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A tale of patient advocacy

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We have two little dogs. Pepe is a 10 year old Shih Tzu/poodle and Coco is an 8 year old Shih Tzu /Bichon.  Pepe had been getting frailer and weaker throughout the Fall months. IMG_2946 (002) waiting at the bus stop

We thought this might be her last year with us. But her blood work in November showed that she has a thyroid problem.  She now gets a daily medication and has more energy and no longer sleeps most of the day. The name Pepe (as in peppy) is fitting her again.

She had also been losing weight and getting very thin. So, we started her on canned food. Maybe she had  a problem with the dry food she has always eaten. Or maybe Coco, who is dominant, wasn’t letting her get to the food dish. What dog or cat doesn’t love canned food??? Pepe loves it and has been gaining weight. While my husband and I are still getting used to that nasty moment when you first open the can of wet food, we do it because we love her and want her to gain weight and get strong. It’s working.

When we recently took Pepe to the vet to deal with a digestive problem, the vet found she had a broken tooth and the area around it was inflamed. She would need surgery to have it pulled. That happened this week and all is well. She is even back to eating treats that take some chewing. In hindsight, the broken tooth could have been the reason she stopped eating the dry food.

Animals can’t talk or “use their words” as we tell small children, so it’s hard to know when something is wrong. And it’s hard to know the interconnections between all these issues. Continue reading →

HIMSS17 – It’s a wrap

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There could be as many different wrap-ups on HIMSS17 as there were people there – over 42,000. No one sees the same vendor exhibits, hears the same presenters, or talks to the same people. There are HIMSS17 sign ver 2conferences within conferences. So here’s just one wrap-up – mine.

The first speaker I heard did a great job of scaring all the CIO’s. Kevin Mitnick, the world’s most famous hacker and security consultant, and author of several books including his most recent one, The Art of Invisibility, was the opening keynote at the CIO Forum on Sunday. His talk, “The Art of Deception: How Hackers and Con Artists Manipulate You and What You Can Do About It”, included real-time demonstrations. He drove home the point about how vulnerable we are as individuals and organizations.  I highly recommend checking out his website to learn more or get scared yourself.

Dr. B.J. Miller was the final speaker at the CIO forum. His talk, “What Really Matters at the End of Life”, was a very sobering view of palliative and hospice care yet strangely inspiring at the same time. As he said, “Spending time thinking about your time on the planet while you have time is important – don’t wait.” I highly recommend listening to his Ted Talk with this same title.

I have been asked to serve on the CHIME Education Foundation Board again so Monday morning meant a board meeting. Continue reading →

Countdown to HIMSS17 – Part 3: Networking

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The countdown to HISS17 is in the final days. As I wrote the past two weeks, the best way to think about your prep for HIMSS17 is in three ways – education, vendors, and networking. This post is the last in a canstockphoto6370084three-part series – focusing on networking. It has to be the last, you’ve probably finalized your schedule for education and vendors. Now, you’re thinking about what to pack at this point. For us Northerners that means pulling out some summer like clothes and shoes – I’m looking forward to that part!

Have you been to HIMSS conferences before and know tons of people in the industry? If so, networking is probably not an issue for you. Are you relatively new to HIMSS conferences and want to make a lot of new connections? If yes, then this post might be useful.

I know a few things about networking.  After all, one of my daughters’ nicknames for me is the “network queen”. Here are some tips to consider:

Scheduled receptions and meetups – There are plenty of these including an orientation for first time attendees, opening reception for all attendees, local chapter events, vendor receptions, and topic focused Continue reading →

Countdown to HIMSS17 – Part 2: Vendors

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The countdown to HISS17 continues. As I wrote last week, the best way to think about it is in three ways – education, vendors, and networking. This post is the second in a three-part series – focusing on vendors.canstockphoto10546354

If you already registered, you have been inundated with vendor emails and snail mail since then. The ginormous exhibit hall beckons when you get to Orlando. So how do you make the vendor aspect of HIMSS17 as productive as you can?

