The Anniversary Spotlight highlights an employee celebrating a significant work anniversary at UPMC every month.
Libby Anthony always wanted a career in health care. Growing up, she desired to be a nurse but started at Duquesne University, intending to become a pharmacist. However, she didn’t expect to enjoy her computer science classes as much as she did, and that’s how she stumbled upon a Health Management Systems degree. The degree comprises computer science, premed, and business – the best of the three worlds.
She graduated in 2007, but her career at UPMC started before that when one of her professors recommended that she take advantage of an internship with the UPMC Message Router Team. The Message Router Team offered her a permanent position, and she officially joined UPMC as an Interface Development Analyst.
The team Libby became a part of is integral to UPMC, for it’s the hub of data – patient, clinical, financial, administrative, and more. Libby helped oversee all the data going in, out, or around the organization. Whether it was a new application UPMC adopted, or a hospital UPMC purchased, Libby and her team were responsible for migrating, transferring, analyzing, and formatting the data to streamline all UPMC systems and ensure a unified workflow. Over the years, she had the opportunity to work with EPIC, Cerner, dbMotion, Sunquest, One Content, CCHIE, Aria, and more.
“Every time I think about the internship with the Message Router Team, I feel grateful that it led to a permanent position working with integrations,” said Libby. “Being exposed to numerous teams and people throughout UPMC has made it the perfect place to learn about health care.”
In 2021, after 14 years, Libby transitioned to UPMC Enterprises as a Data Engineering Services Manager on the Data Engineering team in Digital Solutions. It was a bittersweet moment for her to leave a team that became family, but she confirmed it was a good professional decision. Now, she leads a team of talented data engineers and analysts, passing down her extensive knowledge all while learning new things herself.
Libby explains her responsibilities are similar to those she had in her previous role. However, at Enterprises, the customer base and needs are different, as is the drive to use the latest technologies to create efficient and cutting-edge integration solutions. There is a lot of focus on learning and using technology to its most significant advantage to solve problems and to support Enterprises’ portfolio companies and customers. A main priority of Libby’s is retrieving data, verifying the contents and formatting, and ensuring all data needs are met in an agile and comprehensive way. She and her team constantly strive to improve processes to work more efficiently, utilizing technology she never knew existed.
She primarily works with Alexandria Charts and UPMC Health Plan and looks forward to the data challenges presented to the Data Engineering team from the rest of Enterprises.
“Transitioning to this new position,” replied Libby when asked what her biggest accomplishment was during her UPMC career thus far. “It was challenging to step out of my comfort zone and dive into something new, but I realized that I’m not done learning, pushing forward, and finding new opportunities for myself.”
Data is a passion of Libby’s, as is fitness. Libby recently celebrated her fifth year of teaching cycling classes at the YMCA. She has also been a part of the CrossFit community for the past ten years. Alongside fitness, she married her husband, Ryan, last October, and they have been busy completing various house projects.
“Don’t isolate yourself” is Libby’s advice to a UPMC prospective candidate. “Here at UPMC, you never know who you will meet and what opportunity it will lead you to.”
