What interested you about studying the Health Science degree?

In VCE my two main interests were Legal studies and Health, but a Bachelor of Health Sciences was a great degree to further my interests. I majored in Public Health and ran many health programs whilst at Uni. I then completed further studies at Deakin University in Health Promotion and Nutrition. Both Universities provided wonderful courses, with incredible staff that encouraged me to continue in the health industry.

Why did you apply for your first role at GMHBA?

Whilst completing my studies I worked in many different health practices, including Physiotherapy and General Practice and became a group exercise instructor teaching Body attack classes at local gyms. I also completed work experience at Women’s Health magazine and loved every minute of it! After a few years of working in small health practices, I was ready to see what working in a larger organisation was like. A role was advertised for a Customer Service role at GMHBA and despite the role not being directly related to my degrees, I was keen to try something new and understand the organisation. After my initial interview, I received a call saying a different role was available and more suited to my qualifications, an administration role within the Diversification team. The role was part of a newly formed team at GMHBA, with the aim of diversifying the business to become a health services provider. The team lead GMHBA to successfully provide Dental, Eye Care, General Practice and Physiotherapy. It was an exciting time for GMHBA and I loved being part of such an innovative and diverse team.  My experience and degree were frequently used in this role and I loved learning about the acquisition of health practices.

What were your next roles?

After being in the diversification team, I spent time in the Facilities team further understanding the project management side of the business. I then moved into the Strategy and Risk department as a Business Analyst where I was able to learn an incredible amount through working with so many departments in the business. I loved understanding how an organisation builds their strategy and the many different ways an organisation can operate to deliver an outcome. It was in this position that I was able to start exploring Value Based Health Care for GMHBA. I loved looking at all the different ways GMHBA provides Health value and created an ongoing paper for the Health Services Committee, highlighting the health value GMHBA delivers to its’ members and the community. I then moved into the role of Project Manager, leading a team of subject matter experts to deliver specific pieces of work.

Each role I have been in at GMHBA has allowed me to understand different parts of the business, build relationships, learn from incredible mentors and to be able to develop different skills needed for my current role as Project Manager.

You do you do in your current role? 

For GMHBA to deliver on its’ strategy, certain pieces of work need to be delivered.  When the work requires specific subject matter experts and will take a certain amount of time, a project manager is needed to ensure the project runs smoothly and delivers the expected outcome(s). As a project manager, I ensure project documentation is completed, including a project timeline and tracking of resources. I lead project meetings to ensure each project resource is clear on the work that needs to be done, understand if there are any risks or issues that could impact the project and to track how the project is progressing. Project management is incredibly important at GMHBA. There are many subject matter experts that are amazing at what they do, the project manager ensures the work being done is in line with the intended aim of the project and to help minimise any blockers or hurdles.

What do you enjoy about your current role?

I love working with different people from around the organisation and learning each and every day.

We are so lucky to have an incredible private health system in Australia and to have options when navigating our health journeys. When a member or customer calls GMHBA, sometimes they need to navigate the health system that they may not be familiar with. When I hear that GMHBA have been able to guide that person to manage or improve their health, I know I am working in the right company. GMHBA cares for our staff and our customers, and that makes me a loyal staff member.

How has your degree been useful in the various roles that you’ve undertaken at GMHBA? 

The role of business analyst has always allowed me to use my health sciences degrees. Articulating the different populations that require health services based on their demographics was very useful when looking at potential locations for health practices. Measuring health value and documenting the health outcomes from the many programs and services GMHBA offer was possible due to my University learnings.

3 pieces of advice for Graduates?

• Be open to any role within an organisation like GMHBA. There is so much to learn and you will never regret having the experience.
• Ask questions and put your hand up for things that interest you. It’s up to you how much you get out of your experience.
• If successful, have lunch or coffee with your new colleagues, the more people you can meet the better.

What’s your background?

I grew up in China and moved to Australia in 2015. I attended Monash University and was initially interested in Finance and Economics and so majored in those areas in my undergraduate degree and then went on to complete Masters in Business Law and Accounting. 

What were your first roles after Uni?

When I finished my Masters, I decided that I didn’t want to work as an accountant.  I thought that a marketing/social media/events type job might be interesting, and took a position as a Marketing Assistant for a plastic surgeon. 

