Tiffany Hu (HP)
Career goal:
Possibly getting a PhD in the future, studying the trade-offs associated with quality improvement in the delivery of care or analyzing the relationship between safety/efficacy and time to market for medical devices.
Internship outline:
This summer I interned at the National Committee for Quality Assurance in their Performance Measurement team within their Quality Measurement and Research Group. I worked on three key projects: (1) quality measure development in the home health sphere, (2) quality measure maintenance for National Quality Forum (NQF) reendorsement for seven quality measures in the realm of antipsychotics usage among children and adolescents along with diabetes and cardiac care, and (3) quality improvement work with health plans and other key external stakeholders within the Depression National Collaborative for Innovation in Quality Measurement (NCINQ).
Value of experience:
This was the best internship I could have ever asked for. Going into it, I really wanted more exposure to quality research and the quality domain of care. I not only got to understand the quality landscape more but I also had an opportunity that reaffirmed my own personal research interests. I learned so much every single day (both professionally and personally) from some of the most brilliant and kindest people I’ve ever met. They do such amazing work and I’m glad to have just been a part of it!
Best moment/experience:
I have two moments that really stuck out to me: one more professionally-oriented and another more personally-oriented. The experience that was more professionally-oriented was attending a Measurement Advisory Panel. That entire day was just amazing because it was about 8 hours of listening to brilliant people, both from our organization and the experts flown in, talk so passionately about their thoughts on how to improve delivery of care to the geriatric population. It was also very sweet afterwards when our entire team went to happy hour and could just relax as it was very stressful preparing for it. For my more personal moment, I dragged a friend out to do one of the most DC things: watching the Democratic presidential debates at a bar. It was super great though and it was fun being surrounded by likeminded, thoughtful people!