Our Consultant Spotlight series is an opportunity to better meet our team at Honeydew Consulting. Bea is a clinical specialist coming from pediatric nursing and enjoys watching her three boys play sports on her time off. After working in nursing and healthcare IT across multiple applications, she made the transition to consulting a few years ago and is loving this chapter of her career!
| Areas of expertise | Core Lab, Epic Navigators, Clinical Workflows |
| Location | Yuma, AZ |
| Current role | Beaker Consultant at the Cleveland Clinic on the Global Growth and Development team helping with the latest site mergers |
| Past organizations worked with | Dignity Health (St Joseph Hospital), Phoenix Children’s Hospital, Southwest Human Development, Banner Medical Center, Yuma Regional Medical Center |
What’s your background?
Bea Montoya-Rodriguez: This June will mark my 20th year as a Registered Nurse. I chose to practice with the Pediatric population in the PICU and Radiology Units. I have been doing Epic build since 2012 and started in ASAP, Clin Doc and Stork before adding Beaker in 2018. I met David and Jonathan on the Yuma Project. Kim was at our go live as well. When things were getting heated with COVID, and they were requiring all nurses to go back to unit to care for patients, I chose to step away from my hospital as I did not feel it was appropriate to care for adult patients when I had not cared for them since nursing school clinicals. I reached out to David to inquire about how consulting worked and was fortunate enough to join the Honeydew Family.
How did you go from patient care to the IT side of things and what was that like? What sparked the interest or how did the opportunity arise?
I had done Case Management for about 2 years and Kathy, one of my colleagues that used to do Appeals and Denials, became the Inpatient Manager in IT. She called me and told me she was going to have an opening and wanted me to apply for an ASAP position. I am always interested in learning new things and expanding my career options, so I applied and was hired. When I came back to Yuma I did not do bedside nursing anymore because their NICU nurses floated to Labor and Delivery often. The Pediatric Unit took care of Women Surgical patients. When I decided to be a nurse I wanted to care for kids exclusively. I just never got the opportunity to care for kids again.
What was the transition into consulting like for you?
When things were getting heated with COVID, and they were requiring all nurses to go back to unit to care for patients. I chose to step away from my hospital as I did not feel it was appropriate to care for adult patients when I had not cared for them since nursing school clinicals. I reached out to David to inquire about how consulting worked and was fortunate enough to join the Honeydew family.
What’s the best thing about your job now?
I love being able to work with people that come from many different backgrounds. Cleveland Clinic is such a large institution with so many different and crazy workflows that you have to make fit for many locations. I have learned so much and love making a difference and help teach the staff troubleshooting tips and tricks to help them.
What’s something you think sets Cleveland Clinic apart from other organizations you’ve worked with? Is it mainly the size and everything that comes with that?
Cleveland is such a large hospital, and it has been interesting trying to accommodate many of the hospitals they have acquired to their main hospital system. As an analyst, I have only built for 2 systems, and they are completely different. Yuma was so small and limited to one hospital and community. Cleveland has so many different locations, workflows, rules, and regulations that I never had to think about in the Yuma site. Building for a large entity has enhanced my skills to think outside the box to accommodate unique workflows for so many providers. With a large organization standardization is important to help align care and values.
Any additional tips for such a large project?
Organization is key for installations. I like to provide timelines and percentages of completion. I like to hold office hours as go live gets closer for my SME’s to give users the opportunity to ask questions and teach shortcuts that will help during their go live. Recently I have started downloading analyzer model guides I find on the web to help me understand how the lab analyzer works.
Any words of advice to others looking to get into consulting?
I wish I would have done consulting earlier. I have met great people and learned so much along the way.
If anyone is interested in consulting I would encourage them to try. It is great to go to a new place and help them with issues and build. I like to share knowledge with those I meet along the way and always try to give tip sheets for future reference. I love to teach and empower staff to understand the system to help them make their job efficient. Look to make yourself valuable for the time you will be at the organization no matter the length or organization size. Make a difference by teaching and empowering staff around you so that they have the ability to try to carry forward the work you have implemented.
Anything about the consulting life that surprised you? Do you think there was anything particular holding you back from making the switch earlier?
I have been surprised at the comradery I have been able to have with my coworkers while working remote. It has been amazing to utilize virtual meetings to accomplish so many things. As a consultant you are always on your toes and you learn to be resourceful with little information. I know that being a mom and having the stability of being an FTE was one if the only reasons I did not make the switch earlier. I always was nervous about not knowing enough to consult. It was having someone give me great encouragement to think I would do great was the push I needed to get into this fun consulting life.
Speaking of fun, what are the things you like to do outside of that consulting life?
I love attending concerts and sporting events. I have 3 boys that are very active in sports and enjoy watching them play the game. They play baseball, soccer and flag football.
Since you are a nurse, I have to ask…how would you rate your specimen labeling skills?
I am quite the Type A personality so my labeling abilities were pretty on point when I worked as a bedside nurse. Working with peds patients I was very mindful of making sure things were done to the best of my ability, because the last thing I wanted was a kid to get poked again due to my mistake. When I am building I try and ask for special circumstances or workflows that may cause labeling issues.
I can only imagine how much the lab appreciated that!!
