Information Technology Services

Fellowship Experience

• Administrative Information Systems (AIS)

  Administrative Information Systems supports UTMB's enterprise-wide business requirements by implementing and maintaining the Finance, Human Resources, Payroll, Time and Effort Reporting, Budget & Planning, and Student Information Systems by providing customer service, expertise, and knowledge to support the business, financial, and compliance needs of the institution. The team administers a wide variety of vendor supported applications, and works closely in collaboration with the respective customer sets. The functions of Production Support, precision and enterprise level Project Management and Development, and database and system administration are aligned within each of the individual teams within the department.

  Day in the Life

  When we were with Application Management, we were involved with the planning and prepping for the Kronos Time Clock Proximity Rollout to Clear Lake Campus. The process was intended to make it easier for clinical staff to clock in by simply holding their badge up to the time clock. Although we did not get a chance to test the nurse user group, we did help in identifying a problem within the system - there was a certain ID that was being overridden every night that needed to be addressed with someone on the incident management team.

• Business Intelligence and Data Administration (BIDA)

  The Business Intelligence & Data Administration team is responsible for ensuring data from various transactional systems is well managed and is readily available for use by our customers to support BI and decision support purposes. BIDA supports Business users by providing report and dashboard solutions including the Enterprise Institutional Dashboard. The group consists of resources that extract, transform and load data, provide data security, and manage the presentation layer.  They also manage and support the DataMarts, OBIEE, EPM/DataStage, ETL tools, Exadata Enterprise Data Warehouse environment and the research applications e-Sirius, Velos, Infoed, and MasterControl.

  Day in the Life

  "I had the opportunity to work on a Qlik Sense application. The goal of the project was to create a visualization to display metrics on Performance and Happiness for UTMB employees. The visualization that I worked on allowed the user to select multiple subjects, choose the self submission status, and view related KPIs and graphs." - Kyle Bingham

• ITS Business Operations

  The Information Technology Services Business Operations team manages cell phone services, pager services, and the list of computers covered by the UTMB desktop support program. Business Operations is also responsible for all financial operations, operational and capital financial reporting, service center billing, and additional Information Services administrative support.

• CMC Technical Operations

  The IS CMC Technical Operations (IS CMC) team supports Correctional Managed Care and its strategic objectives by providing and maintaining IT infrastructure for CMC’s statewide clinical operations.

  ISCMC responsibilities include the Pearl EHR application, database and image server; Pharmacy Medication Administration Recording System (PRS/SMART), utilization review system, hospital claims management system, SAP BI Suite reporting application, departmental desktops and telemedicine systems.

• Information Security

  The Office of Information Security (OIS) is charged with the development and enforcement of policies, procedures and practices, maintains an up-to-date information security program and monitors the effectiveness of defined security controls. The OIS will also ensure that the confidentiality and integrity of all information resources (IR).

  Day in the Life

  One of the ways that Information Security manage risk is monitoring the international logins. The biggest incident they faced was from an international login led to 5 fraudulent changes to employee direct deposit information. Fortunately, these changes were caught before there was any financial impact. Moving forward, they were able to identify that the problem spurred from phishing emails."Phishing" is someone masquerading--often via email--as someone they're not, in order to get information or to encourage a user to do something that they normally wouldn't, such as share their password.

• ITS CMC Technical Operations (ISCMC)

  The ITS CMC Technical Operations (ISCMC) team provides comprehensive technology support for CMC’s statewide clinical operations by installing and operating IT infrastructure to enable Correctional Managed Care to reach its strategic objectives in providing world class correctional managed care with improved employee productivity and reduced costs. This includes support of the Pearl EHR application, Pearl EHR database and image server, Pharmacy Medication Administration Recording System (PRS/SMART), utilization review system, hospital claims management system, SAP BI Suite reporting application, departmental desktops, and telemedicine systems.

