How Healthcare Works, LLC

In this post, I am going to teach you how to use a process improvement and problem-solving tool. It is called "idea mapping." Some people may call this brainstorming, but it actually goes a bit further than brainstorming. Idea mapping is about getting your usable, real ideas, goals, and areas for improvement down on paper, and then applying an actual process for how you are going to achieve those goals. You are basically going to go from a jumbled group of goals to the finish line of a completed goal. For my example idea map, I picked "Move to a New City." I chose this one because it's that time of year when a lot of students just graduated from college, and now they are looking for a new adventure. Or, maybe they found their first big job and they are going to have to move. Maybe you have a family, and you have to move somewhere with your family. Maybe after all of this business with COVID-19, you have decided you really want to move away from where you live

When applying for a new position, the qualifications or position requirements may say, "bachelor's degree, five years experience, master's degree preferred, or demonstration of progressively responsible experience." What is progressively responsible experience, anyway? Progressively responsible experience basically means you "climbed up the ladder." In each position, you should have gained more responsibilities than in the last. A good rule of thumb is at least a 20% increase in responsibility or a 10-20% increase in salary. Those two things do not always necessarily coincide. Here are items that demonstrate progressive responsibility. 1. Increase in the number of job duties. Many frontline positions start off with one primary job duty. The more job duties you have, the more things for which you are responsible. For example, a patient access clerk is primarily responsible for registering patients. However, imagine that the person receives a position as an

Even though I was in sports when I was younger, I never considered myself much of a runner. I remember running around the edges of the softball field for both softball and tennis and doing oh, so many line drills. I even was in track in 7th grade. In college, I played soccer, and we had to run several miles a week. I was so self-conscious about my running, that I ran at night so no one would see me. I didn't feel self-conscious about walking, though. Interestingly, perhaps purposefully, I lived right near many walking trails. Watching so many other people walking by and enjoying the trails made me want to walk and enjoy the trails as well. I don't know how far I walked and for how many years. I would guess I averaged about 5 miles a day everywhere I lived. In 1997, I bought the book, "The Wish List" by Barbara Ann Kipfer, which I basically use as my life list. (I love this book so much that I have gifted it to several other people.) One of the things in the book

We are in the midst of the coronavirus crisis right now. And, I have been posting a lot on social media and talking a lot about public health. My first job in healthcare was about 24 years ago, in 1996. I started off as a medical records clerk in a family practice clinic in Nebraska. In case you don't know, medical records back then weren't electronic. It was all paper. Literally, I was a paper shuffler, all day every day. I didn't care for it that much and was deciding between continuing to work at the clinic and becoming a history and government teacher. I had a B.A. in History and a Secondary Education Endorsement from Graceland University and had my teaching license. The clinic administrator met with me one day and asked if I would still try to become a teacher if I was given a promotional transfer to be a medical transcriptionist at the clinic. I said no. I was going to get a raise and was going to make more than substitute teachers made (back then I believe subs ma

I had this whole blog post all written up earlier this week about my walk. However, after I had it written and read it for the next day, I changed my mind. It was about walking through history and how much we have changed from the past. Some times we see that, but other times we don't. We don't see how much things have changed at all. Instead, I decided to write about how we need to listen to our bodies. When it comes to our health, our bodies often give us clues and cues about how we are feeling. For example, I always know if I am getting sick because I get unusually tired a few days beforehand. My glands in my neck will get swollen. If my body is really fighting off something, I sleep a lot more than usual. Even people who haven't seen me for years will say, "You slept until 9:00 am? Are you okay? That's not like you." And, since I know my body's cues that I am getting sick pretty well by now, I listen. It's the same with exercising. When I am

In my prior positions, I evaluated monthly and quarterly growth targets ( and would assess how they compared to the prior two to three years. Based on those calculations, I would create what is known as a pro forma statement and determine what the growth targets would be for the next year. Of course, this matters because it sets a baseline for the number of patients or patient days the organization needs for the next year to maintain its current offerings as well as its revenue (or in the case of nonprofits -- operating margin). However, if the organization was being aggressive and wanting to increase its market share or grow a program, I would calculate what is known as a growth target, or stretch goal. What I decided to do was to use some of the tools that I use to create growth and improvement in business to create growth and improvement in myself and my own business. Time and again, those business tools work for multi billion corporations, but we don't apply them to our

Image by  Gerd Altmann  from  Pixabay In my, "Bragging About You" training video, I talk about skills, skills, skills. I keep it pretty high level. Here, I'm going to ask you to drill a little deeper into your skillset. I've written dozens of job descriptions that ask for particular skill sets.  I'm going to use myself as an example, so you can see what I'm talking about. I am going to show you a couple of broad categories of skills, and then you can choose a category and state how you use those skills. If you need to, you can use the internet to help you identify the skills you use in your current job. Okay, here are a few of my skills from jobs I currently hold or have held within the past 10 years. I will start with a broad category and then give specific skill sets under each one. 1. Entrepreneurial Skills: As an entrepreneur I... Write weekly blog content for the site to provide education, information, public health training, and leadership d