Tricks not treats

Lots of bugaboos on this Halloween Monday at work. Technical difficulties galore and a small fire right when I had patients scheduled for appointments. Thankfully, when I called our local help desk, I was #22 in line, but my call was answered by a real person in about 10 minutes. All the rest of the callers must have given up.

I went on to my afternoon assignment at Washington and stopped by Starbucks to celebrate with a Frappula Frappucino and extra espresso.

Sugar and caffeine might not solve the world's problems, but they helped make mine seem like it went by faster.

Hope you enjoy whatever is left of your day, wherever you are!

Technical difficulties, please stand by

This is the story of my life. Had I not lived one already in tech, I'd be crying every night. One step forward, two steps back. This place isn't the 'market leader' it used to be...at least not at the Hotel.

Contemplating a different sort of rehab spot for the future if this doesn't get any better. I tell myself everyday I'll give our new boss one year in the job before I move, but at the rate it's going, I may just move early (like him/her, hate the BS).

To be continued...

The answer: send someone a letter

I had a day yesterday that (again) questioned my faith in the leadership of the Hotel at the very tip top. The root cause: BS plain and simple.

How in Hades do we have people (with credit to do so) purchase equipment, tell everyone "go out and get some patients to use it" then suddenly drop it? This happens (of course) once you get the ninnies at your location to buy in. When asked late last week, when I went to order and couldn't find a gadget available, I got an e-mail that said "Well, we don't know if we'll have money next year to continue this" as some very valuable pieces of equipment sit unused on people's desks throughout the system as a totem of "Look what I have..this cool gadget!" As such, these "gadgets" which are really FDA approved health care tools, do nothing for patients.

I know they work. Some of my patients have them. I got them through a loophole, which I willingly followed policy and procedure TO THE LETTER to get. They are making a difference in the lives of these people. I see it on a regular basis. Some of our people were back and forth to the Hotel several times in a year. Guess what? One character hasn't been back in six months (and counting). Another is over four months and we haven't readmitted him/her.

When I asked our technical gurus (who have way more experience with this sort of shenanigans) what I should do, the answer was "write a letter to someone who can do something about it". The consequences of doing that, could very well cost me my job.

But after years of waiting, working, busting butt for things that turn to vapor, I'm just about there.

Will be writing, editing, and thinking very carefully this week about that very thing...

Stay tuned.

Learning every day

I tell my patients and other nurses that I learn something new every day. Lately, it's been very true. So many things in my life, at home and at work are precipitating the changes. I'm hoping they are all for the better.

While I'll never become a maternal/child nurse, I learned about STABLE the other day from one of my e-mail groups I belong to related to technology. This course is provided virtually for those nurses who are in rural areas who cannot attend in person, due to time or expense.

I'm learning more than I ever wanted to know about some new technologies. Just because it's expensive, doesn't always mean it will work. A long, arduous task was made harder. However, I shouldn't complain. I have a technical guy with a lot of history, who can figure out just about anything. I am extremely lucky.

I have to remind myself of that very fact, too. I am lucky to be able to learn so much.

More later...

Sometimes you're the windshield...

And sometimes, you're the bug, as the song says. Nevertheless, it's Friday and I survived.

It was a busy week punctuated by technical difficulties, rascally coworkers, and stressed out providers who bark orders at you, then apologize later (after you've got a nice case of indigestion).

That was just my side of the house in the beauty of the old, untouched, 70s era Hotel. The new, renovated part of the Hotel is shiny, and the infection control nurse is worried about me. "If you don't have a sink in there where you see patients, what are you going to do?"

Turns out I do have a sink, since I use a clinic room that has one. Problem averted. He/she makes me nervous since one of the therapists tried putting the popcorn machine used by the volunteer group in my clinic room. "No dice." I told the therapist. "We have to move it or it will be confiscated." Thankfully, we found a couple of legal spots for the machine in the renovated Hotel section down the hall. Yes, we'll have to walk, but it has its own spot ensconced next to the nutrition refrigerator.

There was sadness, too. One of our very sick patients got back home and died the other day. He was a sort I wasn't sure would get out of the Hotel. He was elderly and got sick while he was over for his annual check-up. He just bounced back and forth for a while. I was happy to see he was up and motoring around with his wife, who became a minor celebrity on the unit when she was featured in a newspaper story about our town before he left us. They never did hold that "autograph session" I was always teasing them about in the lobby, since we have a paper box nearby.

Godspeed Mr. V.  You fought the good fight. We'll miss you and your "famous" wife, too.

Technical difficulties...

Please stand by. Unfortunately, I'd like to be the only person standing by...not the tech people because standing around is just not going to work.

Maybe we're too logical...

Nursing practices and current trends

It surely sounds like I'm ready to go into an infomercial, doesn't it? No, I just got out of my state's "What's new in nursing" continuing education class recently.


The first part of it was, "Here's what YourStateNursingAssociation is doing in the Legislature", which is often very dry. When they started going over how a bill turns into law which turns into nursing practice, I had to imbibe in my highly caffeinated soda, since I got sleepy. Thankfully, we got a break right after this part.


After the break, we had the biggest, most rousing part of the seminar--the use of Propofol and nursing section. I almost felt like I was in the new Harry Potter movie, since the presenter and some others referenced "the recent case" (about Michael Jackson), but they never said any names. This issue is a big deal, not just for nurses, but also for physicians who use this drug. Just reading the package insert opens up a whole new world of liability if CRNA is not after your name in the right setting. Lots of ERs in our state are using this for small procedures, like dislocated shoulders, bone setting and stabilization, etc.

We also had fun stuff, too. A collegue of one of my mentors in nursing school gave a presentation on electronic records which was really cool, especially the one that compared drug prices for patients in our area. The disparity was glaring. Atenolol 20mg in one county was $3 for 30 days and in another section of the same county, $30. There were a couple of glitches in the presentation, as happens with just about anything technical. It would have been even more interesting if all of the government websites she referenced were actually working. I guess those pesky hackers are still loose!

Outside of that, I'm still taming the paperwork monster. I'm starting to view our paperwork queen for scholarships as Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde. One day, it's one thing, the next day another. I'm not sure why Paperwork queen wants all this stuff now, when I was told to wait for a cold day in the hereafter mere weeks ago, but I'm pushing the paper back and forth as fast as I can. They must have unearthed some money somewhere, somehow...and I'm not questioning it.

And school starts in a few weeks....and I already have homework. I'm so glad vacation is coming soon.

More later...