Edition 20

Cerner:

It has been a crazy month but as we all start to learn our jobs on a new system we have a lot to be proud of. It's hard to imagine how many hours of preparation, setup, training, and practice went into our go-live, and we’ve all seen firsthand the extra efforts by so many of us to ensure we can continue to provide care as we learn the ropes. I wanted to recognize Kelsey’s work as our Project Manager and general Cerner guru/leader. I’d also like to thank our superusers and department leads, many of whom put in a ton of hours over the last two weeks. This was super hard and hopefully a once-in-a-career project. It did not go perfectly, but at all times, I was perfectly confident in the folks doing the work.

We will still be ironing out wrinkles and learning the details of the system for some time, particularly with tasks that don’t come up often. As you’ve seen in the Daily Metrics our revenue has not fully recovered but I’m hopeful we will see that correction soon.

Retirements:

At Medical Staff this month, we recognized Dr. Lamb’s recent retirement and wished him well. Dr. Jex will also be making that transition in late May. Dr. Jex has been here for almost 5 years, serving as Medical Director for both the clinic and Extended Care. He will leave big shoes to fill, and we're excited for him to spend more time with his family. The HR team has started recruitment, but we may need to rely on locum coverage until we can recruit another physician. Thank you, Dr. Jex and Dr. Lamb, for your years of service to our community.

Construction Parking:

Didn’t John say the lower parking lot would be accessible during construction?

Yes I did, and I’m a liar.

After a lot of back and forth, the construction crew has decided it isn’t possible to get us access to the lower parking lot without delaying the project, and even then, it would be sporadic access. Based on the giant holes and trenches, I can understand the difficulty. So nothing will get easier until they finish up. Alternatively, a few things do get worse. We will have a temporary water shut-off that impacts the Verbeck Building in the next week. Once the date is known, we will share it, but it is scheduled to be short and in the early morning, and hopefully won’t impact patient care. The St. Martin’s building fire sprinklers will also be offline during this shutdown.

Towards the end of the project, we will also lose the sidewalk along Whitcomb Ave when they cut out the remaining old portion and pour the new one. Once we have more details and dates we can figure out a plan.

Chickens:

Now that our chickens are hens, my daughter has turned her affection to her grandmother’s recent purchases:

The chicks find it comforting if you dress like a chicken.