It was in this role that I started to appreciate the power of data and the importance of this for making sound business decisions.  However, there was limited scope for me to use or gain any data analytic skills.  I decided I wanted to build my data analytic skills and so enrolled in the Monash Data Analytics Boot camp where, over 6 months, I learned everything about data analysis, both the soft skills and the hard skills. 

Why did you apply to GMHBA?

When I graduated from BootCamp, I was really keen to use my new knowledge and skills. When I saw the Provider Insights Analyst job advertised at GMHBA, I thought that the job description fitted me really well and I also thought that if I can deal with private health, then I can deal with anything as it’s a really complex industry!  I felt that GMHBA was a good fit with the experience that I had gained in the medical field. 

Tell us about your role as a Provider Insight Analyst?

As a Provider Insight Analyst, I worked with the data related to health care providers – like optometrists, hospitals, specialists etc.  

The most important thing that I analysed is the provider’s behaviour – I looked at the providers fees for the services that they provided to their patients, and what the patients out of pocket expenses were for those services.   This is then correlated with other data – so that we can figure out the roadmap of provider’s behaviour.  We also analysed how their claims were submitted to us, and checked for the way to improve business decisions etc.  This was all done using tools such as MS SQL, QlikView and Python. 

Tell us about your next role in the Business Intelligence (Finance) team

After about a year in the Provider Insight Analyst role, I was promoted to Business Intelligence Analyst in the Business Intelligence (Finance) team.

This role is very different.  As a Provider Insight Analyst, it was more ‘on the ground’ level work and the data was all related to ‘providers & claims’. 

In the Business Intelligence Analyst role, I’m looking at data from across the whole organisation – data that is related to our members, data related to the different private health insurance products that we offer, and even financial data about how the business is performing. 

In the Business Intelligence team, I still do data extraction and analysis and coding is still a large part of my role, but with a broader focus.  Also, in this team, a really important part of our role is to create dashboards and reports for other teams, so I get to interact with a wide range of people from across different teams at GMHBA.  The BI team are going to be moving from QlikView to PowerBI soon, so I’m looking forward to learning more about this migration progress.  

What do you think are the top skills needed for a business intelligence analyst?

The technical skills are obviously really important – I am coding every day, so you need to have an enjoyment of that.

Stakeholder engagement is also a critical part of this job as you need to understand the needs of different people from different teams at GMHBA to enable you to deliver the right thing.

Problem solving skills are also essential  so that you can get under the data and understand what the different users across GMHBA are looking for.

Why is this work important to GMHBA? 

The work that we do can be likened to being a Chef – a Chef takes unappetising raw ingredients and adds the magic that turns the dish into something delicious!  In the same way, we take raw data that is undigestible, listen carefully to your requirements, and add the magic that will turn your data into something valuable to you.  Not a lot of people know how to do the data stuff – we save our colleagues a lot of time by automating data extraction process and creating a dashboard that will help with their decision making. 

What do you enjoy about your job and working at GMHBA?

I really like the culture here – GMHBA is very people focussed and I was so impressed by that when I first joined. 

Before I started here, I had never been to a CEO Town Hall before – these are held each quarter at GMHBA.   I really like the opportunity to hear the CEO speak about the company, it’s history, how we are going, and what are the plans for the future.  Hearing this in person and directly from the CEO is great.

I also like GMHBA’s inclusiveness – there is great gender balance across the organisation and at management levels, and there is a lot of respect for women.  We also have a diverse culture,  a great mix of different people from different countries and religions.  I am the ‘minority’ in Australia, but I feel really comfortable here! 

What is interesting about this industry/PHI – what is keeping you here?

Private Health Insurance and Health Care is a growing industry and it will keep growing – I’ve seen first hand how the health industry is growing and changing constantly and I like that – the constant change keeps things interesting.  I also like that every piece of data that I analyse is from a live human being - I like working with data that will help impact someone’s health journey.

Three pieces of advice for a new graduate?

Never stop exploring because you never know what you might like to do.  If you stop trying and exploring, you’ll never find out!

Be patient – the working world is so big and there are so many things that you don’t know….yet!

Be humble –you are a graduate and have lots of knowledge and skills but you still have a long way to go and a lot to learn.  You’ll never stop learning in a data/tech based role so be ready and open to that! 

What did you study at Uni?

