When checking into my hotel on a recent trip, I heard the words road warriors love to hear:  “We’ve given you an upgrade.”  If you travel a lot the upgrades are certainly nice – whether it is more legroom on your flight or just a warm chocolate chip cookie at the end of a long day.  In this case the upgrade was to what the hotel called a “spa room.”  When I got to my room, I discovered what that meant:  Yes that is a whirlpool tub right next to the bed… certainly an interesting upgrade!

 A new medical issue has created the need for me to do some doctor shopping over the past month or so.  Typically, I practice as much “clinical abstinence” as possible (understandable given my line of work) but, unfortunately, I don’t have much choice in this matter.

Last year two employees at Lululemon (an athletic apparel store in Bethesda, Maryland) were closing up for the night.  Jayna Murray noticed store merchandise in Brittany Norwood’s purse and confronted her.  An altercation ensued and Brittany killed Jayna - inflicting over 300 wounds.  While this event on its own is disturbing enough it is almost equally as disturbing to know that the Apple store employees who worked next door heard the disturbance and Jayna’s cries for help – and did not check out the situation or call the police.
   

Dr. Matthew Schreiber from Piedmont Healthcare recently shared this with us:  When taking his car in for service he noticed that the following sign posted over the door – which had been authored by the shop receptionist’s young daughter. Dr. Schreiber was struck by how closely these “Rule of the Shop” aligned the Piedmont Safety Behaviors and Error Prevention Tools – which includes things like cross-monitoring (peer checking/peer coaching) and pay attention to detail using S.T.A.R.  (Stop, Think, Act, Review).

Leah Alexander was an other-wise healthy 11 year-old when she was admitted to the hospital for elective surgery.  Following her procedure Leah complained of continuing pain despite the fact that the epidural had been left in place for pain management. 

Imagine for a moment that you are in batting cage swinging at some nice, easy pitches.  Under those circumstances most folks would have a batting average (hits divided by pitches) of 90 to 100%.  (Not me, unfortunately, as my athletic ability is almost nil.)  Now imagine that the cage goes dark for six pitches out of seven.  More likely than not, your batting average would drop to about 14% as you’d probably only connect with the ball on the single pitch when the lights were on.  

Not too long ago I arrived at the gate for my flight I saw a woman screaming at the gate agent.  Now, travelers yelling at airline personnel is (unfortunately) fairly common these days.  Flights are often late, crowded, cancelled – while the prices keep rising and the amenities keep diminishing.  But this outburst was a little more disturbing than most due its ferocity (so bad that that police had been called) and the fact that the woman’s family – husband, young son, and daughter – were witnessing the event.  What I could piece together from the yelling (along with additional information from my fellow passengers) was that the family had experienced a long day of travel delays and problems.

I recently finished reading “Zone One: A Novel” by Colson Whitehead – which is the latest literary entry into the current “un-dead” fad.  (First vampires, now zombies – who knows what supernatural creature will be in fashion next?)  I am also a big fan of “The Walking Dead” on AMC and as a student of zombie behavior I have learned three very important lessons: 

In his new book, “Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America”, science writer Shawn Otto offers the following example of different approaches to this numeric controversy:  Bob:  “Two plus two equals four.”  Mary:  “Two plus two equals six.”

Not too long ago Parkland Hospital (Dallas, TX) had a tough CMS survey.  If you’ve worked in healthcare for any amount of time, you can certainly relate.  We’ve all experienced difficult surveys (and surveyors).  But Parkland’s was more difficult than most.   Following the survey, CMS notified Parkland that, according to the survey findings, Parkland no longer met the Conditions for Participation in Medicare programs.