Here are some tips to consider based on many years of navigating the exhibit floor:

Meeting with your current vendors – I’ve talked with colleagues in the past who always start here. They schedule meetings in advance or stop by just to say hello at all their primary vendors’ booths. I never fully understood this. Maybe I was a CIO in an organization with mostly internally developed systems for too long. You can connect with your primary vendors throughout the year so do you really have to spend a lot of time with them at HIMSS? It’s up to you and your specific needs and issues. If you want to see the Continue reading →

Countdown to HIMSS17 – Part 1: Education

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The countdown to HIMSS17 is on. It’s less than 3 weeks and if you’re anything like me, you’ve not figured out your HIMSS schedule yet. You’re getting those emails from HIMSS and vendors about what to do. canstockphoto20735537And you’re starting to see the “HIMSS preview” type articles in your favorite publications.

As the conference website says – 5 days | 300 session | 1,200 exhibitors | 45,000 colleagues. It’s as overwhelming as it sounds.

The best way to think about it is in three ways – education, vendors, and networking. This post is the first of a three-part series – focusing on education. After all, you’re paying a hefty registration fee and travel expenses so you should get some education time in, right? It’s not just about the massive exhibit hall and seeing all your friends in the industry!

Bottom line, you need a strategy and a focus. No more getting a big thick conference book to page through in advance – it’s all online for you to peruse and develop your plan. The conference website has education organized by topics, professional roles, specialty education, and types of session.

Here are some tips as you plan your education at HIMSS17: Continue reading →

Cuban healthcare, an emphasis on prevention

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You will be hearing a lot about Cuba after the death of Fidel Castro. I am certainly not an expert on Cuba, but I learned a lot about the country and its people recently on an 8-day Road Scholar tour. canstockphoto21968575And I was particularly interested in learning about their healthcare system.

“I wanted to see and experience Cuba before it drastically changes with American influence and investment”. That was the sentiment from many of our fellow travelers.

The trip was called “People and Society: Cienfuegos to Havana”. It included day trips to Trinidad and Santa Clara plus a stop at the Bay of Pigs on our way to Havana. Everywhere we went, we experienced the cultural arts first hand – music and dance from young grade school age students to seniors well into their 80’s. We heard a chamber orchestra and saw a contemporary dance show.

We heard lectures on history, politics, and religion as well as how Cuban millennials view the  future. We learned how negatively the U.S. embargo has impacted the people of Cuba. And how they want the embargo fully lifted but with future U.S. investments and development managed.

We had a chance to sit and talk for an hour with a young man who works in a telecom job in health care. I asked about electronic health records and he said they are in the process of implementing a system they have developed.

When I got home and caught up on my email, I learned that a 15-member delegation of healthcare executives visited Cuba while we were there. That delegation was led by former HHS Secretary and Governor Mike Leavitt, and included Dr. David Blumenthal, former National Coordinator at ONC and Stephen Lieber, HIMSS president and CEO. Stephen wrote an insightful blog on the experience. The delegation was a mix of vendor, consulting and provider executives who had gone to see the Cuban healthcare delivery system up close. Continue reading →

Forward together

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Like many, I am surprised and disappointed at the outcome of the presidential election. From some of my previous posts the past few years, there’s probably no question about my political leanings. canstockphoto10854745

A new message of “forward together” is needed now more than ever. Only half of all eligible voters voted on Tuesday. Half of them voted for Donald Trump and half for Hillary Clinton. She got more popular votes. But that means only one fourth of the country elected our next president. He will need to be a president for all of us.

A dark cloud has hung over us during an incredibly divisive and bitter campaign with often hateful language and bullying behaviors. We may have been afraid to talk to co-workers or neighbors or family members in fear they may support the other candidate and we did not want to have to debate with them. People on both sides felt this way.

Hillary Clinton’s speech to her staff on Wednesday had many important and inspiring messages as we move forward as a country. I encourage you to find the speech online to gain some perspective and to renew your hope for the future.

I watched her speech with my husband and the general contractor on our outside house project. He and his crew have been working here for several weeks on a major redo project – new patio, landscape and fence. They are a nice group of guys and we chat each day. But we consciously never brought up the election.

