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end-of-life

Jun 26 2016
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Leadership – The Gift That Keeps on Giving

By Advocate, Caregiver, Consumer, ePatient, Leader

I felt so empowered by the best boss ever, Jim Bulger, Executive Director of a managed care company.  After I had been Director of Quality Management for 3 months, I told Jim that I didn’t think we were moving along at the speed he wanted us to go. “What do you think we should do?” Jim asked.  “Frankly, I think we need to start with you.” OMG, what had I said?  Have I no filters?!! To my joy and consternation, Jim responded, “Ok, teach me. Every morning 7am, 30 minutes, your agenda.” I had to get my act together fast. Several years later I asking Jim why he had done that. “I would have been an idiot not to. I hired you, didn’t I?” This was a gift to me.  A gift of trust, a gift of leadership.  I’ve learned over the years to value this gift of leadership.

Leadership is a foundation stone of maximizing the experience of people at the center of care. It’s not sufficient, but it’s necessary. Many opportunities exist to steer the boat, set the tone, build trust, value contributions, empower, take care of each other – opportunities for leadership. You can lead an organization. You can lead a team. Leader can be in your title or not. You can lead for a moment or a career. There is no ultimate leader.  It’s a relative position – a relationship position.

My mom led her health team during end-of-life. She set the tone, admitted and expelled team members. She set the culture. Once you were admitted to her team she listened to and empowered. It worked well. It’s an art as a leader to pull back and let others lead. She chose to lead. Read More

Jun 19 2016
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AACH: Communication and Relationships

By Advocate, Clinician, ePatient, Researcher

I attended the American Academy of Communication in Healthcare Conference in New Haven. The AACH is the professional home for all committed to improving communication and relationships in healthcare. About 200 people attended from US, Canada, Israel, Brazil, Belgium, Australia. Although most attendees were physicians, I met nurses, therapists, coaches, office managers, patients, sociologists, medical students, and researchers. A couple of very low-key sponsors but no vendors present. A pleasant relief. The conference was designed to maximize interaction, learn from each other, and build skills within work groups and special interest groups. Met several venerable experts. Very open and quite humble: We have a lot to learn. Especially about patient centeredness. Most exciting for me was a presentation by Sharon Schindler Rising, a nurse midwife, talking about Centering Groups – facilitated groups of 6-10 young moms/couples preparing for the impending birth of a child. A wonderful example of people-centered design with participants directing much of the flow of the monthly small groups. Professionals and services came to them. Groups often kept meeting on their own after the children reach one year old, sometimes for 8-10 years. New groups have been starting for decades. Evidence over that time showed significant increase in proportion of pregnancies going to full term and decrease in the proportion of low birth weight babies. One sad piece of the presentation was the description of the barrier caused by the advent of the electronic health record. One participant-generated practice had been for moms and dads to enter their own health data into the paper record: instant empowerment!  Not so with electronic record. People could no longer enter their own data into the health record. Shadow records had to be created. Lord, I was crushed when I heard this. I participated in several subsequent discussions about the infrastructure and skill set that would be needed to spread the Centering Group model to other settings. Instant learning!! Read More

Apr 10 2016
Love0

A caregiver is [not] a caregiver, is [not] a caregiver

By Advocate, Caregiver, Family man, Researcher

When my mother was dying I was a long distance caregiver.  My mom made her own decisions, shared them with us, sought advice from me, asking me to research meds and treatments, wanted help with scheduling, wanted me to attend some of her appointments with her (mostly by phone) and gave me access to her electronic health record. Our family had open and dynamic communication. I was the health coordinator, my older sister helped manage business, my younger sister was her companion. These roles evolved over the years and solidified as our mom declined. Read More

Mar 27 2016
Love0

How many words for pain?

By Advocate, Caregiver, Clinician, Consumer, ePatient, Informaticist

There are 46 words for snow in Iceland. How many are there for physical pain in English? Googling synonyms: Suffering, aching, torture, throbbing, discomfort, ache, sore, throb, sting, twinge, shooting, irritation, tenderness… I recall sitting with my mom when she was dying of pancreatic cancer, trying to understand what her pain felt like. Ma, is it sharp, dull, aching, constant, ebbing and flowing?  The more descriptors I tried to come up with, the more frustrated she became with me.  No words worked for her. Yet she tried to describe it to the hospice nurse or doctor without success.  Granted, my mom was home bound and bedridden. She was past the place where function didn’t mattered. How does your pain affect your ability to socialize and work? The way I manage my annoying neurological pains is to get to know them intimately. Meditate on the pain. Sensation, location, travel, duration, what makes it better or worse…. It takes the edge off, helps me be less freaked out and I can manage with less medication. I find my professional team intrigued by my desire to describe it in such great detail. I’m a bit of a freak. Turns out that acupuncture and mindfulness help me enough with my short bursts of radiating neurological zapping down my limbs that I don’t need medication and my function isn’t disturbed.  I recommend that you read Rosalind Joffe’s blog this week, Can You Talk About Your Chronic Pain? Read More

Dec 28 2015
Love0

Last Post, New Year

By Caregiver, Clinician, Consumer, ePatient, Family man, Leader, Musician

Last post of 2015. Reviewing the year in 51 blog posts, we discussed:

  • Death and Dying
  • Give Me My Dam Data
  • Values
  • Leadership
  • Work/Life balance
  • Grace
  • Ignorance, Uncertainty, Research
  • Music
  • Caregivers
  • Experience of People at the Center
  • And more

I’m looking forward to the adventure of the new year: Maintaining my health, contributing to the experience of we people at the center, playing the blues, watching my grandkids grow, hearing from you.

