Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Remember,” I said, over the simmer of voices, “don’t focus on why something can’t work, or how something will work. We’re not focusing on implementation.”
The room set to work and I left them to it. I’d check my emails and messages before I made the rounds.
I glanced up from my phone about ten minutes later. Sutton was at her table’s flip chart. They’d chosen the issue of freeing up beds. She looked beautiful. Her arse in her jeans looked perfectly cuppable, and the beauty spot on her right cheek perfectly kissable.
I went around the groups, checking they didn’t need any input from me. A couple of times I needed to stop people dismissing ideas and encourage them to throw as much up on the flip chart as possible. Doctors could be alarmingly narrow-minded and cynical. This was an exercise in being neither.
“Okay,” I bellowed at the room. “Your time is up. Please nominate a speaker from your group and get ready to read out your ideas. After this we’re going to vote for which problem we all want to focus on and we’re going to work through the ideas to see what could work and what wouldn’t.”
Many of the answers had to do with fundraising or employing more staff. It was a little demotivating. I really wanted something special to come out of this offsite. I wanted to prove that taking doctors out of their normal environment could really add value in the long run, and show how the training and development of doctors wasn’t always about their clinical skill and medical knowledge. That had been true while my mother and father practiced, but it was time to move on. Most of the answers weren’t the most creative but every now and then, an idea was read out that might just have legs.
We worked through each table’s suggestions. Sutton’s group was last. Luckily for me, she hadn’t been nominated as spokesperson, so I could try and focus on Veronica, who was speaking. She stood and went through the list of things to help the issue of freeing up beds.
“And then there’s the reverse-triage idea that Sutton had, and that’s it,” she finished off. Triage? That was vague, but it sounded interesting. Or was I only interested because it was Sutton’s brainchild? I really wanted to ask for more detail, but would it look odd, like I was singling her out?
Before I could help myself, the words were out of my mouth. “Reverse-triage?”
“Yeah.” She glanced at Sutton. “Patients in each ward would be grouped according to the likelihood of them leaving that day. Is that right?”
Sutton nodded. “I’ve noticed there are usually patients in each ward that just need the doctor to sign a prescription or check bloods that have come back overnight, but usually everyone’s aware they’re probably going to go home.”
“Right,” I said, wanting her to go on.
“The idea is that two or three of those people are dealt with at the beginning of rounds so they can be discharged as soon as possible.”
People started to groan and shout out reasons why that wouldn’t work, but there was something in this idea.
“Shhh,” I snapped. “I said this is the time when we’re not talking about what won’t work. We’re just discussing ideas.”
I looked back at Sutton and she shrugged.
“We need an express lane with just two or three patients in it each day. That would free up beds for morning admissions. Then it would be business as usual for the rest of rounds. You could even have nurses prioritize patients in the express lane, since they’ll have made overnight observations.”
Bloody hell, she was smart. She was really on to something with her idea. I wanted to flesh things out, ask her more questions, but I had to be patient. The doctors really had to own this.
“Thanks for that,” I said. “Veronica? Anything else?”
She shook her head.
“Now we’ve heard everyone’s ideas, the next stage is for us all to focus on one problem and come up with the most viable solution. Let’s vote with a show of hands.”
The vote for freeing up beds and readmissions was even, with only two votes going to the issue with blood results. I could declare that I had a casting vote, but I didn’t want to demotivate people. I wanted them all to have ownership of this.
“Okay, so it’s between freeing up beds and readmissions. We’re going to revote between the two.”
Lucky for me, they voted on freeing up beds. Sutton had a really great idea that might actually work.
“Each group needs to discuss the various ideas they and the other teams suggested. Think about how it would really work in practice.” Sutton’s idea had the added advantage that it could be trialed in peds, and I was pretty sure Gerry would agree.
If we could successfully implement this idea, it could really improve efficiency on the wards and show that the idea of the offsite had really borne fruit.