 Hi everybody. My name is Jason Klein. I'm the director of P20 initiatives at Northern Illinois University. We're excited to be back with another episode of Career Pathways Virtual Trailheads. This series was kicked off when the shelter in place started at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to explore different careers, the skills and competencies that people in those careers use, and the pathways by which people ended up in the careers that they're in today. So we're really excited to bring you another episode today. We've got two guests at one time. I'm going to turn it over to Jomoke for her introduction, introductions to the guests and our show. Hello everyone. My name is Ade Jomoke Alopare. I'm an international student here at NRU when working at my master's degree in public health with an emphasis in health promotion. And I'm excited to be doing this episode of Trishna and Octave. At this point, I'd like to let Trishna introduce herself and then Octave, you can go after Trishna. Perfect. Thank you. Hi everyone. My name is Trishna Singh. I am a senior contract analyst at Premier, which is a healthcare technology company. Before that, I used to work at Cardinal Health in their ORPAC division. So I worked mostly with, you know, when you go to a hospital for a surgery, a clinician or a tech will grab a pack that includes everything you need for that surgery. So my role was first in making sure those packs showed up on time. And then my second role was working in the analytics for any new business that that company was previously at. Before that, I worked as a student at Emory University where I graduated with a bachelor's in neuroscience and behavioral biology. I'm very excited to be here. Hi, my name is Octave. I am also a senior contract analyst. I also do the exact same thing as Trishna only my health systems are in Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois. Before I was a senior contract analyst, I worked at Office Depot, Office Max as a pricing analyst. So I did a lot of things with pricing, a lot of analytical background. I got my bachelor's degree from the University of Southern Mississippi in marketing and then I also went back to school and got my degree in accounting from Lakeland University in Wisconsin. And I am also excited to be here. Well, thank you so much Trishna and Octave. Octave, I'll start with you. I'll just let you give us a brief introduction about the company you guys work for and what your company does. Sure. So we work for Premier Inc. It's a group purchasing organization. I've been here for about four years now. And we essentially are positioned specifically we work with a lot of analysis regarding contracts. We process different pricing impact analysis we do things with consulting technology. I mean it pretty much runs the gambit. We leverage our customers are excuse me we leverage our members to negotiate better pricing on behalf of them. It's a wonderful organization and I'm happy to be a part of it. Awesome. Trishna, do you have anything to add to that? I would just say that with our role specifically we are very heavy in the data and analytics. So we are helping kind of combine both clinical data and purchasing data together to be able to help health systems make the best choice for themselves, whether that means, you know, who's shoveling their snow in the winter down to what syringes they're using throughout their systems. Awesome. And so to be successful in this role, do you have to have a medical background because I knew you mentioned both the business and the clinical aspects do you just I know Octave studied marketing. So it's like a combination of clinical background people and business people or do you can you just be one of the two or do you have to have a knowledge of both. You can definitely be one or other I think really the basis is that you want to you want to have an interest in health care, because whether you had a business background or a clinical background. At the end of the day, both sides are trying to affect patient outcomes in the best way possible. So even though I have a neuroscience background, a lot of it of my day to day role is pretty business focused you know I have a lot of data and analytics. But I work with people who didn't necessarily come from a medical background you know Octave started in marketing and then, but we both have this role because we both really like analytics and we really like showing how data can tell a story. And that's not specific just to our role I think that's just within the entire organization. It's really interesting to be able to see all these people who had very backgrounds and they came from, you know, whether that was clinical whether that was medical we've got one of our coworkers started and but he wanted to start at and poly side, you know, and then he ended up here. So, Premier offers a lot of different opportunities, because we have five key service lines one of them being advocacy. So we actually do have people who have you know masters in public health and are working in our DC team. We have the GPO the group purchasing organization called the member field services, we have pharmacy, we have, we have an advocacy already mentioned advocacy we have, you know, just add, add, we have different, we just have a lot of different options within premier that you don't really necessarily need to be business or medical you just have to have an interest in helping people. I mean, I enjoy math and I mean it took me a little bit of time because I actually have a little bit of medical background and I worked at another medical supply company. And so, even then I was really good in the math part of it but I had no idea what all of the different items that doctors would use inside surgeries and things like that. So, on the flip side of what Krishna had knowledge on I had to actually do the opposite where I had to learn a lot of the medical background stuff but I mean, once you you kind of get immersed inside the data you kind of pick up on the things and what they do and how they connect to other items that are called maybe a bigger like radiology item. And I mean that that's essentially what it is it's your learning. If you know the math, you're learning the medical part and if you know the medical part then if you're in our field you learn about the analytics. So, I mean it's a give and take but the great thing is is that everyone who works with the organization is always