Hello Everyone! A Little About Me

Hi everyone! My name is Serena Lalani, and I’m in my fourth year of the Health Information Science program, currently finishing up my very last semester. It feels surreal to be at this point, and I’m really excited to bring everything I’ve learned over the past four years together.

One of the things I value most about my program is how it combines theory with hands-on experience. I’ve had the opportunity to complete three co-op terms, each of which gave me a chance to see how health information and technology intersect in the real world.

For my first two co-ops, I worked with the Provincial Health Services Authority. There, I contributed to building a self-scheduling immunization site used across Yukon, Island Health, and Interior Health. I was also involved in digitizing school-based consent forms for Vancouver Coastal Health, a project that really highlighted for me how even small workflow changes can have a big impact on patient care and efficiency.

This past summer, I completed my final co-op with Island Health as a Clinical Application Analyst. In this role, I supported account management tasks for a wide range of clinical applications (such as Paris, Procura, Teletracking, Pathways, and more) that the Information Management and Information Technology team oversees. This experience gave me a much deeper understanding of how essential these systems are to daily clinical operations and patient care, and how much coordination is required behind the scenes to keep them running smoothly.

Across all of these experiences, one theme has stood out to me: technology is not just a tool, but a driver of better workflows, improved communication, and ultimately better outcomes in healthcare. This is what excites me most about my career path, using innovation and information to make a difference in how care is delivered.

That curiosity is also what drew me to this class. Social media has become such a powerful force in how we communicate, learn, and even receive healthcare information. I wanted to explore how it influences personalized learning, and I’m interested in seeing how these insights might connect back to health information management and patient engagement in the future.

Outside of academics, I try to balance things out with activities I enjoy. I love spending time outdoors, whether it’s hiking, fishing, camping, or even just going for a walk. Reading is another passion of mine, especially fantasy and thriller novels, and I also enjoy cooking (I recently perfected my homemade pesto and focaccia bread!). Most importantly, I love spending time with family and friends. Recently, I adopted a kitten (his name is Jett), and he has quickly become the center of my attention, equal parts adorable and mischievous.

Here are some photos of Mr. Jett!

I’m really looking forward to this course and to connecting with all of you. I think it will be such a great opportunity to learn from each other and to see the different perspectives everyone brings to the table.

– Serena Lalani 🙂