I studied a Bachelor of Science with a major in Mathematical Modelling at Deakin University. The core focus of my studies was on mathematics and science, but I did also complete electives in computer science, engineering, economics, psychology and history. I was always interested in mathematics/STEM but never thought about formally studying it until I was a couple of years out of high school.

What was your first role at GMHBA?  

GMHBA has been my first proper professional job. Prior to this job I worked at Deakin as a Maths Mentor where I tutored students from all study backgrounds, before that I just worked a mix of casual jobs.

I entered GMHBA via the Graduate Program in the data analytics stream.  I applied for the role as I was becoming interested in the data side of things during my studies. I was also a Geelong local, so it seemed like a good match.

Tell us about your Graduate Program Rotations?

My first rotation was in the Payments Integrity team, from there I moved into Business Intelligence, then in my final rotation I worked in the Marketing team. The grad program led me to my current role as a Business Intelligence and Data Science Analyst where I build dashboards and contribute to some of the data science projects GMHBA is working on.

How has the knowledge gained in your grad program rotations helped you to transition to the role you’re currently in?

The grad program has been amazing at preparing me for my current role as a Business Intelligence and Data Science Analyst. During the grad program I had the opportunity to work with modern analytics tools like Power BI, Azure, SQL, Python etc. I used these all in some way during each rotation. Additionally, the range of work across Payments Integrity, Business Intelligence and Marketing has given me domain knowledge that helps immensely with the current work I do. I was also able to have a Mentor and do a lot of networking during the grad program that continues to help me in my current role. Its great knowing and working with colleagues from different corners of the business!

Tell us about your current role - can you walk us through your typical day-to-day tasks?

My role as a Business Intelligence and Data Science Analyst is a mix of traditional Business Intelligence work (Power BI dashboard builds and ad hoc analysis) as well as some Data Science projects. My current day-to-day involves building a dashboard for the provider contracts and relations team, doing some modelling for reviewing whether people are on the most suitable cover for them, and doing data extracts for the Finance team.

Why is this work important to GMHBA? 

Data analytics is crucial for the everyday operations of GMHBA. Different teams use our work to make decisions that have an effect on all sorts of business outcomes. Good analytics helps the Marketing team spend on media more effectively which in turn drives sales, it helps the audit team find and audit cases leading to savings for the fund, it helps the health programs team get members into programs that improve their health and wellbeing etc.

What do you enjoy most about your current role?

I really enjoy my role as I get to see data and analytics from all corners of the business which is something not many get to see. My favourite tasks are the ones where you take on/find something novel in the data, it is always great showing others your findings and seeing them get excited.

Any tips for someone wanting to move into a role similar to yours? 

I think the most important thing for data roles is the soft skills. Most people get into data because they want to find patterns/trends but what they don’t realize is that they often have to present these things to people all around the business. It also makes your job a whole lot easier when you talk and listen to people with core domain knowledge, taking their insights and using it to help you do your work.

Additionally, I would say that a data person has to be open to always learning. I’ve been with GMHBA for a few years now and I still encounter new systems and knowledge every week. You’ve got to accept that there will never be a point where you know everything, there is always something new to learn.

Masters of Information Technology, RMIT

6:30 am

Normally, I wake up at 7:00 am to catch the train from Wyndham Vale to GMHBA Head Office on Geelong Waterfront.  However, I have booked a Pilates class with a GMHBA physio before work, so today I start my day earlier at 6:30 am. I brush my teeth and wash my face, getting ready for a brand-new day.

7:00 am

To kick-start the day, I make my almond latte, enjoy some homemade bread, and read the news. This usually takes around 20 minutes, but it can take longer if my daughter wakes up before I leave the house.

7:20 am

As my Pilates class at GMHBA is at 8:00 am, I catch the 7:22 am train and arrive in Geelong at around 7:50 am. During the train journey, I normally listen to music and clear my mind before work.

8:00 am

Pilates time! This is something new for me, and it’s my third lesson. Thanks to GMHBA, each session only costs $20. It’s great both physically and mentally, and I’ve found it to be a really positive way to start the day and stretch before work.

8:50 am

After getting changed in our End-of-Trip facilities, I start work.  My first grad program rotation is in the Digital Products Team in Marketing.  This team develops and manages GMHBA’s digital tools and platforms, ensuring an optimal user experience for our Members. 

