One of my favorite television shows is Sunday Morning on CBS. Yesterday, they did a story about text messaging and related this societal obsession to the Laputians in “Gullivers Travels”, the classic novel by Jonathan Swift. According to Gulliver, the Laputians are
“always in such deep thought that they have to employ special servants to alert them when there is something worth seeing or hearing or when a response is needed”- http://tiny.cc/PoI9s
I thought about my own “deep thoughts” around medication process and realized that I too can get tunnel vision sometimes. There are so many other ways that organizations can address medication safety. Things like driving greater consistency in medication decisions for one.
Aligning the drug formulary and medication policies with industry best practices can standardize products and processes that result in safer, more cost-effective care. Also, you can provide ways for medications to be monitored and managed with greater accuracy.
Most importantly, we can all step out of our heads for a minute and look at the environment around us. The Lean Blog posted some great thoughts around this subject last week http://www.leanblog.org/2009/05/you-learn-lot-just-by-watching-then.html.
Maybe we shouldn’t think too “laputiously” about this – it is after all, simple observations that can bring significant ideas. Hopefully, we all won’t need special servants to remind us to pay attention to our environment. Say, like “Microsoft outlook meeting reminder”.
OOPS!!! Gotta go!
I believe in my work.
Claire
