They don’t teach you that in nursing school!

Continuing in our series on the roll-out of BIDMC SPIRIT, here are comments made by participants in the most recent training session in response to these questions posed by Dr. Ken Sands, our SVP for Health Care Quality:

“What about SPIRIT and the training works? What needs to work better? What should BIDMC do differently?”

One of the things that works best about is having other disciplines see what other disciplines do. The old saying “walk a mile in another person’s shoes.” I think a lot of us are coming away with a lot of renewed respect for what other people do around here. And it’s ok that it’s managers doing it, but it would be key for front line staff to do too.

I’d like to see more MD involvement. I know some have been coming through. Is there a plan to accelerate?

Do you have a place where everyone who has been through training is listed?

How do we encourage front line staff to use this? Managers and supervisors are familiar with it. We had staff meetings and talked about it but I’m not sure it’s gotten out there enough.

I haven’t seen much of this in the area where I work. Pre-SPIRIT, I was told how to reach out for some guidance on making improvements. One time, it was very successful. Another time, with another kind of problem, I had someone in my office two days later yelling at me. I’m not sure there’s a clear enough structure for this yet where I work so I hope it can continue to be strengthened.

Is there a way for the log to drop an e-mail to a manager who’s been named in the help chain?

We have been problem solving in our area, but not following through to enter on the log. But we’ll follow through and log it now that I’m reminded of the value to others.

We have noticed that when you are on the screen of one of the problems, the number is not visible. You have to go back out of the problem and then find it again, which can be hard (require a search or scrolling if it’s not one of the newest problems). It would be very helpful if the number could be displayed on the problem screen.

I found this concept so affirming. I have been a staff member for 15 years. I can’t tell you how many thousands of times I have become vaguely aware of how frustrated I was getting, but I had absolutely no way of doing anything about it. I want to tell you how moved I am that the institution wants to do this for us. It’s basically about how our day is. How do you mobilize people to do this, like you were asking? Tell them this if for us! I am the kind of person who has to process things, so I’ll have to return to the materials, but some of the tools that are shared like the activities and pathway principles – those are news to me. I’ll use them in my own life. They don’t teach you that in nursing school!