there for support. And so you're always there and you have these people who are able to help you move forward and progress. Can I jump in. Can I jump in with one quick question. So, one of the things I'm hearing both of you talk about is being in the field of analytics and being the job title including the word analysts and those are common common fields and job titles that we hear thrown around and yet when I'm thinking about students who might be watching this and might not be familiar with it. What those mean, what would be each of your simple description of what analytics is, and of what an analyst does, if we could just zero in on that, because we hear about both of those things across sectors. And there's so much opportunity for students there. That's also obviously a space where there's a lot of work being done in the area of artificial intelligence and machine learning. And so, there's a lot of angles on it so if you could define analytics or what it means to be an analyst, that'd be awesome. So that's a really good question and for me. When I, if I'm ever, when I was ever looking for a job, I would always type an analyst and it has its pros and its cons because like you said it's very broad. But I think the key part of being an analyst is that you have to be very detail oriented. And I think you have to be able to understand large amounts of data and being able to make sense of that data. And so, when you take the analyst part and you just really break it down to what it is it's essentially analyzing large sums of data and being able to provide information on that to people in a more concise and understandable way. And I think the most important role, part of our roles are to be able to look at the data sets which is, in our case, Premiere has a various tools that we look at purchasing history from our accounts. And so we're looking at, you know, if we wanted, for example, to look at safety hyperdermic syringes right so that's used on both the cute and the non acute side, we would want to know exactly what syringes our accounts are using, you know, down to the level, which is the catalog numbers. And we want to look at, you know, what price point they're looking at and whether we can, being part of Premiere, that GPO, can we offer them better pricing so that then those savings that we offer can then go back into the health systems whether and back down to the patients back down the communities around them. So as an analyst, we really are looking to see what story the data can tell so that it can help our health system make better purchasing decisions. Cool. That's great. Thank you. Sorry for interrupting. Yeah, that sounds very interesting and I can completely relate to that as a public health students I know it's expensive to get health, health care care in the United States. And so to know that there are a group of people who work to make sure that we have data that can help us cut costs is really really interesting for me. And so my next question will be to you Trishna, what's the most exciting part of your job. So the fact that I'm constantly learning, you know, there's every, every type of contract comes with its own clinical data, it comes with its own stakeholders. So even if I think that I know exactly what I'm talking about someone who is, you know, in the bedside, you know, being a clinician, they're going to have their own sets of words when they're making that type of clinical decision. So I think that the fact that I can constantly learn based off what project I'm working on is really interesting. I also think that with the work that Octave and I are doing with our community outreach program. We're also part of a diversity and inclusion council at Premier that not only looks at internally, what can Premier do to make sure that we're providing a long term impact, but also what are we doing for the communities we serve is the most exciting part, because we can see the direct impact that we're making. You know, we wouldn't be in this interview without it right so it's been really exciting to just to be with the company that is looking to help everyone around them. I mentioned stakeholders. So in addition to working with clinicians and people who work in the hospital in general, what are the stakeholders do you work with in your role with Premier? So we work mainly with supply chain so various sourcing directors sourcing managers who have their own service line so the service line would be, you know, part of, you know, is this part of the or is this part of nursing is this part of, you know, facilities or environmental service, you know, every hospital is huge right and with our health system specifically it's multiple hospitals making up one large system. So we want to make sure that when we are making those decisions and we're helping the health systems make those decisions that everyone who should be part of making that decision is part of it. So that's who the stakeholders would be because it's going to depend on the project. But for example, I was working with sports medicine, which is, you know, arthroscopy and it's a lot of orthopedics and trauma so like you know someone breaks their leg, and they're an athlete. There are going to be different doctors that need to be involved in that decision versus someone who you know if I'm working on like a cancer project right so the stakeholders are going to depend on what project we're working on and what contract. Thank you. I'll take same question. What do you enjoy the most about your job. I would probably have to say the people. I'm a very social person so I enjoy just meeting all of these different people with all of these different backgrounds, whether it's on the clinical side or the non clinic clinical side, I just really enjoy being able to understand their process and just their personalities and being able to connect to them on different levels whether it's something as simple as like baseball, or if it's something along the lines of having a goal to achieve a certain savings number. So I mean it's just really fun to bond with the people and and I'm lucky to be able to do that so I definitely say it's the it's the human connection of it even if it is via zoom or our teams or wherever it may be. I was going to ask you I was going to say how have you been able to adjust to switching from being able to interact with people to zoom and how is that it has that affected your connection with people and since that's the thing you