All of The Above

Okay, so I know we’re all feeling it - tension, stress - all of the above.

I too have been feeling the pressure… for me it’s mostly a numbers game. The health benefits we provide to our employees has increased a whopping $800,000 and our reimbursement from insurance companies and the state has either remained flat or decreased; between the 2010 CSH budget and the continuing battles over health care reform - it has been a tough couple of months and as you can relate, it’s hard to stay focused.

I was asked to participate in a panel discussion at the national NACHRI conference last week about how health care reform impacts kids with special needs. I was going to be on a panel with 3 other hospital CEO's and they told me I could do a brief overview and we would open it up for questions. I figured, I can do this in my sleep. I have been living it, breathing it, it will be a no brainer.

So imagine my surprise when I realized the intimate panel discussion was not so intimate but before the ENTIRE NACHRI MEETING and not a break out session that I had thought. Not 40 people in the room but 400 people. We all know I’m a type A personality and something like this just floored me.

In the end the presentation went fine, I made them laugh, made them cry. And of course I told them about the amazing work you do with our kids and why it is so important. I put a face on our story telling them about a little boy who was never going to live a “normal” life who is now fully mainstreamed and has more dates than I do!

Has that happened to you? Please, tell me that I’m not alone here. Have you been distracted, doing too much, trying to get it all in and you realize that you are flying by the seat of your pants?

Let's break the ice a little and share your stories… You don’t have to post your name, just share a laugh.

Concerns About Meditech

It is hard to believe October is here already. There has been so much going on at Children’s Specialized and with federal health care reform it doesn’t really feel like we had much of a summer "break."

Here at home, I’m hearing a lot of concern from employees about Meditech. The issues are two fold.

First, I am hearing that people are just uncertain. Will the system work as well as what we have now? What happens if it doesn’t work? We don’t have enough time to practice before we go live. It is never going to happen.

Let’s all take a deep breath. There is a lot of information to take in and many hours of training. But just like anything else, you only master a new skill when you are working with it everyday. All the practice in the world doesn’t replace the real time process.

It is important to remember that we used our finest clinicians from Children's Specialized to customize the drop down fields and made the modifications necessary to suit our special needs.

Is everything going to be perfect day one? No. Nothing in this world works that way.

We will have our bumps but the test of both an individual and an organization is how we perform when trouble arises. In this organization, time and time again, we have risen to the occasion through a thoughtful, practical process. This is exactly what we do with the kids we serve. We identify the problem. We develop a plan and we will fix it. There won't be finger pointing that says “you should have anticipated this” or “you should have done it better.” That isn't part of our values and that isn't who we are.

Will we be scared and frustrated over the coming weeks? Sure, but we need to remember the pay offs. The ability for all of our systems to speak to each other will allow us provide our patients with the highest quality of care.

For example, Meditech will allow an outpatient therapist to access a patient’s records and see the actual doctor's notes or what the child’s goals were as an inpatient. This type of immediate access to crucial information is huge. Let alone having everything in one place for the insurance authorization, coding and billing.

Secondly, the automation will give people the thing that we all want more of - time. A therapist recently shared with me that she is most excited about using Meditech because she will “have her life back,” so she doesn’t have to do her notes at home any more.

Let's all agree to keep the lines of communication open. We know there will be pitfalls and we will figure it out together and our work productivity, process and performance will be much better as we move forward.

I’d like to ask employees to share their comment, excitement and even concerns for using this new aplication. Please leave comments below.

One favor to ask of you. This week marks my first set of employee meetings for Fall 2009. I have updates on our corporate goals, updates on the Meditech project, federal health care reform and other strategic plan objectives.

Are there other things you would like me to cover? Please let me know – shoot me an email. Also, check our intranet for the employee meeting schedule.

Looking forward to seeing each of you at the employee meetings.

Amy