Creating Rapid and Innovative Improvements Outside of the Capital Budget

We are off to the National Patient Safety Foundation meeting tomorrow! My colleague, Susan Stinson will be presenting with Aurora Health Care and ISMP on Thursday morning at 10am. The session title is Creating Rapid and Innovative Improvements Outside of the Capital Budget. For anyone interested in signing up last minute, bellow is a little bit about the presentation:

Identifying the impact of the medication distribution systems in the last 100 feet to the patient bedside can be daunting. Hospitals are being asked to make changes in their processes to help drive results and trying to implement improvements at low or no cost is crucial, particularly in these economic times.

Representatives from Aurora Health Care of Wisconsin, the Institute of Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) and AmerisourceBergen are presenting at the National Patient Safety Foundation’s 2009 Patient Safety Congress on May 21^st on “Creating Rapid & Innovative Improvements Outside of the Capital Budget.” The focus will be on making those process improvements in order to optimize technology investments especially in the “last 100 feet” when medications are administered and documented.

A representative from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) will discuss how the most harmful medication errors occur mainly in the administration of the drug – after dispensing. ISMP is a leader in educating the healthcare community in safe medication processes.

Hope to see you there! If not, I will be twittering live at the event to share the key learnings with my tweeple!

Claire

You Wreck Me

I jam out on my way to work in the morning. It wakes me up and gets my feet tapping for the day. Today’s jam out song was “You Wreck Me” by Tom Petty. My husband has seen Petty in concert a few times and he tells me about people flying out of their seats and dancing in aisles as soon as they hear the first few chords. I don’t blame them. I have to all but tie my hands to the steering wheel to keep from playing air guitar as I drive.

After I hit rewind and listened to it a few hundred times, I came up with the bright idea that this should be the Obama administrations theme song. I mean, its perfect…the world is saying:

Rescue me should I go down
If I stay too long in trouble town

If the healthcare industry had an address, I think it wouldn’t be too far from trouble town. There is always hope of moving into a better place, but one can’t just decide they don’t like where they are and move on to greener pastures. We must have a clear idea of where we want to be, how much it costs and if it fits the budget, and if we can all live peacefully there. And then there is the sifting through the junk, throwing out the things that are outdated and useless and finally packing up what works and carrying it with you.

I commend the administration’s effort to get moving on health reform. Trisha Torrey wrote a great piece on understanding healthcare reform. Read more about that at http://patients.about.com/od/patientempowermentissues/a/hcreform-hub.htm.

I can picture the President in his “corduroy pants” with the First Lady saying,

Now and again I get the feeling
Well if I don’t win, I’m gonna break even
Rescue me, should I go wrong
If I dig too deep, if I stay too long

I’d like to take this opportunity and thank the President for his effort and motivation. I’m hoping it doesn’t wreck him because it moves us. It moves us all onto our feet and gets our toes tapping and ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

I believe in my work.

Claire