Wish List

Summer's great. Get's you outdoors, reminds you there's a life beyond work. Makes it harder to "blog" (...and I know that'll make some people happy! Cheers to them!)

There was a column last week in the Denver Post by Cal Thomas...not ususally a totally inspiring writer/thinker...but this piece deserves some attention. It was titled "Focus on the Patients"
and it was talking about a documentary on Public Television by Lloyd Dobyns about "Systems Thinking". When applied to hospital settings, systems thinking "..is not focused on reducing staff, reducing costs, or improving profits." Instead, everything is focused on the patients. "..as you focus on the patients, all the other things occur naturally. You want to help the hospital? Help the patients." Thomas says "In hospitals where systems thinking is used, health care costs have been reduced by as much as half.

I wish that our administration would at least make an attempt to really re-think the prevailing management "style" (process? method?), best characterized by "ignore it and it will go away"; perhaps they could use the PBS documentary to inspire them...perhaps we all could. I suggest the Director acquire a copy and play it at the next Director's Forum...start a good discussion...come up with some ideas for real change. Even I am beginning to get bored with just complaining...can't we actually improve something for once????!!!

Meanwhile, while I'm wishing, I wish Facilities Management would PLEASE turn on the sprinklers in the patient courtyard on T1, where what used to be grass is now dirt and straw. That would certainly be a patient centered thing to do. It is, after all, the only outside space many of these patients are allowed to inhabit for weeks on end. For years, it has been a pleasant, grassy area where volley-ball, or other outdoor activities could be held...for some reason, this year, there's been zero water applied and it's a really disgraceful excuse for a patient area.

And, oh what the heck, while I'm wishing: I wish that the hospital followed it's own grievance policy. The policy is spelled out prominently on every grievance form; it describes 4 steps, each to occur 7 days after the previous one. In actual practice, at least 3 grievances that I have personal knowledge of, got to step two and stopped....in spite of protests from the grievers, requesting that they proceed to the next step...it makes patients and staff feel that there is, in fact, no formal method for dealing with issues as they arrive. The grievance procedure, (written policy nothwithstanding) is just another exercise in frustration leading to cynicism and culminating in, among other dysfunctional gestures, the "blog" - where these matters become a public disgrace, instead of a private one.

Just to round out the wish list, I wish the State of Colorado would offer to take care of those whose personal identities were compromised in the same way the Office of Veterans Affairs has done. The VA is paying to have the victims credit info monitored...so far, our State Government has offered it's victims nothing at all...it's not clear to me that anybody's even said "sorry".

Now, who do I give this wish list to, I wonder...is there a Madhouse Fairy? A Santa?...Harold? Shinning Elmer?

.....Steve?
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Summer On, bloggers!!

There are new comments at least on the last post...have lost track a little...there was good one on an earlier post, too...egad. Dahlias are distracting.