BancNet: Another reason to visit Makati

I love going to Makati. I feel like it's the Philippine's New York City equivalent. Of course nothing could ever compare to the New York City, but it just gives me the vibe that it's somehow cleaner and you can really feel that it's a city compared to most cities here in the Philippines.

So why am I talking about my love for Makati? Well, it's because had a company visit to Bancnet last April 2 which was located at Equitable Tower. If you're driving and you're not familiar with Makati, learn to ask around or just get familiar with it. We went around the place just looking for some place to Park. Going back—I think we've all somehow seen it before in ATMs when we're withdrawing some cash or checking the balance of our savings. That's because Bancnet is the one connecting the ATM Network Banks in the Philippines. They started in 1990 and they've been doing it for 23 years now. What surprised me is that they only had 50 employees to run their operation. So their office wasn't as big compared to the previous companies we've been to. They also had 2 ATM machines inside their office, which was very interesting to me.

 

Disclaimer: photos courtesy of John Jane Granada.

I love vending machines, especially the ones at JP Morgan & Chase Co.

JP Morgan & Chase Co. is by far the best office I've been to. I mean, it's JP MORGAN & CHASE CO. I don't know if it's just me, or there's something about it that makes you say 'wow'. Even just hearing the name, you'll know it's a big time corporation.

I was actually excited upon knowing that we were going to have a company visit to JP Morgan & Chase Co.  located at 31st of Bonifacio Global City. I love going to BGC and I was curious about the company as well. It's a win-win situation.

BUT, getting to BGC was hard. Me and my friends got lost at least 2 or 3 times before we finally got to the place. Their company security is very strict so they didn't allow us to go up without anyone to guide us. They made us wait in the area where they accepted job applicants which had two large vending machines that gave out free hot and cold drinks. IT'S FREE!!!! So I guess that made the waiting not to boring. When we finally arrived in the room, the talk was half-way finished. But it's a good thing that there were still multiple speakers, so we were still able to understand the rest of the talk.

image source

I don't think any of the companies we visited neglected to share their humble beginnings, JP Morgan & Chase Co. wasn't an exception to that. Before our company visit, I wasn't actually sure what business JP Morgan & Chase Co. did. I always thought it as a law firm, but I guess it's also fitting that it's actually a bank; one of the oldest financial institution in the United States. I can't believe they've been around for 200 years. It's also interesting to know that the Monopoly guy is actually a tribute to their founder, JP Morgan. *cue mind blown*

The last two talks were very interesting to me. Though I cannot remember the speaker's names or their exact position, but I do know that their position is quite high. The second to the last speaker talked about how he rose from poverty. He told us that he used to sell bread before in their province, and how limited technology was when he was just starting out. His dream company was actually IBM, and he applied there numerous times but worked at different companies until he finally got accepted and stayed there for 3 years. But he left to be with JP Morgan & Chase Co. and he’s been working there ever since. The next and last speaker was the boss of the previous speakers. He talked about how his journey with Technology started with the early versions of Mac computer back in 1980s. When JP Morgan & Chase Co. offered him the position here in the Philippines, he told us that people thought he was crazy for going back to a third world country. But he wanted to improve our society by providing more jobs for the Filipinos through growing JP Morgan & Chase Co. I found their story very inspiring because they showed determination and perseverance to get to where they are, and they did not forget to give back to the community.

After the talks, we were toured around some parts of the building. They took us to the cafeteria (which also had vending machines that gave out FREE drinks) and some of their conference rooms. They're using CISCO Telepresence which allows them to have international video calls. The last stop was picture taking on their roof top. Now by this time, it would have been noon and the sun was shining with all it's might. We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the office, only here and at the waiting area.

Health Information Systems

So hello there, it's me again, blogging to you about seminars and stuff. So it's going to be different this time because I wasn't actually at the seminar when it happened, I only watched it through video recording and researched about it.

So what exactly is a Health Information Systems?

According to the University of Queensland Australia (2012), it "should be an integrated effort to collect, process, report and use health information and knowledge to influence policy and decision-making, programme action and research." 

I think there are only few, if not not any, working HIS in the Philippines. Implementing HIS in the Philippine private and public hospitals and/or clinics would be a challenge because it needs to simple and sustainable (University of Queensland, 2012). But I'm very curious to see if there will be a proper implementation and how it can actually affect the people, management and system of the hospitals, especially on patient care. That's all folks!

Reference:

The University of Queensland. (2012). Defining HIS - HMN Framework. 

Retrieved from: http://www.uq.edu.au/hishub/definition-of-health-information-systems