After interning at Chilmark last summer, Paul Nardone has returned full-time to continue his work supporting lead analysts with researching and writing reports, developing graphics and other additional material to accompany reports, and writing some blog posts and reports of his own. To help you get to know him, he answered a few questions about some of his projects and gave his perspective on health IT.

What do you appreciate about Chilmark?

I like that Chilmark’s smaller size allows me to follow what’s going on at all levels of the company, which makes it feel like a fantastic place to start a career. If I were just a cog in the machine of a larger firm, I might be stuck performing one set of tasks, which wouldn’t be quite as conducive to developing a diverse professional skill set. Here, I work right next to Hannah (in charge of marketing), John III (in charge of operations and sales), and Brian (director of research), so I get to see, hear, and talk to them as they perform other important functions for the company. Plus, I couldn’t have picked a better place to build a foundation of knowledge in health IT; I’m working with some incredibly experienced and knowledgeable people who have been working in health IT for a very long time, so I can’t wait to pick their brains and learn as much as I can from them. Ultimately, I’m excited to be taking on whatever projects I can, expanding my knowledge base as I go!

What are some topics you want to research or find interesting in healthcare and health it?

I’m interested to follow the patient engagement side of health IT, largely because I’m interested to see how developments in health IT can enable patients to be drivers of their own care. I’ve always been very invested in managing my own health, exploring whatever new tools or apps are available to me, and I’ve always believed in the ability of people to keep themselves healthy and happy when empowered to do so. Also, I studied issues of health inequality in the US and the world during my time at college, so I’m interested to keep furthering my knowledge of the ways to leverage technology to bring better healthcare to underserved populations. Being able to influence the patient engagement subset of the health IT industry through my research, and hopefully contribute towards providing that type of empowerment to people, is very exciting.

What was your favorite project with Chilmark from last summer?

My favorite project from my internship with Chilmark was researching and writing a blog post that ended up getting published. In doing that, I was able to get a window into the report-writing process, albeit on a much smaller scale. Researching, writing, and editing a piece for a research firm like Chilmark is more in-depth than writing a college essay, and being given the opportunity to practice those skills was invaluable. Furthermore, I was proud to be able to say that I was the sole author of a published work as an intern, and glad to be able to show off some of what I’d been working on that summer.

Looking forward, what are some of your next research projects?

I already have a few projects in the works that I’m pretty excited about! I already have a pair of blog posts covering the topic of barriers to implementation of patient portals in the works (expect to see those soon), and I’ve begun researching how the market has been addressing SDoH for a potential domain monitor. I’ve also been able to start assisting some of the other analysts with some ongoing researching into patient engagement strategies, which has been equally interesting.

Also, these aren’t research projects per se, but I am excited to be attending the Cerner Health and Connected Health Conferences next month. I’ve heard a lot about how the health IT world loves its conferences, so it’ll be fun to experience a few firsthand.

Is there anything else you want our readers to know about you?

I’m excited to continue to grow my understanding of this space, and I would love to do that by engaging with other industry veterans. Please, if you have a question about one of my reports or want to discuss a recent conference that I attended, reach out to me at paul@chilmarkresearch.com!