Sunday, December 2, 2007

Expert Inteview

I decided to conduct by expert interview over the phone with my cousin, Darshan Patel, who is currently employed at Allscripts Health Management Health Management Systems Solutions. Allscripts is the nations 23rd fastest growing company according to Fortune Magazine and has helped revolutionize the Health care industry by providing electronic medical support directly to physicians, hospitals, clinical education, and medical services. My interviewee has received a bachelors in MIS and Public Health from Eastern Carolina University, and currently deals with technical support to customers through systems development. I decided to interview Mr. Patel because of his technical background and his constant interaction with networking use. In addition, since allscipts provides health solutions to customers through databases, I knew Mr. Patel was knowledgeable in retrieving and analyzing the correct data needed to find the solution.
Mr. Patel stated that he retrieves and analyzes data by searching through databases which includes electronic health record, practice management, electronic prescribing, document imaging and medication dispensing. He basically helps health professionals simplify medicine by making it more effective and more efficient. He said he first is contacted directly by a customer, or a health professional with a certain problem relating to software, use, or databases. He then must use his resources and prior knowledge of other cases to successfully solve the customer's technical problem so the medical professional can continue his practice. He uses new sources all the time and sometimes has to create sources so more problems can be solved at a faster rate. He stated that in his industry, he needs to quickly sift through massive amounts of information and go find a single piece of information in a very timely manner. He said this process is relatively new and the idea of health solutions was really started after the dot com bubble. With out the dot com bubbly companies like allscripts would either be non existent or be very inefficient.
I now led the interview to focus more about the dot com bubble and how it impacted his industry. He stated that because of this huge network of information and the ability to upload information at such a high rate, it opened up careers in his field; MIS. However, I asked if the dot com bubble hurt the company in any way, since millions of people lost money and their careers. He said it was tough to find jobs after the dot com era crashed and that was the reason he went to Health Management Information Systems because he saw that this new Internet boom will fuel services over the Internet which people will always need.
Mr. Patel clearly was affected by the dot com bubble and had to make some changes in his career, but I finally drew my conclusion about the dot com bubble. Without the dot com bubble we certainly would not be exposed to the amount of information that we currently are. Without the dot com bubble, millions of people would not have found decent salary paying employment. Without the dot com bubble society would not have been impacted more greatly. This interview with Mr. Patel indirectly help me set up my research paper and helped me draw conclusions. I now understand why I was so intrigued by the rise and fall of the dot com bubble and that is because we are so immersed in a culture so dependent on the Internet that the standard of living expected by our generation would be nonexistent. In conclusion, this interview not only taught me about the interviewing process, but also how effective a single interview could be with the right type of person being interviewed.

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