Consumer reports

That was my day today. Providing patient information for Dahey to share with folks at work who recently found out their boss has cancer. Despite everything, he feels good, but is not cleared to return to full duty. He's bored and they found some paperwork for him to do. He'll have to car pool, so it should be interesting.

I also got some information I made in a complaint against a business from the state office that handles those. Nothing significant, but it was nice to know that the process highlighted that the vendor was, at the very least, very "liberal" with the truth. If I could only rent a billboard and not be sued, or borrow this guy, because his sentiment is mine, too.

So glad Monday is over. I'm waiting for all this precipitation to end!

Stay tuned...
 

RehabRN's Book Club: Summer vacation edition

No, I did not just pick up any old trashy romance novel at the airport newsstand. I actually went to the library (my favorite place to pick up books). Here's what's made it to the reading list this vacation week.

1. The Power of Less by Leo Baubauta. What's my favorite part of any book? Brevity and clarity. If it's short, I'll read it from cover to cover pretty quickly.

I wasn't quite able to sit  down and just read it until it was done (as Dahey often does), but I did  finish it today, and finishing any book in three days for me is a sprint.

Next on my list,

2. The Book of Joan by Melissa Rivers. Okay, it's as close to a trashy novel that I'll get. It's always interesting to hear what kids have to say about their celebrity parents, especially ones who were as famous as Joan Rivers.

Finally, for number 3, I always have Lewis Grizzard's Last Bus to Albuquerque on my night stand as my go to book. When I need some comic relief, I just pick a page, open it and start reading. I also start laughing and thinking that this interesting character has been gone for far too long. What would he think of the Kardashians and all the internet/Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Instagram world we live in?

More books are on order at the library, so stay tuned.

Observations at work

Jo described a nurse she works with in this post over at Head Nurse. I had a good time reading the comments because it reminded me of some of the "get in to go somewhere else" folks we keep getting at our Hotel unit at Washington.

Why do the words, "Oh, I'll just go apply somewhere else" rankle me? Because they are often coming out of the mouths of the newly oriented. Really? You couldn't have done your homework which would have told you this is a unit part of a rehab hospital? You just want to whine about it and you just got here?

I digress....

What I really wanted to talk about is this article. I know this phenomena is not contained to men, but they are the main culprits. I see this in a committee I work on. The guy is "so busy" that all he can do is let that lil' ol' multiple thousands of dollars project wait because no one knows how the back end process works.

Really? Hello people! That's what the BUSINESS side folks are for. Bug them! They LOVE it because it's THEIR job. They don't want to be clinical. They want to buff the machinery of the business processes of a hospital and make it work. I need the project management fairy to come and hit him over the head with her magic Project wand.

Occasionally, you have a nurse like me who gets it (that former life helps) but even I don't know everything. That's why I defer to the experts. That's why I keep asking you to ask them to show up at our meetings. It would be nice to solve some problems instead of talk about them the whole time.

That is all. I'm celebrating Cinco de Mayo with a nice, cool beverage, which will help me forget all of this mess. Hope you enjoy your day wherever you are, margarita or not.

More later.

The story of my life

I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it.~  Victoria Woodhull 

I really wonder why some people just can't mind their own business.

That is all...more later.

I have to remind myself why I continue...

To blog.

Who knew that keeping a journal may be the one of the best kept productivity secrets out there?

Sounds like a very good reason to me.

TGIF! Enjoy your weekend wherever you are.

In the news

It's not Wednesday, but it's pretty close, so here are a few things I've encountered so far this week in my meanderings around the internet.

Should you be sincere?
Maybe not according to this CNN article.

Goals
Sometimes you just need a big, hairy, audacious goal to get you going where you want to be (from LinkedIn).

Tips from Harvard
As an escaped business student, I've read the Harvard Business Review for years. Despite the cases, they have some exceptional tips on management and growth. 

It's short and sweet, but Make a plan for professional growth will get you started.

