Holiday weekend thoughts

"The more we assign the soldiering to a select few volunteers—we don’t have an equalizing draft and there is no required national service—perhaps the easier it is to forget what it means to share a common citizenship or feel a sense of indebtedness or appreciation. If we no longer share in the service, risk and obligation, maybe that explains why many of us no longer observe Memorial Day."

This is a quote from John Bussey's worthwhile assessment on why Memorial Day needs to be more than a day off or shopping.

I do believe that we are living in troubled times, and unfortunately, the sacrifices aren't shared.

I hope you have time to reflect this holiday weekend. I know I will.

More later...

They are reasons for everything

(This is a public service announcement)

There are reasons why you really need to know what you are eating, drinking or taking as a supplement.

Diet supplement has meth-like chemical (from www.cnn.com)

Reason one: dietary supplements are not regulated by the FDA like drugs are.

Reason two: you could develop horrific side effects or worse.

I've always wanted to lose more weight, but I'm just not going to try meth (or anything meth-like) anytime soon.

The risks (and nasty side effects) are just too great.

That is all.

Thank you.

Taking some advice

Mondays are a blast at the Hotel. I'm always in for a surprise or two. Today's menu included:

1. Two pieces of equipment down. Guess who got to resolve their issues...me! Why? We were short tech folks today.

2. I get the call, "you need to go to xx clinic". No biggie. Was going over that way anyway. Since most of their patients are on holiday (or just didn't bother to schedule an appointment), it was dead slow, which gave me plenty of time to talk to the nursing supervisor, etc.

3. While I was at a meeting today, one of the docs told me, "Haven't you toughed out that cold long enough? I think it's time for a Z-pack." Off I go at lunch to call my PCP.

4. I miss an afternoon meeting. Why? Well, a patient who just needed "one little thing done" stayed for an hour. I couldn't resolve his issue, so he called two 800 numbers and then one transferred him three times until he got someone who took his info and will have to call him back.

I wasn't too upset on the last one. That would have been one meeting too many today.

And finally, I got to call our clerk to figure out where one patients ride was. It seems he/she called earlier, but had been roaming around waiting for the ride to no avail. I left and they still hadn't come.

So I gave the patient the ombudsman number and directions to the nurses' station, so they would make sure he/she was off without a hitch.

Tomorrow, thankfully, is another day. And so it goes...

Stay tuned!

For all our veterans today

Thank you for your service and for all those who have paid the ultimate price...because freedom is not free.

You fought, you served

And in my appreciation, I do my job wrangling paper and every administrative mess, to get you in here to get you what you need. Especially you, Mr. Z. The delight on your face (and your family member) today made me so happy, even though I had people not show up yet again.

So I bid a comrade farewell...RIP Dick Winters.
Every year the band of brothers grows smaller, but rest assured, we will carry on serving you on yet another day in the Hotel. Because we must.



More to come...stay tuned.

A week to remember

It's been a different sort of life working in the SU and in a way, I'm grateful. For the most part, it's quiet and reasonably paced. This past week, however, has been crazy.

The ineptitude of our unit secretary is coming out in the form of the MD's schedule. I've found errors and have been working to correct them, but not much has been done, since the replacement isn't much better. They just do not comprehend how to take care of patients and keep a day moving. It is a whole lot of non-nursing work, done by nursing staff. So when I complain to my boss, the answer is to talk to the administrative head, who manages the  secretaries assigned to each unit.  Fun.

Finally, to top it all off, the nurse manager told us she's leaving next month for another unit in the complex. She's been in our area for her entire career. It will certainly be a change. The troops at the Hotel were stunned today. "Who will lead us?" they cried. Not a single volunteer from the old timers, either. It will be an interesting time. Thank goodness no one's asking me. I would need to have that last MegaMillions salary to take a nurse management job at the Hotel with our motley crew!

May have to get my walking boots on once this assignment in the SU is complete. I see bedlam coming...more so than usual.

Stay tuned...exciting times are coming up around the bend.

Bittersweet

Coming back to the Hotel made me feel that way yesterday.

Bitter: Oh, the boss was bitter and it was obvious. We had a meeting and he/she was really going. Never saw a boss quite as shaken as that. And...we're getting Press-Ganeys...what joy!

The lecture is a no-brainer, but unfortunately, the people who need to hear it were absent for one reason or another. Maybe he/she should send them an e-mail so they can read about it.

Thankfully, while my boss was perturbed, he/she was nothing like my team mate's boss. Said boss is in proceedings to get her fired for a trumped up charge and is playing the hellion with the rest of the staff. Note: this is a brand new nurse manager. Said NM was told that he/she had to be a manager to get advanced to the next level. Nothing like breaking the troops once they're under your command. Mutiny, anyone?

Sweet: Got to see that some of our long-term patients went home. Got to talk to people getting ready to go home who are absolutely excited. Three to four people will be leaving the Hotel in the next four days. Sure, we'll get more, but we'll just have to wait and see.

My classes finished. Hooray!  All assignments and evaluations complete, which now leaves me time to pursue other fun things like writing, housework and redecorating.

More later...

Miracles never cease

The Slug got through his/her required customer service ninja training (I'm not kidding...) as a customer service leader.

WTF? Was he/she in charge of answering the phone?

When life hands you lemons....

This lady has made lemonade (see this photo). There have been a lot of stories in the news lately about service animals and schools (for more, see this CDC page), but this was the best one I've seen yet. Occasionally, we see a patient or two with a service dog on our unit.

Hope she has a big office with a nice park or something outside where she can walk with her friend at lunch.

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.