Summer Intern Update: VVV Consultants LLC.

Caroline Simpson
Accounting & Business Analytics, College of Business, Policy, and Analytics
VVV Consultants LLC. - Collaborative Analyst Intern

For the past eight weeks, I have worked as a collaborative analyst intern for VVV Consultants LLC, a “boutique” healthcare consulting firm that opened its doors January 1, 2009. Based out of Olathe, VVV Consultants focuses its consulting in strategy and research and development services. The principal, Vince Vandehaar prior to starting this company worked for St. Luke’s Health System for 16 years gaining experience and making connections across the four-state area (Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska). The company itself is private and really prides itself in its “hands-on” service to help businesses grow and compete. VVV works with various providers/payers ranging from all levels of trauma hospitals, behavioral health organizations, hospices, federally qualified health centers, nursing homes and life/health insurance companies.

As a collaborative analyst intern, I tend to a variety of jobs depending on the projects that Vince has going on at the time. I get more and more responsibility as time goes on and I understand better what we do as healthcare consultants. Starting out, I would just code surveys that were given to patients, and employees of hospitals that would go towards their Community Health Needs Assessment, an assessment that must be done every three years by every nonprofit hospital, department of health, cancer center and federally qualified health center. In addition to that, the other big projects I worked on included physician manpower assessments, marketing plans and the CRM. With the manpower assessments, I would put together miscellaneous information about doctors and other staff members at the specific hospital so we could help them assess who had been there for a while, how they were employed and who else needs to be hired. Concerning the marketing plans, I would help put together various PowerPoint presentations that Vince would then present to hospital leadership; the information varies depending on the hospital. Finally, the CRM is a directory of all the hospitals, FQHC, department of health, outpatient services and medical groups in the four-state area that we can use to figure out who is in our primary service area and who we should be contacting to get business from. Overall, I do mostly what is considered to be clerical or analytical work.

As a collaborative analyst intern, this position coordinated more towards my business analytics major. My boss even said most of it is just marketing but people fail to recognize that market research and business analytics are all a part of marketing. Regardless, there are many different career routes in consulting. People need consulting in all different types of industries from healthcare to technology to management. Overall, this internship exceeded my expectations. Going into I had no idea how much responsibility I would actually get or if it was just going to be a toe dip in the water. But I was pleasantly surprised by the work I got to do and how it was actually used as part of plans and assessments that were made. Also, a lot more people are working from home and strictly online these days, but not many internships are offered to experience that side. I learned a lot about myself and really having to sit down and just do the work without procrastinating because by the time I finished my boss had more work for me to do. Despite not looking into a long term career with this I gained valuable experience that I would not have gotten had I stuck with a normal restaurant or lifeguarding job.

The most interesting thing about my job is everything I do is online so I don't have to actually go into an office. I can work from anywhere whether it's my house, school or coffee shop. All I need is a laptop/computer, Microsoft Excel and my email and I am good to go!