In the news this week

It's a new year, so lots of things going on. It must be fundraising season, because my alma maters all called me up to say hi...and ask for a big contribution.

The nightmare of rehab hospitals
As a new nurse in an urban rehab hospital, I had a few patients who were not on the hospital registry (aka being on blackout). One in particular stands out. When people called for him/her, they had to give a password to get any sort of information.

For this patient, the spouse who caused the fall that led to rehab called me at least twice asking about him/her without the password. I never gave out any information. The patient recuperated with us and left the state to live with other family members.

I thought of that and someone coming back when I read this article today @nursingpins had in his Twitter feed. Oh, the insanity and the sadness of domestic violence.

On the research front
Some of these folks are seeing promise with spinal cord injury patients regaining lost function. As Martha says, it really IS a good thing, indeed.

Other uses for fruit
My coworker, C., is our wound specialist at the Hotel. She found this gem on staging wounds which compares apples to the different NPUAP wound stages.

And last but not least, Dahey's cousin the psych nurse is cooking around the world. She recently asked about strange looking fruits, so I found the one she was cooking via Google.

Enjoy your week!

Dear Google

I got this nice e-mail below because you have an algorithm that doesn't work.

That's right.

I only link to products I actually use so people know what I'm talking about.

I don't sell space or advertise. Whatever shows up here, shows up because you make it pop up in your templates, or I put it in myself for illustration.

Consequently, I'm not removing any Allegro Medical links to any old posts I've made.

You and your engineers need to fix the problem.

Good luck! I love Blogger and have been here for years. Hope your efforts are fruitful.

Yours truly,

RehabRN

======================================================================

Subject: A question about a link pointing to Allegromedical.com

Hi

Hi

My name is Marie Haynes and I am working with AllegroMedical.com.

Unfortunately AllegroMedical has been given an unnatural links penalty from Google and as a result is not ranking well on Google. We are writing to you because your site links to ours and we would like to have this link removed (or nofollowed). Please know that this is no reflection on the quality of your website. Our unnatural links penalty was not given because of spammy linkbuilding but rather because we have placed too many self made links.

This looks to Google like an attempt to manipulate their search results as they only want naturally earned links to be counting towards PageRank.

Here is one or more example of a link from your site that points to ours:

http://rehabrn.blogspot.com/2009/08/life-and-death.html

If you need a full list of links from your site to ours then please let me know.

Also, if you feel that you yourself placed this link and no one from this website was involved in its creation then please let me know and we will keep it up and tell Google that this was not a self-made link.

Thank you,

Marie Haynes

HISWebMarketing.com

Specializing in Google Penalties

If you want driving tips...

And search Google for them, most of them will be from lawyers like this one.

My shopping list was ready, and as I'm getting ready to head on out the door to our country lane, I hear a loud pop.

Turns out someone took a left into someone else at the intersection. Nice.

More excitement to come...

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.

Nuggets for October 1

Here are a few goodies I've encountered on my meanderings on the internet recently. Enjoy!

From the blogosphere...
Hell on White Clogs had this crazy scenario involving Google and residents on fhe floor of one unit. All I have to say is...I'd have to say no to that cath if I didn't see the "real doc" with experience, thank you very much!

ImpactEDnurse had this post about helminth therapy...ugh! I think I'll have to show my allergist this one. I'd be scratching my eyes out, too.

Code blog has this story of the Bigger Picture. Oh, yes, I go there so many times. What do they not understand?

Out in news land...
The Chicago Tribune had this recent article about ways to combat compassion fatigue (aka burnout) among nurses.

The NY Times is running a special section called Decoding Your Health. In today's installment the author discusses using the internet to get medical information. I particularly like this line, "The goal is to find an M.D., not become one."

TV station KTTC of Rochester, MN ran this article about nurse practitioners recently on their web site. It also points out that Nurse Practioner Week is November 9th through the 15th.

NursingLink has this article about avoiding back injuries, which is a good thing, no matter what type of setting.

A subject near and dear to a rehab nurse's heart...bowel routines. Since it was recently National Rehabilitation Awareness Week, this article discusses how one Delaware hospital works with patients to relieve constipation.