I first check Sentry, an error-tracking platform we use to monitor any errors or incidents across our websites, so we can raise and investigate issues promptly. After that, we have our daily stand-up. We share updates, fun facts, and a bit about our daily lives before going through our work progress. If there are any blockers or updates, we raise them so others can help. Sometimes the stand-up runs slightly past 9:30 am.

9:30 am

Today, I have a bi-weekly coffee catch-up with my grad buddy, Billy. He is now working in the Business Intelligence team and was also part of the previous graduate program. During these catch-ups, we share our views, and I often seek guidance or advice beyond day-to-day work. I’ve learned a lot from him, especially about attitude, networking, and career development. Best of all, he introduces me to different coffee spots around GMHBA in Geelong, South America is my favourite at the moment.

10:00 am

I usually start by looking into my current ticket to continue my work. Sometimes, I browse Confluence, where we store documentation on almost everything, making it a great resource for solving problems. If the information isn’t there or further help is needed, we often jump on a call to work through issues together.

Today, I’m working on several quotation-sending related issues. Some are related to the content management system, others involve styling changes, and a few are bugs discovered after a major upgrade. I catch up with our QA Quality Assurance Analyst? to ensure the bugs can be reproduced, which helps me understand exactly where the issues occur. I then study the problems and begin debugging. Thanks to my manager, Pascal, who provides clear direction on where to focus, I’m able to save a lot of time. Debugging often involves tracking down the root cause and building environments, which can take some time.

12:00 pm

It’s time for lunch. Normally, we go to The Duck (Hommali) for their discounted lunch, but sometimes we try somewhere different. If the weather is nice, we go for a short walk along the Waterfront before heading back to work.  

1:00 pm

I get back to my ticket, continue working on the solution, and verify whether the fix is working correctly. This ticket involves a bug fix related to data passing through the system, which is challenging as it requires debugging, identifying the issue, and implementing a solution. We use Visual Studio Code for frontend development, Visual Studio for backend work, Git for version control, and browser developer tools for inspection. It can be an iterative process, as fixes don’t always work the first time and may need to be deployed to other environments for testing. As Developers, it’s our responsibility to resolve and test issues before passing them to Quality Assurance, helping to reduce back-and-forth and improve efficiency.

2:00 pm

I’ve updated the code, and the data is now passing through, but it’s still not being picked up. Like any other blocker, I reach out to my colleagues and jump on a call to discuss the issue. Asking questions is always encouraged, as it helps with learning and growth. Working in a team environment allows us to support each other, share knowledge, and learn from different perspectives. After discussing suggestions, I gain a better understanding of how to resolve the issue.

3:30 pm

It’s time for a short break. I make another coffee, enjoy the fruit provided in the office, and catch up with colleagues. Sometimes, I take a moment to enjoy the ocean view from the balcony.

3:45 pm

I continue working on the ticket. The issue has now been fixed, so I push the changes to the repository and deploy them to the testing environment to test different scenarios. After that, I update the comments in Jira, our agile management tool, create a pull request, and move the ticket to the next stage. I also notify a colleague so they can review the pull request when they’re available.

4:45 pm

I check Jira to see what’s next and prepare for upcoming tasks. As it’s already 4:45 pm, I update my progress in Agile Box, where we track our daily work so everyone can see what I’ve been working on. I then touch base with my colleagues and manager, and that wraps up the workday.

5:00 pm

I head to the train station to travel back home. It’s always great to have train buddies taking the same train back towards Melbourne. We chat about things outside of work and what we’re planning for dinner, it’s a nice way to end the day.

Bachelor of Cyber Security – Deakin University

GMHBA’s Technology Graduate program has given me the opportunity to kickstart my tech career with numerous opportunities presented each day. 

My current rotation is in the Information Security team and has been split between GRC (Governance, Risk + Compliance) activities and Security Operations tasks.

The Information security team at GMHBA makes sure that our customer and company information is secure, and we also educate our staff on what to be mindful of when working in our systems, and when to report such things that may not seem right.  

My time is usually spent uplifting our processes and completing various tasks that assist in enhancing our security posture.

8.30am

A typical day usually commences at 8:30am. I log onto my laptop to load the resources required for the day ahead - ServiceNow tickets, Azure DevOps planned tasks and Confluence articles.

9am

Once 9am comes around, our daily stand-ups commence – at these, each member of the team talks about their objectives for the day (to ensure team alignment), and there’s always a discussion about the information security space/industry and broader technology team in general. Once the stand-up concludes, it’s off to a day of work.