enjoyed the most how is that an impact on your relationship with people. Actually it's it's been good I mean it's it's I mean I definitely mess the face to face but I mean this is definitely a great alternative. We have been able to accomplish a lot, as Krishna mentioned the diversity and inclusion initiative I mean it's been taking off and that was done all via Microsoft teams. So we're able to actually achieve a great deal when it comes to all of our members and all the people we've been able to, you know, put them all on a screen and able to discuss and just knock out as many obstacles as we can. And, especially during the time of coven. We have, we have seen that this this virtual connection is even more vital when we can't see each other. It sounds like being able to adapt is really important in your role. So my next question is, now that you've told us what you enjoyed the most about your job. What is that one thing you don't actually enjoy doing I mean it's essential to get into job done, but you don't just enjoy doing that one thing. For me, I would probably, that's a great question. For me, I would probably have to say it's, there's always something to do. And for me who wants to always do it all and have it complete and be most effective and efficiently possible. You have to learn to, to delicate your tasks quite wisely in order to, in order to tackle as much as possible, I guess I should say. So it's, we have a lot of a lot of raw data that we deal with and there's a lot of cool technical, technological advances that has, and specifically as analysts, we have in our fingertips and, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of things that we can do with that technology and we get to essentially play around with that. And so for me, it's always trying to oh my gosh, I can figure out if I can take this information and use this type of platform I'm able to, you know, be able to show health systems different ways to save money. And it's just all of these different things, all these opportunities that we're able to, that we're able to do with that technology. And so it's, it's really exciting that there's so much to do. And, and there's just so much technology that we're, it's kind of hard to be able to kind of get it all done at one time. Okay, Trisha. Honestly, Octave kind of stole my answer. So I guess here we are. I think that what I struggle the most with that premier is that there's always something, you know, we can always adapt, we can always be doing our processes a little bit better. And, you know, there's always good health care is constantly changing and we need to be able to adapt with it. And so I think delegating is often what I struggle is because I want to be able to be part of everything and, you know, that's just not sustainable. I think the fact that premier does have so many opportunities is amazing, but sometimes it can be a little overwhelming. So I think you have to be able to advocate for yourself but also kind of know what your limits are. And that's going to, that's a constant thing that I don't think that's necessarily specific to premier I think that everyone kind of needs to know, you know, can I take this on right now or maybe I have to push it back a little bit. So it's nice that premier always has more but I'm just because I want to do everything doesn't necessarily mean that I should. Great answer. That's exactly it. It was very hard to put that into words, but you did it perfectly. Yes. Octave and I say that we're like two peas in a pod we finish each other sentences oftentimes will be saying the exact same thing just in different ways. So that's you just saw that life. How long have you guys been working together for. I started at the end of June of 2017 so I started about six months before Octave. Yeah, I started in September so I mean we're we're almost around that four year mark. Interesting. And so this is just popped into my head so if either of you would hire an intern right now. What's that thing you look out for the internet. We're actually doing that right now. Last week. Yes. And then send them our way. Yeah, I think someone who just has an interest. I mean, I, if you have an interest in healthcare. That's the most important thing. I mean, I, in my opinion, you can always teach someone how to do a look up or pivot table. It's about having that passion and wanting to make a difference in the community. And with healthcare. It's so impactful on the community. And so you need to have kind of those two things in my opinion. And that's what I look for. I think I look for someone who is willing to learn, you know, as an as an engineer we are looking for people who are, you know, either rising juniors or rising seniors and in college and to be able to give them that real time experience of what it's like to be an analyst at a company and work directly with the health systems that are, you know, people know what hospitals are around them right to be able to give those connections. I think I just want to I'm looking for someone who will like will soak up everything that they can. You know, oftentimes what you think overall would look like and then you're actually in it are two completely different things. And so I want, I'm looking for someone who would be able to adapt to that change but then also, you know, be willing to ask questions and be able to understand that larger picture when it comes to healthcare because I mean, both of us are still learning that too. There's so many things that that, you know, we work with supply chain but there's still so many other parts of hospital. So even in healthcare we're not only looking at hospitals we're looking at, you know, pharmacies, we're looking at the far like the pharmacies in your Walgreens or your CVS is that still part of a hospital system. So being able to understand all of the moving parts is a tough right so I want someone who would be able to enjoy that challenge just as much as we do. And so like having technical skills like knowing how to do all the whole data analysis, would that be something you look out for or is that something an intern can learn on the job? I think there's a couple basic things in Excel that we would be looking for for an intern, because since it is only 12 weeks, we want to make sure that there is some sort of baseline in terms of, you know, if you look up a pivot table those baseline skills would definitely be something that we would look for but they don't have