Trisha Tagle’s connection to Mount Sinai goes back 10 years when, as an undergrad pharmacy student, she was a pharmacy apprentice at The Mount Sinai Hospital. Soon, however, she would change course, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Care Administration/Management, having internships at two hospitals—and discovering that she could effect greater change in health care as an administrator.
Ms. Tagle returned to Mount Sinai as a project coordinator, and in 2018, took a new position as a project manager in the Department of Neurology, where she currently works. It was then that she realized that she could rise to even greater heights with a Master of Health Administration (MHA) degree.
“When I transitioned from a clinical role to health care administration, I realized I had the opportunity to bring about change to health care operations in a way that was more inclusive and holistic for everyone,” she says.
Ms. Tagle, who received her MHA from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in June 2022, recalls the strengths of the program. “There was a lot of emphasis on the use of process improvement, project management skills, and technology to effect change in health care delivery, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and especially for patients lacking access to health care,” she says. “One of my project proposals focused on how to make health care technology more inclusive. Not every patient has a smartphone, for example. So how can we give more patients access, to make sure they don’t fall through the cracks? I’m a very process-oriented person, so the idea of making sure we capture everyone is very important to me.”
As a project manager, Ms. Tagle is exposed to many different areas of the Health System, and she sees things on the macro level as well as the department level. “I’m able to not only work on a particular project, but I can help make the Neurology department more efficient, and the more efficient it is, the better and more efficient care we can offer our patients,” she says. “Now with my master’s, I hope to implement change and also come up with ideas that will help to move health care forward. I find that very exciting.”
With her new degree, Ms. Tagle will soon be taking on an intern from the MHA program. “As an alum and someone who’s also already in the field, I have been asked to join Mount Sinai’s MHA mentors program. This is an additional way for me to give back and try to help students navigate the program and their careers in health care administration,” she says. “I have always loved connecting with others and sharing my experiences in a way that may help guide them to their own discovery of where they’d like to go in health care.”