  Day in the Life

  We had the opportunity to travel to the CMC pharmacy to physically see the inital process of getting medication to the patients. It all starts with a pharmacist filling the prescription in Pharmacy Replacement System. Once the prescription is filled, it is sent to label maker to be printed and placed on the filled blister pack. The blister packs are filled with highly discounted pills which are purchased in bulk. The next step in the process is to place the filled blister pack on the conveyor belt to be scanned by the sortation device. There are several cameras that read the barcode on the label and that barcode determines where the pill pack will be sent. Once the blister packs are distributed, the boxes will be shipped out to its designated location.

• ITS Operations Systems (ISOPS)

  Information Services Operations supports the vast IT infrastructure of UTMB Health, including support for Technical Services, Data Center support, departmental desktops, Service Desk, Internet & email access, Citrix & VPN access, and file & print services.  ISOPS also provides application hosting and consultation upon request and helps UTMB Health to reduce IT expenditures through centralized management and server consolidation within our data centers.

  
  Day in the Life

  "The Desktop Support team is where we had the experience of taking out the hard drives from all-in-one PCs that were used by the UTMB police department. The hard drives were being removed so that they can be disposed of properly.

  We started out by researching the products on the manufacturers website. After locating the information necessary for properly dismantling the hardware, we pulled out our trusty screwdrivers and got to work. To get to the hard drives we, had to open the PCs, remove internal plates, and unplug several wires. The hard drives were unscrewed and then labeled for destruction. Then began the real challenge: we had to remember how to put it all back together." - Kyle Bingham

• Operational Security

  Operational Security manages and supports enterprise security platforms and processes that are used to protect the institution from new and emerging threats targeting our information systems in an attempt to steal confidential data. & Platforms and processes include perimeter security, endpoint protection, vulnerability management, access management and security information and event management & Operational Security works closely with Information Security to continuously enhance and mature UTMB's cybersecurity program.

  
  Day in the Life

  "Operational Security gave us the opportunity to shadow people across the Access Management, Endpoint Protection Management, and Perimeter Security Management teams.
  
  We got to check out the many applications that they use to secure devices across UTMB." - Kyle Bingham

• Telecommunication Operations

  Voice, Network and Video Operations offers strategic and operational support to the UTMB enterprise. Voice, Network and Video Operations implements and maintains various enterprise-wide communication, network and video system infrastructure supporting the main UTMB campuses located in Galveston, Angleton, League City and Clear Lake. This group also supports the UTMB system of clinics located across South East Texas, as well as extending the network to over ½ of the Correction Managed Care facilities across the state.

  
  Day in the Life

  "We had the opportunity to shadow the Voice Operations team. The team showed us how to program the Avaya phones in the hospital. First, we set up a call forwarding rule list. This was used to determine the order that the phones would redirect the calls. Then we tested out the rule list by calling a nearby phone. After the phone rang 3 times, it would automatically redirect the call to another phone." - Kyle Bingham

• Clinical Information Systems (CIS)

  The Clinical Information Systems team works to support and extend the Epic suite of products, including the Electronic Health Record, Enterprise Scheduling, Registration, and Billing, as well as multiple integrated and stand-alone information systems to help our customers manage the clinical and financial aspects of the UTMB Health enterprise. Clinical documentation, billing, interface, hardware, data center, networking, support and administrative team members work together to ensure current systems are available, address user needs and service requests, and ensure users receive system support and training.

  Day in the Life

  "During the 2018 Epic Upgrade, Kyle and I had the opportunity to shadow Epic Support. On Saturday evening of the Go-Live, I was at LCC in the ED, Med Surg and the ICU. There were minimal upgrade-related problems that the users experienced because it was an Inpatient setting during an Ambulatory-heavy upgrade. However, it was an incredible learning experience to hear the feedback the providers and staff had on ways to improve the system.

  We also were fortunate enough to shadow phone support during such a busy time. Regularly, Epic Support usually receives about 65 calls a day, but they received 280 calls on the Monday post Go-Live.

  The rotation with Epic Support provided an invaluable experience with face-to-face provider interaction. We can't wait to use the skills gained during this rotation in our careers." - Brittany Roller