When I started my internship at Vega Health, I joined the team supporting commercial operations and strategy. I expected to learn about healthcare AI, business strategy, and startups. While those expectations were certainly met, what stood out most was how much the experience changed the way I think about independence, problem-solving, and building a life as a working adult.
Most of my work focused on researching prospective clients, healthcare regulations, market conditions, and how AI implementation can drive measurable ROI for health systems. I built large datasets and spreadsheets aimed at helping the team identify and evaluate high-value opportunities.
In practice, that meant compiling detailed system profiles, hospital networks, leadership structures, EHR environments, regulatory constraints, and AI maturity signals into large, structured trackers meant to support outbound and strategic conversations.
As the summer progressed, I found myself reflecting on a consistent issue. The challenge wasn’t a lack of information, but rather fragmentation and usability. Even strong, well-researched data wasn’t being used effectively because it was scattered across static documents that were difficult to query, update, or apply in real time when making decisions. I had already started questioning this approach before receiving feedback that, while my work was valuable, it wasn’t always easily actionable in its current form.
So, I shifted my approach. Instead of continuing to accumulate static research, I started building an AI-driven knowledge system that updates as new information is added and allows the team to interact with it conversationally. The goal was to turn spreadsheets and research documents into a living system that can surface relevant context and answers instantly. In practice, this meant designing workflows that continuously integrate new research and allow users to ask natural-language questions about prospects, regulations, competitors, and market trends without manually searching through dozens of documents. That shift, from collecting information to building something usable, has been one of the biggest takeaways of my time here.
At the same time, this was my first experience living completely independently in a new city while working full time. Unlike college, where structure and community are largely built in, this required actively building everything from the ground up: routines, relationships, and how I show up day to day.
Some of the most memorable moments came from simply being at Vega Health itself. Seeing colleagues balance demanding work with graduate school, family life, and kids running through the office at the end of the day made adulthood feel less abstract and more tangible. Watching people navigate both their professional and personal lives with intention shaped how I think about my own future, influencing not only the kind of professional I hope to become, but the kind of person I want to be as well.
More broadly, working at Vega Health showed me different models of what a professional life can look like. Most of what I’ll take away didn’t come from formal deliverables, but from watching how the team communicates, makes decisions, and stays intentional while building something real.
To the team at Vega Health: thank you for trusting me with real problems, real ownership, and the trust to build alongside a team doing something meaningful.
