tools.”
As it looks toward the future, the Information Systems team at CHOP anticipates facing challenges related to the consumerization of health care, efficiency and optimization, digital health and technological advancements that touch the patient experience, increased demands for data security, financial position, and patient safety. CCI students can help meet these challenges by bringing a fresh perspective and creative ideas from other industries (like data analytics and information security) that could be used in healthcare and applied to current projects.
Visit www.chop.edu to learn more.