Finding ways to improve and positively impact the lives of patients, healthcare professionals, and the day-to-day experience of her colleagues is fulfilling for Vanessa Calderon (B.S. ’09, industrial engineering).
In addition to her IE degree from Iowa State, Calderon completed an MBA with concentration in Data Analytics at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi in 2020.
Calderon currently works in data analytics and process improvement in the healthcare industry. Her education at Iowa State and work experience in industrial engineering taught her how to think differently – to look for ways to identify and remove waste and reorganize processes and systems.
Why industrial engineering? For Calderon, her prior education in business aligned with the IE focus on industry. “It also appealed to me that you get a wide variety of education in different types of engineering in this program,” she says, “You become well-rounded and very adaptable.”
Calderon became interested in working in healthcare through her IE senior design capstone experience at the UnityPoint Health – Des Moines where she was later employed and became a process improvement engineer.
“I was able to conduct many projects throughout the hospital system using discrete event simulation software to replicate the flow of patients and resources throughout the hospital,” she says. This helped with identifying ways to improve processes which allowed the hospital to provide better care for patients.
“The IE class we took in Stochastic Modeling was essential for my career in healthcare,” says Calderon.
Being able to analyze variability in biological and medical processes helps in analysis and problem solving. “I am grateful I can fill roles that align with my love for problem solving, but also make an impact,” she says.
Currently, she is senior director of Data Analytics and Visualization for the Iowa Hospital Association collecting data from all Iowa hospitals shared through a portal members can use to pull reports and view dashboards.
For Calderon it’s important to continue to look for opportunities to improve data quality and design sustainable processes so data can be turned into meaningful and actionable information.
“There is always a better way,” says Calderon.