Pearls of wisdom
This article was very appropriate for a couple of folks at the Hotel who just happen to be agitated on the evening shift.

Enjoy!

RehabRN book club

After, I thought about working for an idiot recently I went searching for a few business books and grabbed these two:

The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that Isn't by Robert I. Patton.

This is a nice, little book. If you read quickly, you'll breeze through it in an afternoon lounging. This book piqued my interest since the author was an academic for a while who wrote an article about workplace assholes for a large, conservative business periodical in which they would not use the A-word in the title. I found this quaint and hysterical at the same time.

The book has lots of facts, no figures, but a great story line we can all enjoy: they're out there, so learn to live with them (or learn to make them go away) or get out.

I also got Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace by Davenport, Schwartz and Elliott. It's also a shorter book, so I plan on reading that before I start my classes again and it's grad school nursing every time I want to read something.

More later, so stay tuned.

Customer service?

I really enjoyed Kim's recent post on the patient/client dilemma. Yes, the business world creeps into every little area, including your friendly, neighborhood hospital, and hospitals run by Uncle Sam, like Madison.

So, since I'm nosy (and a former employee in this business sector), I looked around to see what everyone's been talking about for medical and/or hospital-oriented customer service and here's what I found.

First, I went to Google and did a few arbitrary searches and the results are listed below:

• 17,900,000 for hospitals+customer service
• 12,000,000 for hospitals+bad experience
• 18,200,000 for healthcare+customer service
• 453,000 for healthcare+bad experience
• 463,000 for doctor's office+customer service
• 422,000 for doctor's office+bad experience
• As you can see, this is a pretty popular topic.

Next, I went sifting through some of the results. Not surprisingly, some of the searches revealed more articles linked to bad experience than those linked to customer service.

So what was really interesting about these searches? Many are advertisements for training clerical staff. From one newspaper site, Boston area hospitals employed secret shoppers to check on staff on phones and in doctors' offices. Most likely, they are using secret shoppers based on this article from Houston that shows the bottom line for many hospitals is coming down to customer service. If you aren't nice to people in certain areas of the hospital, they won't come back and spend money on their outpatient services.

Finally, the most interesting thing I came across was this article called "What can we learn from Mickey Mouse" which talks about the book "If Disney Ran Your Hospital" by Fred Lee. This article was interesting because even though it is three years old, people are finding it and still commenting on it.

Here are some of the best comments, including one from the author. I think the last one reiterates what I think and what Kim mentions in a nice, little package.

Comment from: Jane RN, MS [Visitor]
Disney does customer service like nobody else, having experienced it myself in '04. Our comfort was their priority. Nothing seemed beyond consideration, and each employee made us feel welcome. "Disney Hospital" patients would feel safe, appreciated, respected, and more at ease. They would rest better, eat better, heal faster, perhaps even leave sooner. How much better things would be if we truly treated them as our guests rather than as interruptions, or a room number needing meds. I've seen it too often. Are we too proud to provide this level of service?

Comment from: Lisa [Visitor] · http://www.hospitalimpact.org
People do not need a book or a Disney staff to teach customer care, what they need is to look at how they'd like to be treated, "do onto others as you would yourself."

Comment from: Fred Lee [Visitor]
Maybe the best way of saying it is – a hospital without compassion is like Disney without fun.

Comment from: 20 yr. RN - (Familiar with butts and stressed family) [Visitor] (NOTE: this is a comment in regard to a person, most likely a nurse (but not identified as such) talking about dealing with butts and obnoxious patients)
It's not about you and what you have to deal with. It is about compassion for others and what they are having to deal with, having a heartfelt desire to provide the best, "CARE," possible to meet their, and yes, their family members needs. It's about having patients/clients and their families leave the hospital knowing their needs where met in an exceptionally professional and caring manner whether the client leaves the hospital by car or by hearse. The intent is not to create an amusement park in a hospital. It is about being patient/client centered in ones thinking rather than being task centered.