Alumni Spotlight: Charmaine Viaje

While working as a registered nurse in both a long-term care facility and in a hospital setting, Charmaine Viaje had plenty of opportunities to reflect on the inefficiencies of the health-care system, often finding herself frustrated by the larger systemic issues that made it challenging for her to have a broader impact.

Keen to promote system change, she was part of the Clinical & Systems Transformation project at Lions Gate Hospital, training nurses in how to use Cerner (the electronic health record) at inpatient units and adapt to a new workflow.

“This project definitely sparked my interest in the technology side of health care,” she says. That led her to consider a master’s degree to gain the knowledge and credential to support her ambitions. “I thought the MHLP in Clinical Education could be a potential launching pad for moving into leadership roles because of its combination of health care and business.”

Advancing her business and leadership skills

The MHLP is an interdisciplinary program that includes courses focused on health care and courses focused on business and leadership. Charmaine particularly enjoyed the business courses, including one taught by Dr. Justin Bull on sustainability. “He helped us understand the crucial role that leaders can play in moving towards a more sustainable future.”

For her practicum, Charmaine pursued an informatics position with the Clinical & Systems Transformation team for St. Paul’s Hospital’s Cerner implementation, which was getting ready to launch the electronic record system. She reviewed educational materials and proposed a series of recommendations based on her prior knowledge and understanding of best practices in change management.

While at UBC, Charmaine participated in Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), a startup accelerator for early-stage technology-based companies. CDL is open to students from UBC’s MHLP program, as well as Master of Engineering Leadership and Master of Business Administration students. Start-up companies are paired with students who provide consulting services, such as reviewing pitch decks and use cases, and offer analysis and recommendations. CDL culminates with the start-ups pitching their ideas to angel investors.

Another valuable learning experience came from attending the professional development opportunities that are woven throughout the program. Charmaine participated in workshops on public speaking and attended networking events, both of which helped her “gain confidence in a range of soft skills.”

Leading technology implementation at St. Paul’s

After graduating from the MHLP at the end of 2019, Charmaine was hired as a clinical informatics specialist at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver where she managed the implementation of the electronic health record for surgical sites.

Since January 2022, she has been working as a technology implementation project manager for the new St. Paul’s Hospital, which is set to open in 2027. The existing medical equipment in the old hospital will need to be migrated to the new campus, as well as newly procured equipment, which involves an incredible amount of planning and testing to make sure everything is functioning as required and that the new hospital can be opened safely and successfully.

She says the IT team is currently in the planning stages and is collaborating with multiple stakeholders including operational leaders, engineers, the construction team, the IT group and vendors. This is definitely not the kind of move where you can just call your friends over and get it done on a Saturday afternoon!

Charmaine is overseeing and supporting the end-to-end planning, design and implementation of technical systems. Her specific area of focus is on medical devices with technical components and software applications within the critical care units, surgical spaces, maternity units and biomedical engineering department. She has also supported the clinical planning for data/network infrastructure, real time location services, security systems and end user devices, to name a few.

It’s a complex juggling of schedules, budgets, communication plans and change management plans, and then bringing together the interdisciplinary teams needed to make it all work.

“My clinical background is useful, and it enables me to provide context to some of my colleagues about why we have certain applications or equipment or the need for a certain workflow,” she says. “Ten years ago, as a nurse, my area of influence was limited to the patients I was working with each day. In this role I have a larger impact working at a facility that aspires to be the most technologically advanced hospital in Western Canada.”