With both her children now in university Lorette feels now is a great time to head back to school herself.
“I am excited to get back into university,” says Lorette, who is enrolled in the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School’s Master of Health Administration. “The online, course-based MHA program is the perfect fit for me,” she said. “I live in northern British Columbia and there is no graduate education available in person in my city of Prince Rupert.”
“So an online program is the only way for me to accomplish my post-graduate aspirations.”
Andrea has a wealth of experience in her field.
She is currently the Information Governance Lead for Northern Health B.C. and has been working in health information management for more than 20 years. Her job as lead is to help the organization improve consistent policies and processes in data and information management.
“It’s a broad scope of work,” she said. “It’s mostly about helping my regional health authority be consistent and standardized in how we manage our health care information and our business information.”
Andrea says the last 20 years have gone by fast with raising children, volunteering in sports, being on the parent advisory at school and other life activities.
“So when my oldest graduated from high school I thought I had more time to do things like go back to school.”
There were few options available to her living in Prince Rupert until she found the JSGS MHA program.
“I really enjoy that it is course-based work,” she said. “I keep finding that the topics of my classes line up perfectly with things going on in my work. I am always sharing tidbits.”
Recently she was able to share specific resources from the Enterprise Information Management course for an electronic health record project called SaferCare.
“I’ve found there is a lot of cross-relevance with materials that I am learning in my courses to actual work that I’m doing.”
Lorette originally majored in the Health Informatics and Information Management (MHA-HIIM) program, but since she is already a member of the national association she decided to transfer out of the HIIM so she could pursue different electives.
Still, she says JSGS has the only program for a masters degree in health informatics and information management (HIIM) and the country needs more professionals with that type of expertise.
“We need people doing more research in our field, we need people leading at a high level in health care organizations with health information being their background.”
Andrea, who grew up in southern Manitoba, is in the midst of the MHA program and will be doing a second residency in June.
“It has been very positive so far,” she said. “Classes are always delivered over Zoom so we have access from anywhere and they are always recorded so I can watch them in my own time.”
Andrea says the discussion forums professors and students use have also been beneficial on many levels.
“It is really a great opportunity to learn from fellow professionals, and typically they are healthcare professionals,” she said. “We share our own experiences as working professionals or what we’ve done in the past. Because I have worked in the field of health information management for over 20 years and some of the classes that we are in are related to HIIM, I sometimes share my work experiences in class.”
Andrea says the JSGS MHA program has been for her own personal development, but also to support her career.
“Hopefully I will be going into a director role in the future,” she said, “and the masters program will really help me with that area. I think it is a very important piece of my development, to prepare me for that role.”