Caution: Innovation in Progress

I’m home again. The day after a trip away can be a bit anticlimactic, however I determined that I would maintain my pace of the last few days. My main concern has been my blog post tonight, which I did have on my computer and almost ready to post ~ only a few moments ago. One of my programs froze the screen forcing me to shut the darn thing down. So I lost what had been done.  Breathe. Start again. The interesting thing about opinions is that they never really disappear ~ only the word-crafting.

Communication, my theme for this month, has been carefully snugged into my blog posts. Communication with distant and dear family and friends, memories and the past, our environment and with ourselves to connect us universally. And difficulty with communication ~ what blocks there may be for effective communication. What was I going to write tonight with this loss of focus?

Today has been filled with CBC radio while reorganizing laundry, then a movie and coffee with a friend, getting vegetables from the garden and a bit of shopping. The movie, The Butler, was a fascinating story about the disconnected communication between blacks and whites in the U.S. through presidents from Eisenhower to the present day.

What really peaked my interest and stayed with me throughout today was the interview I heard this morning on White Coat Black Art hosted by Dr. Brian Goldman on CBC Radio. Dr. Goldman interviews health care professionals, patients and their families about their experiences in the Canadian health care systems. Dr. Goldman is an Emergency Room physician who reports from his ‘side of the gurney’. White Coat Black Art can be found at http://www.cbc.ca/whitecoat/index.html

His topic today, interesting and important, was “Turning Patients Into Health-Care Partners”. Sitting up and paying attention, I listened with interest to this interview about an ‘innovative’ approach to patient centered care that is being rolled out in Kingston General Hospital. I must admit I was a bit indignant when I heard that this patient centered care was innovative. The patient centered care approach seems only innovative for the present hospital systems. Nurses for generations have been instructed in this form of care, however have not always been able to follow instructions. With technological advances and budgetary constraints the numbers of nurses at the bedside has not always kept pace with these advances that can and do take the focus off of bedside patient care and human contact. In early 1970's, I heard a new young nurse say:  'Nursing is just a technological job.'  I was stunned but now recognize her quite astute observation. Nurses need to be brought out from the medication rooms, from behind the desk at computers, and from the ever present pieces of technology to walk with our patients through their hospital stay, providing them with health care teaching that is required for their health condition ~ a human equation. Nursing can better provide them direction to outpatient clinics specific to their physical and/or mental health condition. Hopefully this is occuring more often than I think it is.

Splitting off of duties by establishing and developing social work departments, Registered Dietitians, Physical Therapists, and Occupational Therapists has been valuable as these professionals provide important services. Each of these departments definitely has required development and expansion. A deficit that I see for these departments is that they are often Monday to Friday daytime hours only, limiting patient contact and communication with other shifts and with nurses that provide a continuum of care. The ability of any patient to function in evening and nighttime hours is witnessed by the nursing staff that cover these shifts. Communication is between all of these departments, the physician and, last but definitely not least, the patient. Family participation, which is to be encouraged, is often in the evening hours.  

Care must be taken with innovation. 

“Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. 
New ideas must use old buildings.”

~ Steven Johnson, 
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation