I felt the need to write tonight. I’ve been writing in various forums over the last several weeks, but not so much on the blog here. Today sucked. In a weird, makes-you-look-at-things-harder sort of way and in that unique way where something great rises from the ashes. I feel like the little tugboat we spotted off the coast of Cozumel while on the cruise ship a while back.
That doesn’t mean I like it.
For one, budget workbooks for the 2013 fiscal year close at midnight tonight. Enter numerous managers and directors, huddled in their offices, streaming the Pandora Adele channel while they try to cut another 10% in staffing and overall expenses. Each person I called this evening, I could hear little snippets of some after-hours radio. It seems appropriate that budget time ushers in some Stones and White Snake.
What the heck? Why not?
So amidst the budgets, I have a massive Epic (our electronic medical record) go-live on Monday. I have superb managers in those areas and luckily thought ahead to order a hot breakfast for the staff, physicians, and IT support gurus. I also have a brand new doctor starting in that same area on Monday (a terrible coincidence- luckily she takes food bribes!). I am just hoping they don’t quit, kill me, or throw food at me, making me hide behind my office door! That go-live and its processes created some 1,428,304 emails. I’m ready to take “reply all” off the toolbar options.
I guess the toughest part of today was the crucifying we receiving during a state and federal survey for our emergency preparedness. We have been preparing for months (or so I thought) and the manager overseeing this area completely and utterly avoided the ball. It’s not that he dropped the ball, he never picked it up. He fed us lines about how ready we are and how the binders and opening presentation were all set.
He made the hospital leadership looked like asses. I got called out on “denying” him resources when all I’ve tried to do is help him. I wasn’t sure whether I should be livid or disgusted at the performance and reflection on the hospital.
The surveyors, embarrassed at our lack of organization, actually paused the survey and then cut it short. We’ve never had that happen in the history of St. Fozzie’s, where a survey is suspended because we’re not prepared to BE SURVEYED.
[You try explaining that to your CEO when he steps out of a CEO meeting at Corporate to ask you about the survey’s failure. That was fun. ]
Luckily, my leadership team was behind me and we knew what we had to do. After flitting between budget meetings, I pieced together the documentation needed to term this manager. I talked to my boss who unquestioningly supported me and kept checking in on me throughout the afternoon. It was my first time terming a manager and I am very grateful for the TUMS that my friend Vera supplied! After meeting with my VP of HR and COO (remember EVOO?) We did the term with a grace and panache I’ve never seen in a termination before. I had one of those out-of-body experiences. I then had to suspend another one of the managers who had an equal part in the survey’s failure. It’s serious. When we look bad to the state, we look double-bad to the feds.
Who wants the feds pissed off at you?
But in an unexpected way, this event made our team closer. My boss supported me like I’ve never seen or felt before. My VP of HR and COO mobilized my decision-making. My CEO told me he has absolute faith in my ability to rectify this pigsty of a survey. My friend and colleague Mary took extensive notes during the exit interview and is supporting my leadership of this endeavor. Plus, she hugged me when I wanted to puke. And I took over a completely new area of the hospital in the process and must start from Ground Zero in my understanding of its operations. We’re going to emerge stronger from this experience and as God as my witness, when those surveyors come back in November, they will tell us it’s a 180-degree improvement from today’s wreck of a survey.
One more step.
I just hope I get to sleep this weekend. I am on call now until Wednesday morning at 7am! Wish a girl luck, please, and send me some wine.
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