This week’s newsletter was inspired by the book “The Gold Mine”, and is a little different approach than our normal newsletter. A quick story that many of the caregivers we know said they can totally identify with.  Enjoy the short story…

The Dead COW (A fictionalized account)

“Tech support, this is Alex,” he answered, sipping his mocha double latte.

“Hello Alex, this is Hazel up on Cardiac 6 West.  We have a dead COW up here.”

“A dead COW?!?!” he sputtered.

“You know, COW, Computer On Wheels.  They were supposed to help us monitor meds.”

“Sorry, Hazel.  I’ve been in tech support for seven years and just got into healthcare.  I have never heard a computer called a COW!  But anyway, what can I do for you?”

“I told you it was dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yep.”

“OK, let’s see here,” as he pulled up the troubleshooting guide for the MCD/Mobile Computing Device, thinking to himself, “Why can’t we at least use common terminology?”

“Let’s see…are you plugged in or mobile?”

“I would say mobile right now.  Before you get started, let me tell you that we know the script for restarting these things.  Restarted the application, check.  Plugged it in (the battery might be low), check.  Tried to repair the wireless connection, check.  Disabled and re-enabled the wireless manager, check.  Rebooted from complete power down, check.”

“Great, did you…”

“Did you know I can go get vitals and chart them quicker than I can do all this stuff?  I AM a nurse!  Can you assess a patient, start an IV?”

“Uh, no.  What else did you do?” Alex asked tentatively.

“Well, I pretty much exhausted MY tech support skills, so I fell back on my nursing skills.”

“Nursing skills?”

“Yep, I pulled a saline IV and started a drip.”

“On the computer?”

“Yep, stuck it straight in the USB port.  That didn’t help much, so Karen and I decided to call a Code.”

“Code?”

“Yep, Code Blue.  Cardiac arrest.   We grabbed the defibrillator and shocked it three times to restart the CPU.  That’s when it started smoking.”

“Smoking?!?”

“Yep, after the third one we heard a loud POP.  So I tried manual compressions on the keyboard.  We worked for 30 minutes right there in the hall before we stopped.  So now we have a dead COW… and a bunch of exhausted nurses—we did everything we could.  Probably even broke the cart.”

After a long pause, Alex offered, “Uh, let me get my supervisor.”

 ————-

From a lean healthcare perspective, clinicians fighting technology creates waste.  Patients wait.  Staff members get frustrated taking valuable time (and mental focus) away from providing patient care. 

Is “support” a verb in your organization?  Does the technology support the caregivers and their work?  Or does the caregiver become “tech support” (a noun) instead of caring for patients?  Ask yourself these questions the next time you are out on a gemba walk.

This week’s blog was written by Richard Tucker. Richard assists HPP clients throughout the USA with Lean Healthcare transformations. Richard has many years of Lean experience having worked with a major Japanese automaker, and having received much of his experience and formal training in the Toyota Production System, Lean Manufacturing, and Shainin Statistical Engineering while in Japan.