to be an expert in Excel by any means. I think it's pretty intermediate level because also to be analytical you tend to be pretty detail oriented. You tend to be pretty adaptable, you know, you are looking in the weeds and Excel is kind of the tool to be in the weeds with. So those just kind of lend itself to each other. So would you say that this role that you have right now, would you say if somebody goes to uni? Well, I'm Nigerian and we call college uni and so when I say uni I'm referring to college, I tend to forget that I'm in America sometimes. So would you say that the market for this kind of job is really big here in the United States, especially because of the kind of health system the US has? Would you say if somebody goes to school, gets a degree in what management information size or something, would person get a job? Quick, what's the market like regarding job search and stuff? Yeah, I'll take it. So for an analyst, I mean it's from what I understood when I was job searching after I graduated with both degrees honestly, it really had to do a lot with your people skills, your communication skills. And a good deal about, you know, how savvy you are with like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access, Microsoft Word. And, you know, it's quite funny because my first entry level position after graduating, I didn't even know what a VLOOKUP was at all. And, you know, it was someone who was like, Oh, let me show you how to do a VLOOKUP because you're going to be having to do it all the time. And a lot of that's in my opinion, that's how a lot of job start is you start as an entry level person and you just kind of pick up all of these little tiny things and that's how you build that experience. That's how you grow that resume. And so when it when you know someone's looking for an analytical job after after college, I would probably say don't be afraid to like just get a position where you're not like a senior analyst right off the bat, you're actually having to be like an accounts payable representative. And if you're able to, you know, be able to work the number keypad and be able to type emails and do all of those things concisely. And you're able to build off of that and just continue to grow your experience by taking on special projects, working with other managers in different departments. I mean, those are the things that get you noticed. And those are the things that will help you grow to get that senior contract analyst role or that VP role or that director role. So it's all about being able to kind of accumulate as many like little pebbles as you can, and then eventually hopefully turn it into something where you can say, look, this, these are all the rocks that I've acquired over my 10 years. You know, how can I be of assistance to a potential company that you, you know, you hope to work for one day. I think going off of that, I think a lot of it is be willing to learn and especially at an entry level, you know, this is your first time in the workforce that's always going to be a little different than what you've experienced as a student. And so I think if while you're in college, I think if you can get internships that just speak to your interests, I think that'll also help you get a little bit further right off the bat but exactly to Octaves point, you know, you also have to speak for yourself but you also have to advocate for yourself. So, you know, make sure you are getting that exposure by just speaking up that you have an interest with this and that can happen at any level whether you are senior contract analyst or your entry level, you know, that's something that you are constantly going to have to learn and I think especially after we had a conversation with Jason like soft skills are essential skills right. So we want to be able to see in anyone that has started at a company that, you know, they can, they can speak well in front of others that they can, you know, be able to tell the story that the data is speaking to that you can present that you can speak for yourself or on behalf of your company. So those types of skills that aren't necessarily excel are just as important. And that's interesting because I am I recently learned that my whole work ethic was always just keep my head down and hope I get noticed and sometimes that's not how it works. Sometimes you have to do the work and you have to be there to speak up for yourself and be an advocate for yourself as Trisha mentioned. And I think that's probably one of the things that I've learned over the last two years is that you have to, you have to not only do the work but you also have to show that you're there and you know you're represented in the biggest advocate for that as you so I yeah 100% agree with that. Well thank you so much so you might have answered this somehow but so if those are high school students who watched this video after we put it up on YouTube and thinking oh this is definitely something I want to do I'm interested in healthcare. So like relating to people. What would you say to that high school students. Trisha. Yeah, I mean I think if this is something of interest to you like as a high school student you know start volunteering in hospitals, you know like start talking to people, you know with, even within your own network of the community around you and people who do work in health care and it might not even necessarily be the group purchasing organization or supply chain part of it but just understanding what health care looks like. And the vast scope of that field I think is so interesting and I would want a high school student to also explore that. And then I you know if you are looking to college or if you are looking into, you know trade school or something see how you can apply your knowledge now to something that you're interested in. I think also just contact Octave and I you know like we would be willing to talk about anything you know and I think in terms of skill sets. If you are interested in being, you know an analyst like do you look at you know the different types of analytical tools you know take an Excel class see if that's something that you like. And as a high school student you have so many opportunities open to you and the only way that you're going to know whether you like it or not is to explore it. Sometimes it's even more beneficial to know what you don't like, you know, because I, when I was in college, you know I was a neuroscience major. And I decided