ORS Presidential Management Fellow Shares His Experience at OMS during COVID

ORS is now accepting short-term assignments for employees and rotational opportunities for Presidential Management Fellows and Management Interns.

Tim An is an NIH Presidential Management Fellow designated at ORS, who rotates through its offices and divisions as a Program Specialist/Management Analyst. Tim is currently in rotation with the Occupational Medical Service (OMS), Division of Occupational Health and Safety (DOHS). 


(Photo above) Tim An, ORS Presidential Fellow 

Tim describes his experience and responsibilities at the OMS under a data management/analyst rotation:

“It’s difficult to write down a concise narrative of all the experiences of this rotation but simply put, my experience has been wonderful and truly meaningful.

At the beginning of my rotation, I was introduced to some of the amazing NIH volunteers at the ORS COVID-19 Response Call Center. These volunteers spanned across all ICs at the NIH, devoting their precious time and abilities responding to incoming calls and questions about the OMS questionnaire. This team facilitates smooth processing of the questionnaires and links the callers to the appropriate clinicians on-call. Afterwards, I was introduced to Dr. Heike Bailin, my current rotational supervisor and one of the key OMS clinicians working tirelessly throughout the pandemic and someone who has been indispensable to the COVID response efforts.

In addition, I had the unique opportunity to listen to and observe the COVID Response Team Management meetings where Incident Management Team members discuss the interconnectivity and intricacies of the response. These factors include the logistics of the car lines, the application of the newly established tools such as the update to NIHAlert, and other elements.

My primary duties lie within data management, more specifically coordinating within the different OMS COVID Response teams to improve efficiencies and limit risks in data generation, oversight and reporting. OMS data management is imperative as NIH Leadership requires daily, accurate, and up-to-date reporting regarding COVID cases in order to make fact-based decisions for the safety and health of the NIH community. As of this moment, I primarily centralize my efforts with the Contact Investigation team due to the urgency of the situation. For instance, I collaborated with the Contact Investigations team leads to suggest and build improvement mechanisms to the current COVID Index Case Excel spreadsheets through automating functions such as an Epi-Curve graph and reporting summaries. On another project, my OMS colleagues and I initiated a staffing analysis spreadsheet tracking the number of expected/actual/total hours spent across the respective COVID response teams. My role in data management extends beyond the scope of OMS as I am continually collaborating with different NIH stakeholders at ORS, NCI Frederick OHS, RML, and other teams/offices.”

If you or someone is interested in the ORS Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF) Program, please contact Dever Powell dever.powell@nih.gov, for additional information.