How Healthcare Works, LLC

I was a camp counselor during college. Since I was in college for nearly ten years, I gained a lot of experience as a counselor. Working at camps taught me some important life skills that I was able to use the rest of my career. As a camp counselor, you have to be up and energized and enthusiastic about everything every day. Picking up rocks off the hillside as a cabin? Super fun! Fantastic! Hiking through the woods on a rainy day? What an adventure! Campers not getting along? Figure out what they like about each other! One of my tricks to deal with a cabin of girls who didn't get along was to have them do an exercise. The exercise was to sit down one afternoon and write down 10 things at least they liked about every other girl in the cabin. They couldn't be superficial things like, "her hair is pretty, she is skinny, she is tall." The items had to be real things that were only about the person. The girls really took it seriously. Why? They wanted to hear the nic...

The holidays are here. Time for laughter, time for cheer, time for trying to stay healthy at least through the New Year. With so much to do, so many places to go, and so many places to see, keeping healthy may seem hard to do this time of year. With these simple tips, you may be able to promote your own healthfulness. 1. Wash Your Hands! It's no mistake that the number one tip to staying healthy and preventing the spread of illness is to wash your hands! Washing your hands can stop the spread of bacteria, viruses, and other diseases. Washing hands with soap and water is always best. If soap for some reason isn't available (say in a public restroom facility), at least washing your hands with water will remove some of the germs. You may also want to carry hand sanitizer with you in your car, purse, or bag. Washing your hands after using the restroom, before and after eating, before and after preparing food, after touching bodily fluids like mucous or blood, and anytime your han...

Imagine you are in the boardroom. You have just finished your presentation for the latest strategic project to the CEO and other organizational executives. At the end of the presentation, you have written "Questions?" on the last side. You take a deep breath and maybe hope no one asks you any questions at all. You should be so lucky.  The common practice among professionals is to expect the Big Q and the little Q's. That is, prepare for the little questions and expect the big question -- the one you maybe weren't sure about at all. The little questions are things that are easily anticipated and that maybe you felt like you answered in the presentation already. The big question should also be anticipated. If you sold your position correctly, then the big question is out there looming waiting to be asked. You directed your audience toward asking it. No matter how much preparation and planning you have done, there is always the chance that someone will ask you a q...

As I sat at home this week itching and scratching from poison something...ivy, oak, sumac, I asked myself this question. If I worked in an office, would I go to work today? The first day or so I decided that I wouldn't. Even though poison ivy isn't contagious, I definitely would not be productive as I itched and scratched and made odd faces as I tried not to itch and scratch. Moreover, I felt groggy from the Benadryl. As a work-from-home-r, I also decided to give myself the day off. Sometimes, you just need to give your body a chance to rest and heal. Staying home from work, no matter what level you are in the organization, is always a good idea. I wish I could say I have always been a good steward in this area, but I really haven't. In the past, I used to "power through" work days and convince myself that I wasn't that sick or tired. Countless coworkers would come in complaining of the latest viral illness, stomach upset or just feeling "icky" tha...

When I was an adjunct faculty member, I taught several different courses in healthcare administration. Many of the courses included textbooks that contained cases for students to evaluate. However, the cases were more at an executive level and many of my undergraduate students were in font line entry level positions, early careerist positions, or entry level management positions. As a result, the students often had a difficult time wrapping their minds around the cases and the scenarios presented in the textbooks. In order to facilitate learning, I decided to draw upon my prior training in secondary education. Although the students were considerably more advanced, I could still use many of the tools I learned to use in the secondary education classroom in the college classroom. Two such tools that we were encouraged to use were simulations and case studies. Although similar, case studies and simulations are not the same. A simulation puts the student in the place to make the decis...

A few years ago, leadership at the health system where I worked was tasked with reading, The One Minute Manager  by Kenneth H. Blanchard. As part of "leadership," I also read the book. The basic premise behind The One Minute Manager  is that effective managers give their employees instruction, and then they leave employees to their own devices to do  their jobs. That is, effective managers, go in, get out, and get out of the way. I recall in discussions, how this was a nice idea.  I recall further making the comment how it was a refreshing take to some other philosophies of management, which I called, "Managing Every Minute." There are some managers who think that having control over what their employees are doing every minute of every day is important. Now, I have served as a project manager in the past, and there are times when as a leader, and manager (note they are not necessarily the same thing), that you do have to manage tasks, time spent, and activiti...

Let's face it. Life happens, and it doesn't always go the way we want things to. There is always that situation that we thought we had under control...or maybe someone else thought they had it under control, and it fell apart. Maybe we planned for it to fall apart, so we could see it for all of the nasty bits and pieces that it contained. When things fall apart or get messy or don't go our way, we have two options to communicate what happened. We can tell what actually happened, or we can retell the story. Now, I am in the "Tell it like it is" camp.  Tell the dirty details, send the long email, several text messages, whatever it takes to arrive at the truth. Get the real story out there or find out what the real story is. It's about being real and transparent. Everyone knows where everyone else stands, and there are no questions of loyalty or what happened, it's just raw and exposed and true. At least someone's version of the truth. Photo cour...