Day Two - Releasing Time to Care

I heard a saying a long time ago: “Principles above personalities”.  In the last two days, that is what I’ve heard at this conference. Not only have I heard this in theory, but watched it in action as we listened, shared interactive learning sessions and had break away times for each team to discuss, debate and plan for creating order on our own units using these principals. It has been very humbling to recognize that, as a group, we are all in the same boat.

Not spiritual principles, but principles that can be shared among disciplines in any health care setting. Principles that run along lines of organization, ‘time waste’ management, and just cleaner organization of the work place that frees up time for improved more frequent patient/client interactions. We are not learning along the structured hierarchical lines of management, union, team leads or front line workers, but as health care professionals wanting to provide quality time to our clients and patients rather than dedicating our time to the electronic world, paperwork, and running about to find things that have been stuffed in the nearest available corner.

The most fascinating part of this conference is that one hundred and fifty men and women from managers, coordinators, frontline nurses and addiction and mental health workers are discussing and working through the principles that have been established by the Releasing Time to Care program. This program has come from the National Health Service of the U.K. It has been taken globally to Saskatchewan, Ontario, British Columbia all the way to Waitemata in New Zealand, as well as Sweden and Holland.

“We all came in on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now.”

~  Martin Luther King, Jr.