Monday, May 28, 2012

Heal this broken body. Cut grass.

Check out this post by Dr. Susan Shaw from the Saskatoon Health Region.  It presents a compelling story, worth reading about the goals established by one of her patients.  She relates:

On Saturday morning I came in to the ICU and started rounds. When I entered Mrs. C’s room, her daughter jumped up with excitement and said, “Look at what Mom wrote for you!”  She showed me a piece of paper on a clipboard, with two goals written in somewhat shaky writing.

Here's Susan's summation:

The daily goals I set with my team focus on the medical management: a negative fluid balance, a specific level of wakefulness, followup with a pathology report, moving to the next step on the ICU mobility protocol.

These goals are important. They provide direction for the ICU nurses and therapists. But they aren’t inspirational or motivational. They are simply small steps that must be taken to get us to what really matters: the goals set by our patients.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,

I am looking for information/studies/opinions on the lack of studies/transparency regarding hospitals being too top admin heavy. THere are enormous cost savings that could be realized if the admin was streamlined.

Are you aware of any bloggers I can talk to or any studies in this area?

A literature search (surprisingly) shows nothing. Can I contact you if you are able to help? if so, contact info? thanks

Paul Levy said...

Roy Poses often write about his at http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com. Email = roy_poses [at] brown [dot] edu.