Ducks Everywhere

On Tuesday this week I was lucky enough to be visited by two ducks in our pond in my back yard. They apparently were flying over and stopped for a rest. On Wednesday night they hung out in our pond for about 45 minutes. They didn't show up on Thursday and I worried all night but this morning when I left for work they were sitting in the pond again. My wife and I have agreed not to name them so that we can avoid too much attachment. I feel a little bit like Tony Soprano, hopefuly without the panic attacks.

SWAT Update

Today is a big day for the OneWorld Hearld blog as I am blogging live from the SWAT team meeting this morning. I was lucky enough to be invited to attend this meeting in Hector's place as he is at a super secret conference this morning. The group has several items they are working on right now including replacing defective radios, identifying locations for new signs and clocks, and working on patient education handouts. A "big" issue this morning was where the team could get some masking tape. Courtney was forward thinking enough to save us from forming a committee to solve this problem and offer to go to the store and buy some tape. I hope this was not a confidential conversation, we'll see if I get invited back. There was discussion of getting nurses more involved in the flow of the clinic. Dr. X (I was told that I could not attribute quotes for the blog to specific individuals because "what happens in SWAT stays in SWAT") noted that this would be easier once "internet machines" were in every room. I love internet machines. If you do not know what an internet machine is then you need to get with the 21st century. You may know it by it's alternative name, the magic email box.

There were three memorable quotes from this meeting, not to be attributed to anyone specifically, of course. 1. "At least we can set the bar somewhere.", 2. "If we stress the team more we can bring the team closer together.", and my favorite #3. "Sometimes you just have to throw ______ out of the room."

Have a great day!

Someday you could be a Samurai too!

The samurais held our first EPM end user training today from 8 to 10am in the old billing office/current training center. Everything went swimmingly. A complete training schedule has been emailed to everyone and you can also download it here. If you have a conflict on the day you are scheduled or if you are not on the schedule for some reason please let your supervisor know ASAP so that we can make modifications.

Are You In???

The Culture and Communications Committee has developed a wellness program and are hoping to get as many people involved as possible. We have very cleverly maned the program the OneWorld Wellness Challenge.

The purpose of this program is to support each other as a staff in developing lifestyle habits that make us healthier and happier human beings! A little competition and accountability goes a long way.


HOW it works:
Participating employees will:

1) Fill out an initial assessment - for measuring improvement and making fair teams
2) Be assigned to a team of 4 people
3) Complete wellness activities for points and track them on the Wellness Activity Log (draft attached - not finalized)
4) Total weekly point earnings and submit Wellness Activity Logs every Monday morning for record-keeping.
5) Earn incentives on an individual and a team basis. (Incentives to be determined, possibly free lunch, extra PTO, gift cards, etc.)

There are several wellness areas that will be included for individual incentives, but will NOT be tracked or reported for the team competition. For instance, those who voluntarily choose to participate in weight-loss tracking for individual incentive points will also weigh in with the Wellness Challenge Coordinator on Monday mornings. Individual incentive points can also be earned for blood-pressure reduction, cholesterol reduction, blood sugar (AIC) reduction, and smoking cessation for employees with hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes or a smoking addiction. Individual incentive points can also be earned for self-development activities, such as educational reading, classes or counseling.

More details about the program will be presented at the All Staff Meeting on March 28th. Stay tuned.

We're pumped about this program, and think it will be very fun and profitable for all who participate!! If you think you may be interested or just have questions about this program please don't hesitate to contact Valerie, Courtney, Beth, Sara C. or myself if you have any questions.

OneWorld in the News Again

OneWorld is very fortunate to be honored as the Nonprofit Organization of the Year by the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce. We feel fortunate to have received this award and it shows that the Omaha business community is recognizing the important work that you all do everyday in providing quality health care to the underserved. Thanks for all your hard work! To view the full press release for this award click here.

Much Anticipated EHR Update

It has been a while since we have had an EHR update so here you go.

The EPM core team will from this point forward be known as the Samurais. Last week the Samurais completed three intense days of end user training on the EPM system. To review, the EPM is the part of NextGen that manages the demographics of our patients, the schedule, and the billing for our practice. The Samurais have learned how to enter new patients into the system, schedule patients, set up sliding fee scales and insurance companies as payers. The next phase of the EMP implementation will be training the entire staff on how to do the basic EPM functions. This morning the Samurais developed a training schedule for everyone in the clinic. Later today you will receive an email with the entire training schedule attached. Ana Gudino will block providers' schedules during the time that they are scheduled for training. Training classes will be help on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 8am and 10am until everyone has been through it. The entire operations staff will have a mandatory training from 8am to 1pm on Saturday March 29th. This training will cover the more in depth patient registration, check in, payment, insurance, and financial counseling parts of the EPM. The go live date has been moved from April 29th to May 1st at the request of our accounting department who would have their jobs become unnecessarily more complex if we were to use two different EPM systems during one month.

I can't emphasize enough that the May 1st go live date is for the EPM only, not the EHR part of the system. The EHR go live day is still up in the air but it looks like it will be in the late fall.

The EHR core team will from here on out be known as the Groovy Ninjas. The groovy ninjas are meeting right now. They have broken the implementation of the EHR portion of the projectinto 8 main tasks. I can't comeup with them right now but you will hear more about these items as the project progresses. If you have any questions about the EHR project please contact anyone from either the Samurais or the Groovy Ninjas.

It has been a while since Oscar has received any face time on the blog so here is a picture of St. Patrick's Day at my house. Thanks for checking the blog and goodbye until next time.

National Registered Dieitians' Day

Apparently blogging is a lot like exercising, if you take a couple of days off it's hard to get started again. I apologize for my absence and will attempt to get back on track.

Today, March 10th, is National Registered Deiticians Day. OW has many registered dieticians on staff at our WIC clinic at 25th and L. This clinic is the state's busiest WIC clinic. The dieticians there are listed below. Our thanks and appreciation go our to all of them for their hard work and dedication that they bring to OneWorld and the WIC clinic each day.

Grace Sourile, BA, MS: Grace attended the University of Indiana & University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She lived and and worked with Upick Tribe in WIC Alaska for 6 years, has lived in and visited a total of 37 of the U.S. states.

Amber Lothridge, BSc, RD: UNL. Amber was born in England and lived in Greece for 1 year and can name all the capitals of each state in the U.S, even Vermont.

Melissa Hines, BSc, RD LMNT: UNL & Baylor University Medical Center TX. Melissa likes to run cross country and was born with a different first name.

Lisa Steinbach, MS, RD, LMNT: UNL & University of Central Oklahoma. Lisa's nickname is "Cole Trickle" after the race car driver in Days of Thunder...hmm I wonder why?

Dawn Ballosingh, MPA, RD, LMNT: UNO & UNL. Dawn played keyboards with Carlos Santana during the summer concert series in South Beach , Miami and played keyboards for Inner Circle at the Cleavlander when they first debut their single "Bad Boys".

Stephanie Thorson, MS. College of the Ozarks & UNL. Stephanie lived in Honduras for 2 years and during that time learned to make cheese and weave on a traditional loom.