that I didn't want to go to med school the summer before my senior year, which is terrifying, right because I thought that I was on this path and I was, you know, in high school especially I was like I'm going to be on rise anatomy, like, I'm going to be the neurosurgeon that's right. And to pivot is really scary. And to know that I still had options after that is just as important because even if it's not on the path that you see for yourself. That's okay. But the most important part is to know that you are supported and that there are people who have been in that position before you. So in today's society, I mean we usually see things on like social media platforms and it's all like fun and exciting but you know I would probably say go and see what it takes to be whatever you want to be. I would, I think that's probably one of the most important things because like Trisha mentioned you know you want to be that awesome surgeon and doing all these amazing procedures but you know what it, it takes longer than like what a season. It spans four or five years or something like that. You, you have to see how long it takes and how much money it takes how many how much resources how much of your time is it going to take is it do you want to family do you not want to family I mean you have to think about all those things. Because I mean, once you go down that that that road, the further you go the more difficult it is to kind of turn around so as long as you have kind of a way to prepare and understand the expectations that you need in order to be whatever you want to be. I would probably say that's the most important thing is just to go in and see if it's something that you truly want to do and then how long and how much effort is going to take to get there and if you really truly want to do that. You know I completely agree with both of you. When I was younger I used to think I wanted to go on a new admissions and travel the world and hop up tomorrow and go for two years. But then, now that I've gotten older I do realize family is really important to me and, and I do want to just hop up and be gone for two years for my family and so. So yeah I do agree that it's really important to have a feel of what it is what does it require what are the commitments you have to make what sacrifices you have to make so yeah that's definitely something every young person to look into. Final question. How do you think your role in your job makes the world a better place. This is easy I mean it's healthcare but. Yeah, I know I love I love that question I mean it's interesting because I see all of these different suppliers that we work with and the different distributors and things like that and if, say my spouse or family member ends up in the hospital you know I can see that product inside the hospital and it's just like wow you know maybe it was my analysis that you know help save the hospital you know resources so they could hire additional nurses and additional doctors and things like that I mean I would probably say. It's just knowing that I'm a part of healthcare and knowing that healthcare is so vital to our communities and their people. I think that's that's the most rewarding thing is that I work in healthcare and I'm able to help in any way granted I'm not like you know doing some crazy triple bypass. And in a surgery room but you know I am I'm in and helping getting those tools to that doctor, and it's so rewarding and so thankful to it. I think just knowing that no matter what we're doing we are still helping people, and that every person in a health system is vital right and so we in our role we make sure that the only thing that a clinician has to worry about is the patient on the table, or the patient that they're seeing. So I think it's just so great to know that we, you know, through all of our analyses, we do see that impact that it goes back to the patient who is the most important part of any scenario, and to know that the savings that we have do go back into the communities around them. And I think also by being part of our diversity inclusion council we're making sure that premiere itself, you know with internally has, you know, a long term impact but also that you know we have reach across the country. And I work, you know, in the surrounding states, but the reach for premier as a whole is national and so knowing that everyone who is in the same roles as octave and I are making those same impacts, all across the country is just as rewarding because you know we we see the impact of the make on our own health systems but the company at large also makes that impact too. I mean, seeing things as systems like whatever you do affects another system that goes along with making us feel like yes we actually did something to us making the world a better place. Well, Jason, you have any other questions. No, this was awesome I want to thank each of you for taking some time to join us and share your experiences and your thoughts I mean you are on. There are many roles that are these cutting edge kind of roles that are so much of what's talked about but as you both described, they're the kind of roles that so many people don't understand and yeah I did think at one point the magic of when I've shown you their first V look up, and it opens up a whole new world of data for them I, and so I think that for those of us who work in jobs where that's part of our bread and butter. It's important to expose everyone to that because data is a pretty critical part of our world but data on its own doesn't get the job done and you've both done a great job explaining data in the context of humans and human enterprises and so forth so I really appreciate that you both have a lot to be proud of we're really thankful to have you join us today. Thank you so much for having me here. Yes, thank you. With that said, this was another episode of career pathways virtual trail heads. You can check out all the episodes here on our YouTube channel, as well as other videos which tend to be more for teachers and school administrators. With that said if you have ideas for guests questions you'd like us to ask careers you'd like us to explore, you can let us know by connecting with us on Twitter at P 20 network that's at P to zero network, and we would definitely have ideas and we can search out individuals doing that kind of work and get them on a show. So thanks again to our guests today. Thank you, Jim okay. Hope everyone has a great day.