Tech World: Career Transition…What One Tech Learned When Moving into Management
Sarah Jacks of Seattle, WA was recently promoted by her employer — Modern Medical Systems — from a field BMET position to an assistant site manager position at Seattle’s Northwest Hospital. In this edition of Tech World, Jacks discusses her ongoing transition into management and what she has learned along the way.
When my employer unexpectedly offered me an opportunity to transition from a field BMET to a site manager, I was filled with a mixture of nervousness and excitement.
At the time, I was handling preventive and corrective maintenance at an independent service organization’s affiliate hospitals and clinics. I had developed a good rapport with the staff, and was generally comfortable with my situation.
Then, out of the blue, I get an offer to move into a site manager position within the same company, but at a hospital much closer to where I live. I had helped out at the hospital from time to time before when they were shorthanded, so I was pretty familiar with the operation. Accepting the offer would allow me to grow and gain experience in the overall running of a biomed shop. So I accepted the position.
Sarah Jacks offers her top five tips for those who are transitioning to management: 1. Although additional projects can be distracting, never lose site of your core responsibilities. |
My employer graciously allowed me to start my transition into the new job slowly, splitting my time between the first and second hospitals, and then gradually increasing my time at the new one as I tied up loose ends at the first. I began to find out very soon that there is a lot more to being a manager than just running the shop and ensuring that preventive maintenance and repairs are performed in a timely manner.
Not only are you responsible for ensuring continuous compliance with the Joint Commission (JCAHO) standards, but you have to attend numerous meetings. At first, the sheer number of meetings can seem overwhelming, because they do take time away from your primary duties.
There are meetings to discuss new equipment purchases, obsolete equipment, recalls, trends, and other metrics. There are also meetings to discuss other department’s needs, current progress, the state of the hospital, and general leadership meetings. While some hospitals are more meeting-intensive than others, it is safe to say that regular meeting attendance does become a reality for most managers.
If you are not careful, meetings and other additional projects can distract you from your main mission, which is to ensure that the medical equipment functions properly and safely, and in accordance with JCAHO standards.
With all of these competing interests, an organized approach is best in meeting your responsibilities. I take a lot of notes and make charts so I can keep track of and organize my various tasks. I also maintain file folders for each of my larger projects. I am fortunate that the biomeds who report to me are excellent in keeping the shop organized and the preventive maintenance current, which allows me to devote more time to projects assigned by the hospital. Still, it does get hectic at times.
I have found that project management classes can be extremely valuable in developing organizational skills and I am also enrolling in an online project management certification program.
Most biomeds would agree that people skills are just as important as technical skills. But in management, people skills are more important than technical skills. Developing a good working relationship with your staff and the rest of management is crucial to being a successful and satisfied manager.
Not only do you have a responsibility to see that your employees have the tools, conditions, and feedback to perform their jobs properly, but you also have a responsibility to yourself to see that you don’t get burned out by the demands of the job.
Transitioning into a managerial position can be intimidating and even a bit confusing at first. But as you learn new ways of thinking and develop new skills, it can result in a richly rewarding experience.
--Sarah Jacks
SOURCE: AAMI News: Vol. 41, No. 7, July/August 2006