The Office of Public Health Practice Alumni Spotlight Series: Matt VanNatta ('15)

Matt VanNatta ('15) Saint Louis University graduate and Senior Implementation Consultant at Strata Decision Technology recently did a Q&A with the Office of Public Health Practice about public health and learning at SLU.

What is the most important thing you learned at SLU?

I really appreciate that SLU gives you experiences across a lot of different paradigms, learning the different areas of expertise through coursework and faculty. I knew I liked biostats and data and there were opportunities to dive into the analytical skills outside of classwork. 

Where are you currently working and what was your path to this job?

I am currently a Senior Implementation Consultant with Strata Decision Technology, a SaaS company providing decision support software to hospitals and healthcare systems. I do project management and serve as a resource and mentor to younger team members to learn about costing data. I started out in infectious disease epidemiology at SSM Health’s corporate office, presenting infectious disease prevention data, and helping implement program changes at the various hospitals. This was right around the time of Ebola and Zika were making headlines. I then moved to Mercy St. Louis as a Senior Manager Consultant and was the sole non-clinician on the team. I worked as a liaison between the clinical and tech teams to get the data to the teams requesting it. This is where I was first exposed to costing data, thinking through how things are costing and ways to dive into improving. I have really enjoyed this career path and would not change much.

What are you most proud of, professionally or otherwise?

First of all, I am a father of 2 and am always so proud of that. Second, I am proud of the work I got to do with Dr. Rebmann, in grad school and getting my name on a published article. I had the opportunity to present at a conference in Kentucky about their work on Zika. I am also proud of my work with SHEA [Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America] on the data committee where I had the opportunity to teach their nurses about epidemiology and biostats. At Mercy, doing the costing efficiency projects, I was saving lots of money for the company. There was never a blueprint on how to look at the data or find the cost efficiencies, to analyze and interpret the data. It was fun and challenging.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?

In 5 years, I hope to be in a managerial or senior manager position, either at my current company or a new one. My MPH helps here because most companies want to see you have an advanced degree when you rise to senior level positions. In 10 years, I hope to be a healthcare executive somewhere.

What is your best piece of advice for current MPH and public health students?

My biggest piece of advice is to think outside of traditional public health. Public health isn’t the only space where public health skills are sought – data analysis, research review, etc. can be applied to all sorts of jobs. While my job path started in traditional public health, it has since moved into other spaces I am interested in. Use the skills you have learned and be open to using them in nontraditional places. It is also really good to learn more tech skills in general.

College for Public Health and Social Justice

The Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice is the only academic unit of its kind, studying social, environmental and physical influences that together determine the health and well-being of people and communities. It also is the only accredited school or college of public health among nearly 250 Catholic institutions of higher education in the United States. Guided by a mission of social justice and focus on finding innovative and collaborative solutions for complex health problems, the college offers nationally recognized programs in public health and health administration.