Pink Team is Losing a Member

An important member of Patient Support is leaving us. Veronica Ibarra has worked at OneWorld for over three years and her last day is this Tuesday the 24th. She and her family are moving to California to explore opportunities out there. She has been an instrumental part of patient support leading up the Hope referrals for two years and then being the first radiology tech and a huge part of the successful opening of our radiology department. Veronica is always there with good ideas on how to improve the department as well as witty and occasionally funny comments. Thanks for lending OneWorld your skills over the last three years and we wish you luck and know that you will be successful in the future.

Flooding at Iowa Health Center

The picture here is from a health center in the Iowa/Nebraska Primary Care Association that OneWorld belongs to. This is one of the clinics for the Community Health Centers of Southeast Iowa. The site had only been open for one month and is probably a total loss. OneWorld has offered the use of our Ronald MCdonal Caremobile to help them get back up and running as soon as possible and we are awaiting word whether they will take us up on that offer. There are two other health centers in the IANEPCA group that have had to be relocated as well.

Retreat

Thank you to everyone for making the retreat a worthwhile experience. Thanks especially to Teawna Bell for organizing this day. I received an anonymous haiku that I want to share with you. If you have your own OneWorld haik please send it to me and it may be published.

OneWorld is awesome

Helping patients every day

Come here, feel better

Wellness Challenge Update

Here are the wellness totals so far in the competition. There are only a few weeks left so lets keep up the good work. Remember that you can get 20 bonus points for your team by turning in your point totals by 5pm each Monday. Congratulations to the Incredibles for re-entering the top ten.

Final Four 2555
Real Chicks 2116
4 Fantastic Women 2098
Part Timers 1635
Team Cass 1598
Ladybugs 1498
OW Angels 1482
Emeralds 1288
Ghost 1234
The Incredibles 1152
Butterflies 1139
Team WIC 1122
Steamrollers 1035
Screaming Monkeys 987
Thunderbolts 952
Chivos Activos 946
The Zappers 764
Rockstarz 561

Operation Rescue McVea

Our own Dr. Kristine McVea (BFF) found herself in quite a predicament last Thursday when she was locked in an exam room with a patient and couldn't get out. Edith called me on my cell phone and Don Manion from Seldin and I began trying to free her.

It was quite a job to keep her from panicking but I was able to use my extensive behavioral health training to keep her calm. Edith and Jessica were so upset about the fate of our dear doctor that they barely had time to take out their cell phones and snap countless pictures of this "hilarious" incident.

Ultimately we were able to pry the door open and free Dr. McVea. To her credit, she was in good spirits and had managed to keep the patient from getting upset also. Thanks to Dr. McVea for her sense of humor and to the amateur cell phone journalists for getting these pitures to the blog.

OneWorld Wellness Challenge

I don't think I have really blogged much about the OneWorld Wellness Challenge so far so here it goes. On April 7th we started a 12 week wellness challenge here at OneWorld. The idea of the challenge was hatched and developed by the C&C committee. The purpose of the challenge as written so eloquently by Valerie "Words" Niemeyer is to "support each other in developing lifestyle habits that form us into healthier and happier human beings."

Seventy-two staff members signed up and were broken into 18 4-person teams. Each team member keeps track of his or her physical activities for the week and then turns in (sometimes) their log each Monday. When we started this project we knew that we would be hiring a Wellness and Training coordinator but did not want to wait for that person to be hired to start the program. Teawna Bell has been hired to fill this position and has taken over the administration of the wellness program and is doing a wonderful job.

The Top Ten after week 6 is:
Final Four - 1873
Real Chicks - 1570
Four Fantastic Women - 1565
Part-Timers - 1258
OneWorld Angels - 1216
Team Cass - 1177
Lady Bugs - 1000
Butterflies - 933
Emeralds - 923
Ghost - 898

There will be a meeting this Friday at 12:00 in the first floor conference room to review the program so far and to ask questions and make suggestions for the next wellness challenge. Please plan on attending and sharing your input. There will be sugared drinks provided for those of you on a different team than me. See you there.

EHR Update

I guess that a blog doesn't really work if you only update once a month. Sorry. I have lots of things to share but sometimes this slips by. I will try better.

The Go Live date for the EPM is now July 29th. This will give us time to more thoroughly test the electronic claims process. Cassie from Custom Computing has been working diligently with NextGen staff to ensure that this transition is smooth. Each staff member who has gone through EPM training will have a one on one skills check off with a member of the Samurais. On the EMR front, the Groovy Ninja’s have been meeting weekly for some time and are currently tackling chart pre-load procedures and document types as well as process mapping to make sure that we set up the EMR to be able to accomplish all that we currently do for our patients. Dr. Dethlefs, Michelle Linbo, Tom Oakes, and I spent last week in Dallas learning how to modify the templates in NextGen to better meet our needs. It was a long week with lots of information but it was the best training session that I have ever been to. November is our initial go live date for the EHR side of the software. If we are unable to make that date we will fall back to February.

Happy One Year Birthday

Happy first birthday to Nico Dworak, son of Sarah and Alex Dworak. Nico likes walks on the beach, trips to the zoo, and green cake.

EHR Project Update

April has been a very busy month for the EHR project. The Samurais have been busy training each member of our staff on how to schedule different types of appointments and how to update patient information in the EPM software. The go live date for the EPM software has been moved to June to accommodate more testing of the electronic billing module of the software. The Groovy Ninjas have been working diligently in their monthly meetings to learn the EMR system and attempting to log and map out all of the processes within the clinic. The Groovy Ninjas will be spending 4/22 through 4/24 in all day training sessions to
learn the ins and outs of the EMR software. After they have completed this training they will begin designing the training curriculum for the entire staff.