Treehugger

I'm treading water, treading, treading, just keep treading.

{gurgle, gurgle}

Please throw me a life preserver, I'm sinkin' here!

Just as a warning, tonight's post is full of onomatopoeia's. BAM!

I'm actually sitting on my deck right now, soaking up the humid 89 degrees on this lovely Monday evening. I love hot weather! After I excused myself from a doctor dinner tonight, I came home at 7 and promptly set up shop on the deck, figuring I'd be productive and accomplish two analyses I was asked to present tomorrow morning.

Nope. So far I've done everything but get started on work.

Tangent! POW!

I decided that I love the expression "wrapping my head around it." I literally picture a brain stretching to accommodate a new object or two arms trying to reach around a tree trunk. Well, I'm still trying to wrap my head around a project I was asked to lead last week (Nurse Starbucks and Therese, sorry for the repeat story here). It's hairy, scary, crazy and I'm still working this out in my head. ZOINKS!

Muppetville's CMO tapped me again and this time, I wasn't able to defend myself! There was a big corporate meeting last week, in which the system execs discussed the upcoming roll out of Epic. Technically, I'm no longer invited to these meetings but have been told I can attend if they pertain to my areas or if something is of burning curiosity to me. Fine. I skipped so I could work on some strategic planning and meet with two core teams involved with our upcoming strategy retreat. Next thing I know, I get an email from the CMO (copying all the ceo's and coo's), thanking me for my help in leading the Epic care continuum project. Huh? How'd I get nominated for that?!

I instantly fought the temptation to either throw up or hide under my desk. I had to close my door, put my head down, and breathe deeply. How in the...? What in the...? HUH? Will someone please tell me what's going on?!??

I reread the email and saw that Elvis nominated me to represent the Chicago hospitals on this Epic team. There are four people total (one from each area of the system) and we are going up to EpicLand to design the clinical workflow and patient care coordination around Epic. Then we come back to the corporate execs' meeting and present our findings (current state versus future state analyses). These people are all Lean Six Sigma black belts with 10-20 years experience. Me? I'm a green belt with one and a half projects under my belt. On the upshot, they're all introverts and I have no problem presenting things to executives. I just know I'm in over my head and while I'm thrilled to be given this opportunity, it's daunting. YOWZA!

{pause as she climbs out from under the desk}

Our former surgery software just plopped itself in the middle of our clinical workflow and disrupted everything, so this process redesign is a good thing. I'm just trying to convince myself that I'll have enough time to devote to it without flipping out too badly. I know I'll flip out, I just hope it's not a terminal case! I'm not ready to go to the looney bin yet. Wait...do they have COOKIES there?

In other news, I've been acting like an administrator today (yes, this is newsworthy). I got a call from the ER when they were stuffed to capacity and had a rowdy (rude) patient making a ruckus in the waiting room. One of my managers called me to ask if she could change out a respirator mask if the ones on supply contract were not working for the department. Then I presented to 40 ER physicians about stroke and answered their questions (you can totally tell if someone is "old school" or "new school" by the types of questions they ask). I met another 15 or so employees in one of my departments this afternoon. And finally, I launched into an unsolicited litany about our legal review process and proposed that we fix it and all Nurse Jackie did was laugh and nod her head frantically. GREAT. Guess who just created another project for herself!?

All in all, I'm hanging in there. After all, I only feel like throwing up 23 times a day now! Wahoo!