Brian Gay ‘11: Building Leadership and Data Skills to Improve Behavioral Health Care
For more than a decade, Brian Gay has been building his career while helping others. He found his calling working in the behavioral health field. Now he’s building leadership and data analytics skills with the goal of helping to improve behavioral health care in the future.
Gay is a quality assurance and performance improvement manager at a forensic psychiatric hospital, which provides inpatient services for individuals involved in the criminal justice system. It’s a big job that requires extensive reporting, keen analytical skills and good communication with administrative leaders.
Gay oversees the incident reporting process, reviewing reports to make sure they’re coded and tracked correctly and then evaluating that data over time to see if there are trends. He also does routine reporting for internal administrators as well as external agencies, and helps to oversee the investigative process when adverse events occur.
“The goal is to use the data and investigation findings to inform decisions on any possible changes to operations,” he says. “We look to see what could be done differently, if any changes in policy are needed, or if there are changes to equipment or the facility that could be made to mitigate future risk.”
Gay says he loves the role and is looking forward to working his way up past middle management and into a leadership role so that he can do more.
“I’d like to get more experience working on policy, because in addition to what we see here at the hospital there are also these larger issues at play in terms of how individuals get referred here from the courts, how the system is working, and whether there are demographic disparities. I’m planning to eventually pursue graduate education in something like Health Policy Management or Public Administration so that I can work at a higher level on those issues.”
But, as he’s in the process of saving for his first home purchase, he says he’s not quite ready to take that leap just yet.
So, he decided to hone in on the specific skills of leadership and data analytics through focused, quick and affordable professional development programs at Providence College School of Continuing Education (SCE).
The programs were only weeks long instead of the months required for graduate courses, and he was also able to take advantage of tuition reimbursement through his employer to pay for them. Since the workshop sessions were held online, he was able to work them into his workday or evenings without dealing with a commute to campus.
“The first program I enrolled in was a three-week workshop called Leading from the Middle. I’m relatively new to management and I also communicate frequently with leadership in my organization, so I was looking for tips and ways to develop both management and leadership skills,” Gay says.
“The instructor, Professor Snyder, was great – very engaging, a great personality, and very knowledgeable. One of the things I appreciated most from that workshop was the real-life practical scenarios she would give us. I was able to practice a wide variety of communication and management skills in the class.”
“For example, she provided us with a really helpful framework for dealing with a direct report who’s not performing. I haven’t had to deal with that yet as a manager but at some point I will, and having that knowledge has taken some of the anxiety away from that process.”
“I also learned how to work with upper management in a way that will both get your job done better and more efficiently by being proactive in my communications with them – basically how to understand their work style preferences and then knowing how to meet them where they’re at.”
Having learned a lot from that workshop, Gay decided to enroll in a Data Analytics certificate program next.
“Data is a huge part of the work that I do but I don’t have a formal background in data analysis. This workshop gave me a deep dive into the subject, but the instructor also broke it down into layman’s terms for the non-statisticians in the group like me, which was really helpful,” Gay says.
“It showed me all the various ways data can be analyzed and a broader perspective on what can be done with that information and how to use it to make decisions. I also learned a lot about data prediction – how to use data trends from the past to predict what’s likely to happen in future. That was new for me and especially here at the hospital, if there’s any way we can have insight into what may be coming based on what we’ve seen in the past then that’s really helpful to anticipating needs.”
Gay says he’s already putting what he learned in the programs into practice on the job, even helping to launch the use of a new data visualization tool.
“One of the things we covered in the workshop was using Tableau for data visualization. After taking the course it turned out there was an opportunity to get access to a Tableau account at my organization, so now I’ll be able to use that effectively going forward,” he says.
In fact, there are a multitude of skills from both workshops that Gay says are already benefitting his career and job performance, and even informed his future graduate studies.
“In terms of guiding my future education this was a great introduction and taste of what I’m looking to learn in graduate school, but with less commitment, cost and process than a formal graduate program. I would encourage anyone to check out the professional development programs being offered at SCE and if there’s an opportunity to expand your skill set, especially now when there’s so much that’s changing in the world, just go for it because it really will benefit you.”
Related Resources
Professional Development at SCE
Leading from the Middle Workshop Series