From Mark Twain:

  • All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
Nov 15 2015
Love0

What’s the Problem with the Experience of People at the Center of Care?

By Advocate, Caregiver, Consumer, ePatient, Family man, Leader

Wearing my many hats: e-patient, caregiver, nurse, informaticist, and leader, I am blessed with mostly positive experiences on my health journey.  At worst, my experiences are seriously annoying. This week, attending a benefit for MITSS (Medically Induced Trauma Support Services), I’m reminded that not everyone is so lucky. As I scan the industry several problems with the experience of the people at the center of care (patients, caregivers, clinicians, direct care and support staff) jump out: Read More

Nov 03 2015
Love0

Another threshold

By Caregiver, Clinician, ePatient, Family man

My long-time friend, Glen, died last week. The first thing Glen and I  did together in Detroit, 1969 was to go into elevators and face the back to freak people out and then we got stoned. Glen helped my wife and I set the poles (trees) in the house  we built in West Virginia.  He and his wife had wanted us to move to Maine and live with them, but it was too cold for us. Glen died of brain cancer. His children took care of him for the last six weeks of his life in his home. Not a nurse among them. Read More

Jul 26 2015
Love0

Driving our health journey – writing the story

By Advocate, Caregiver, Consumer, ePatient, Informaticist
For individuals to drive their own health journey we must have the key to the ignition, be in control of the accelerator, the brakes, the steering wheel, and be able to see the full dashboard of cues about ourselves. At the same time we need to control access of passengers, be able to give the keys to whoever we choose, deny access to whomever we choose, and trust those who take the wheel for us.
We also need to be able to read, share, and correct the story about our journey. We need to contribute our chapters – our destinations (goals), our lists, our tracking, our feelings. If we want to, we need to be able to ask others to contribute chapters. We need an eBook version of our story that we can edit and share portions we choose with anyone we give permission to read it. With many people and reports about us, contributing to our book, chances are some of it will be wrong. Wrong person, wrong time, wrong diagnosis, wrong, wrong. We are the only common denominator of our story. We need a way to correct the errors we find. Our lives could depend on it. We are the single source of truth about our story.
I love puzzles: This is the puzzle of many lifetimes! I’m driven to contribute to solving some of this puzzle. Last week based on a recommendation of a fellow member of the Society for Participatory Medicine, Adrian Gropper, I joined a group, OpenID-Heart.
The HEART Working Group intends to harmonize and develop a set of privacy and security specifications that enable an individual to control the authorization of access to RESTful health-related data sharing APIs, and to facilitate the development of interoperable implementations of these specifications by others 
 
What does this mean?  Many people and interests throughout the world are working on solving the puzzle of privacy, security, and health data sharing. An API makes it possible for computer programs to talk to each other and share data. REST means that the API can expose something the software does while protecting other parts of the application. Health data is big business and very personal. The voice of the people at the center of care is critical.  I attended my first weekly hour-long meeting. While much of it was technical and over my head, I joined because someone asked about patient goals. I’ve never heard techie’s speaking about patient goals. To me that’s, What am I, are we, trying to accomplish on my health journey?  Certainly end-of-life choices is one, but more often it’s less pain, less fear, more fun, managing my meds, hanging with friends and family, fitting in my clothes, getting to work, getting to the doctor, having love in my life. I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.  I’ll keep you posted.

 

Apr 19 2015
Love0
Black and white photo of very sad, miserable young man puckered chin

Grief Subsides, Inch by Inch

By Caregiver, ePatient, Family man

I’m reading Scott Simon’s book, Unforgettable. A son, a mother, lessons of a lifetime. Beautifully written and so close to home. Scott Simon’s book resonates for me. It’s been four months since my mom died. Like Scott Simon, I, too, laid next to my mom in her bed telling stories. Before dying I was grossed out at the idea of laying in bed next to her. Now I treasure those moments. I feel her loss every day.  Actually, it’s almost every day now, not every, every day. I resent that it’s not every day. Last November I was so upset that the 11th anniversary of my boy, Mike’s death passed without me remembering. I cherish the bittersweet sadness and the exquisitely tender spots of these memories. What have I become when I forget those who color my tapestry? Yet I am recovering. Very slowly regaining my strength and my center. The surrealness of loss and grief subsides inch by inch. Thank god. I couldn’t stay floating in that ever-deepening well of grief. Grief is again becoming a quirky, intriguing companion. Oh ma, where are you now? Do you have more stories for me? I have so many for you.

Jan 04 2015
Love0

Who’s your health co-pilot?

By Advocate, Caregiver, Consumer, ePatient, Family man
As an e-patient advocate, I passionately believe in each of us being the pilot for our own health flight. So many legs in that health flight. While its a non stop flight for each of us from birth to death, it’s actually a journey with innumerable hops. As I re-enter my own health journey with energy now for others’ journeys, I’m struck by the shifting prominence of health team members. Sometimes we need a health team member to be our co-pilot, someone to take the wheel, read the map, or pave the way. A friend this week had an unwelcome and unusual constellation of symptoms – disconcerting, disruptive, freaky. This friend needs a co-pilot – a doctor to advise, diagnose, refer, integrate results. I had sudden acute abdominal pain.  I also needed a co-pilot. As my mom was dying we needed several co-pilots: a hospice nurse to manage symptoms and equipment; a friend to manage logistics of care; and a mid-wife of dying to manage personal care and spiritual needs. Another friend is trying to lose weight. His co-pilot is a trainer. Ultimately, you can’t always be a solo pilot. Recognizing the need for a co-pilot, finding one, and trusting her/him is a magic lever of best health.