Mihinn Experience Paper

Experience at MiHIN

Overview of the fall semester

This past semester I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to intern at the Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services, a company that is commonly referred to as “MiHIN”. At MiHIN, I was in the Finance and Accounting department where I worked along side three other full-time employees. The four months I spent at MiHIN were extremely beneficial because I was able to develop skills that are applicable to my future career aspirations, as well as, gain a better understanding of careers in finance and accounting.

Background of MiHIN MiHIN is a non-profit organization that was recently established in 2010. Every year MiHIN receives grants from the state of Michigan and our federal

MiHIN’s mission is quite simple, that mission is to improve the quality of healthcare. All of the employees at MiHIN are extremely passionate about improving the quality of healthcare, because the employees understand that improving healthcare results in improving the lives of patients. From my perspective as an intern, I saw the mission of improving healthcare each and everyday, even in the finance and accounting department. This mission motivates the workers at MiHIN, which results in a high intensity environment. As an intern, I saw the workload, tight deadlines and high stress within the workplace. Some may view a workplace like this as a negative, however, I saw this as a huge positive. It was exhilarating to see a group of motivated individuals show up each and every day with the mindset to better the lives of

The Executive Director is the founder of MiHIN, every financial transaction must be approved by him. From an intern view, I have a mentor and a manager. My mentor is the Director of Finance, and my manager is the Accounting Manager. At MiHIN the Director of Finance was in charge of managing project progress and instructing the Accounting Manager how to distribute the workload amongst the Intern (myself) and the General Accountant. Every task I completed had to first be reviewed by my manger, then if approved, reviewed by my mentor.

My Role at MiHIN As a Finance/Accounting Intern, I never knew what to expect when I arrived at work. Each and everyday was a new challenge and full of new tasks. Due to the rapid pace at MiHIN, there was not a whole lot of predictability when it came to tasks. Below I have listed a few of the tasks and projects I was assigned while working at MiHIN.

- Cost analysis of various internal projects

- Creating and managing the Account Payable account “check register”

- Building budget to actual