Each day in Information Security provides a unique experience, there’s always something new. A typical day for me might include collaboration with internal/external teams around resources and resolution of incidents, meetings about the numerous projects/tasks being triaged, and shadowing other meetings to gain exposure into how different systems work. As a team, we always try to align our work with each other and to provide support.  

12 noon

Before I know it, it’s lunchtime, and I head outside for some fresh air.  At GMHBA’s Head Office, this is brilliant opportunity to explore the CBD and Geelong Waterfront. Today I am catching up with the other grads on the program.

1pm

After lunch, I continue the monitoring of events using our tools; triaging tickets; progressing on assigned tasks; and documenting learnings that add to the knowledge base for current and future team members.

5pm

Time to wind down for the evening!  Each day on the GMHBA Graduate Program presents new tasks, challenges and opportunities to enhance your skills and knowledge with a very collaborative, talented and remarkable group of people!

Bachelor of Computer Science, RMIT

My current rotation on GMHBA’s Graduate Program (Technology) is in the Delivery team.

The Delivery team supports, manages and delivers change for GMHBA's Core Systems, all Applications that support or augment those core systems, as well as the integrations between all these systems, our Digital assets and 3rd parties. 

My current role is very similar to that of an App Support Engineer. My work involves:

Level 3 support for internal systems at GMHBA – eg solving an issue that requires access to application logs, or an issue that requires a code fix, working on new features and integrations between systems, which involves writing or updating code and unit testing.

 

8:30am

One thing that has really stood out to me while I’ve been working at GMHBA is the hybrid work arrangement (2 days in the office and 3 days work from home). I live far from the office, so this has been great for me, preventing me from needing to commute far every day. Today I will be working from home!

I jump on at around 8:30am and check through any email alerts, ServiceNow tickets and other communications received since yesterday.

Usually, at the end of a day, I will write a list of my priorities for the following day. In the morning, I will update and start working through these tasks. Sometimes one of my items will need to be discussed in our daily standup. I will make note of this, so I don’t forget to bring it up.

9am

Standup is from 9am – 9:30am. We will discuss what everyone is doing for the day and if anyone is blocked or needs a hand to move forward with their work. I will bring up anything relevant to discuss and let everyone know what my focus is on.

Recently, a major milestone has been completed for a massive project which has moved many of our previously on-premises services to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. Because this has introduced a whole range of new issues, we currently have an extra meeting each morning to discuss new bugs and incidents to help decide whether my team (Delivery) or the team that have delivered the new solution, are better off handling the issue. After this meeting, there are usually a couple of incidents for me or another dev to work on.

10am

After all these morning meetings, I can begin getting into my work for the day. Today, I am working with our Senior App Developer, Ryan, to finish removing old dependencies from some of our legacy APIs we are maintaining. These APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) allow some of our systems that are not compatible with each other to sync and communicate. They will be moved into the Azure environment soon, but for now we need to maintain them on-premises.

After clarifying some things with Ryan, I can complete that task and deploy it into our development environment so I can verify that it is working as intended. Once I am happy, it can be updated in our task tracker to be ready for testing. This means that it will be moved into our testing environment for our Quality Assurance Analysts to test. This will be the last step before it is ready to deploy in our next release!

12pm

At around 12pm, it’s time for lunch! If I am working from home, which I am today, I might quickly eat and go for a walk to breathe some fresh air. If I am working in the office, I will usually buy lunch and eat with the team in the office.

After lunch I will continue to work on my tasks, which usually include responding to incidents that have been raised by our frontline customer service agents regarding a system working unexpectedly. Because the systems are all quite new, it can take a while to troubleshoot issues, but responding to these incidents has quickly allowed me to learn the full stack of the new system, which includes  

Function and Logic Apps in Azure, Power Apps and Dynamics 365.

I will also jump into any meetings I have scheduled or jump in a call with another dev to shadow what they are doing. This has been a really great way of learning new tasks and workflows with the support of some of the very talented people on my team. I constantly feel like I have opportunities to really take advantage of the skills and experience of my colleagues.

5pm

At 5pm, I’m done for the day! I will try and write up a new list of tasks to keep working on tomorrow. This helps me lock back in the following day and pick up where I left off.

That’s pretty much what an average day looks like on the GMHBA Graduate Program!