The general contractor needed to talk to us about a change order so came into the house Wednesday morning. He saw we were not in a good mood and asked who we had supported. He told us he voted for Trump. Bottom line, he thought a change was needed but admitted that he couldn’t defend a lot of what Trump said on the campaign trail. We debated a bit but it was civil.

He said he wanted to see Hillary’s speech when it came on. I went outside and got him when it was time. He sat in our living room with one of our dogs on his lap and watched. I sat behind him in the kitchen with tears. He thanked us for letting him come in and watch and said she made some great points. I told him that I did it with a big heart. Continue reading →

Adventure in a new city

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A year ago, I suggested to my husband that I would consider doing a series of interim CIO engagements. He is a retired minister and does a lot of volunteer projects for the denomination and ministers associationcanstockphoto20995234 – all from his home office. So he was supportive. His view was we’ll just have an adventure in a new city. We’d bring the dogs with, stay in an apartment and go home to check on our house once a month. That was a great working assumption.

The first interim opportunity was at University Hospitals in Cleveland, which was a great location to start this plan!  It’s just a short 3-hour drive from our home in Ann Arbor. But then we relocated from Michigan to Rhode Island in order to be near family so things didn’t work out quite as we planned. There was way too much work in Michigan to sell and move out of our house; on the other end way too much work to find a house and move into it. So I’ve spent many weeks in Cleveland on my own without my soulmate to have those new city adventures with.

But in the past 8 months, we got to know Cleveland as best we could and it’s truly been a fun adventure! Some of the highlights to pass on to our new CIO who has relocated to Cleveland from Iowa and anyone planning to visit: Continue reading →

Being in between – part 2

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My husband and I are as in between as anyone who has ever done a long distance move.  Our possessions are on a truck somewhere between Ann Arbor, Michigan and Providence, Rhode Island. canstockphoto0356593Stuffed into our cars is everything that can’t or shouldn’t go on the moving truck.

This is the fifth long distance move we’ve done together and we hope, the last. We are headed back to New England, the part of the country where we wanted to end up.

I will continue working at University Hospitals in Cleveland during the week as the interim CIO until we hire a new permanent CIO but my home base now shifts east.

We made some close friends in a few short years in Michigan. We did a long goodbye with them on weekends over the past few months. And we promised to continue what we started by keeping in touch any way we can.  We issued an open invitation to our guest room.

We started this move in March getting our house ready for market. We thought (and hoped) we’d sell quickly. Instead, we found ourselves buying in a hot market where houses were gone before we could see them but selling in a slower market. Once again we’ve learned that you can’t count on the market being in your favor.

As we packed and purged, we found goods that others could use and filled the cars with donations. We donated lots of clothes in good shape but in sizes we’ll never see again. This included business clothes that women needing a fresh start can use for interviews and getting back into the workforce.

I’ve once again learned about making tradeoffs and letting go. Continue reading →

2 years later

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With this post, I’ve reached a key milestone – 100 published posts in 2 years of blogging. I have maintained my discipline of writing a weekly post except for one or two vacation breaks and a short gap canstockphoto13207113as I migrated to a new hosting service earlier this year.

With over 650 regular subscribers and more than 52,000 views to date, my writing is reaching a wide audience. In addition, many of my blogs are re-published on various health IT online sites for an even greater reach. And I’ve been named to various social media influencer lists. Knowing that I’m having a positive impact is what keeps me finding the time to write each week.

The most read blog was “New year, next chapter“.  Many people were interested in the professional and personal transition I was making in leaving the University of Michigan Health System. I decided to go on my own offering consulting, coaching and interim management so I could live near my daughters and grandchildren. I also wanted more flexibility in my life at this stage in my career. Many colleagues have said they are watching me and hope to learn from me as they reach a similar stage in their career.

As the interim CIO at University Hospitals in Cleveland, I have had plenty of new topics to cover, similar yet different from my previous experience. In my first four months, I’ve written about IT governance, lean, innovation, customer service and project ownership. Continue reading →