UP Health System - Marquette Heroes | Peggy Lindeman

What is your role at UP Health System – Marquette?

I am the Point of Care Coordinator for the Laboratory at UP Health System – Marquette.   

What was your inspiration for getting into healthcare? 

I loved math and science in school and always enjoyed learning how things worked. I grew up watching M*A*S*H and China Beach, so some of my female role models were Major Margaret Houlihan on MASH and Lt. Colleen Murphy on China Beach. I knew I wanted a career that would help people. I just knew I didn’t want to be a nurse.

While a sophomore in high school, TV6 news ran a weeklong series on “other healthcare professions.” One of the featured professions was a clinical laboratory scientist. The moment I saw that — I knew that's what I wanted to do.  

What is a typical day like for you working in this field? 

I spend a lot of my time doing one-on-one training for various point of care (POC) tests and/or analyzers. Different tests have different competency and training requirements set by The Joint Commission. Part of my job is to make sure all employees performing POC tests have competencies that meet these requirements.

I also spend some time troubleshooting, fixing, repairing, and confirming that the POC instruments are all functioning within the manufacturer’s standards. Glucometers, bedside blood gas analyzers, and several other machines that perform lab testing in the operating room and at the clinics all require a little attention to detail every now and then.

I also spend time investigating new testing for POC consideration when requested as well as looking at the current test processes. Are we meeting infection control standards, Joint Commission standards, etc? Are we collecting specimens correctly, performing the testing correctly, how are we resulting these tests in the patient’s electronic medical record (EMR) and does that medical record meet all the requirements set by all the standards?

So, with all this going on—time management, strong computer skills, and continuously being open to learning are a must.

How long have you been employed here? Have you always been in the same position? 

I will be celebrating my 20-year anniversary at UP Health System this August. I started my career in a very small community hospital in Wisconsin on the night shift, where you were never just “the lab lech.” I performed responsibilities that respiratory therapy and electrocardiogram generally perform. I helped deliver two babies, “bagged” and shocked patients at code blues, and kept many a bar fight out of the ER. All of which gave me a unique insight into what goes on in other departments in a larger hospital.

All of this prepared me for my years here at UP Health System where I started as a core laboratory tech, became the night shift supervisor, worked on Lean projects both inside and outside the lab, worked in the microbiology department within the lab, and then moved into the Point of Care Coordinator position. 

What are some of the significant changes you have experienced in this position?

When I started my career, a lot of the testing performed in the lab was still very manual. Automated testing was just starting to take off as it became more affordable for laboratories and staffing shortages started.

The addition of laboratory information systems was also a big change. We went from having a black pen (for normal lab values) and a red pen (for abnormal lab values) taped together for manually recording patient results to ticket printers — to having analyzers directly linked to the computer system. And now we have “auto validation” where if the test results are normal and are close to the same as the patient’s last results, the computer system just passes them to the EMR without requiring human intervention. So, the technological advances in the last 30 years have been amazing!

What are some of your interests outside of work? What is your favorite local gem?

I am a proud member of the Gwinn Lions Club. I strongly believe in giving back to the community. And I’m lucky enough to be able to give back to the very community I grew up in. I’m involved in many of our fundraisers — Gwinn FunDaze, Jack Pine 30 Dog Sled Crossing, and Sawyer activities for youth. For the last several years, I was the Project KidSight Coordinator for the Upper Peninsula (free vision screening with a digital camera for children under 18). I was successful at getting grants that allowed the Lions of the Upper Peninsula to purchase four new digital cameras and two mobile vision screening trailers. We’ve recently supported a seed library in Gwinn and are starting to address hunger/food inadequacy in our community, and I hope to get involved in that at a very local level.

I also love to travel. National parks are my latest interest.  

What do you enjoy most about working at UPHS – Marquette?

I really love getting out and working with people in different areas of the hospital. Each outing is a chance to see another piece of the healthcare puzzle. To see how the wheels work together to get nurses and providers the information they need when they need it to treat the patient is incredible.