Non Technically Speaking / Yet Another Lesson Learned from my Dog

Non Technically Speaking is my professional blog appearing on NEXT WAVE CONNECT a collaborative social network for Healthcare professionals.

A little over ten years ago, I realized life was passing by and I decided it was time to get that long dreamed over best friend! A dog. Shortly thereafter, OSLO, a golden retriever puppy came to live with me.

He’s ten and a long distant friend of our prolific CONNECT blogger DUSTY!

These days Oslo spends most of the time sleeping and looking at the treat jar in the kitchen. Years of trying, yet he still has not perfected his skill at making the treat jar open and spill onto the floor through the power of his mind. He’s retired now after an illustrious career as a shop dog, the store mascot to the small men’s boutique I opened during my healthcare hiatus. Named it after him: OSLO’s. 

And well having a shop dog was a great way to build community. He babysat the children of customers and monitored the fitting rooms. Here’s a simply trick we learned rather quickly. He served as our triage nurse; he greeted every entering customer for 5 years. If someone walked in the shop and said “Hello Oslo” we knew they were returning customers and we greeted them like family. If someone walked in to the shop and said, “well, who are you?” we knew we needed to pull out the “Welcome to OSLO’s speech” and talk about our fashion style, who we were, the in-shop barber and learn a bit more about their own personal style and what they were looking for and why. It was just a slightly different approach.

Just like we are trying to do here on Connect, we welcome folks into our CONNECT Communities and encourage them to jump into conversations. What are your interests? What are your war stories and victories? What are your challenges?

I’ve learned so much over the years from Oslo. Unconditional love. There’s joy in a car ride. Treats are good. Naps are better. 

His companionship is rich; he’s laying under my desk right now at my feet. It was startling when a few years back I got a postcard reminder from his vet that he was due for his semi-annual senior visit. He was only seven. Today he still runs like a puppy, carries his leash home on all walks but sometimes he can’t get off the bed in the morning if his legs are stiff... I have trouble some mornings as well. We are aging together.

And he still is teaching me. The lessons are gentler these days. We’ve shared a lot of ups and downs in our ten years.

This week I received an email from ePEThealth.com.

OSLO now has an Electronic Medical Record! I don’t.

I can order his medication, and check his weight history and access

articles on aging dogs, see what shots are needed. I worry about his health, probably more then my own… he’s my best bud, and so I hug him a bit more every day. And we go to the park more often. Accessing his EMR is easy, quick and I will continue to monitor his health through it… I’m engaged!

I don’t yet have access to my own medical records. I had to sign several forms to just get a paper copy… So for now, I’m learning another lesson from OSLO.

Or as our four-legged friend DUSTY said: “HEALTHCARE HAS GONE TO THE DOGS!"

John McDowell

Senior Community Manager / Next Wave Connect

April 6, 2014

Non Technically Speaking / My Dad CONNECTed me to Dale Carnegie and here's what I learned

Non Technically Speaking is my professional blog appearing on NEXT WAVE CONNECT a collaborative social network for Healthcare professionals. 

As a very young child my parents taught me many things. Two things I remember are my home phone number P I 7 – 8 5 2 6. The PI was PIoneer. Eventually it was okay to just use numbers: 7 4 7 – 8 5 2 6. No need for area codes back then. The other thing was “never talk to strangers.”

Then somewhere in time the “paradigm shifted” and I was heading off to Friday Night Recreation from 7-9 pm at the Willets Road Middle School. Things start to shift in middle school, but back in 1973, I don’t think we were talking about paradigms. Shy, quiet me was suppose to be talking to my classmates on a Friday night. That meant casual interactions with classmates. And my father was coaching me from one his Dale Carnegie books on “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

That’s Dale’s quote, but my Dad just paraphrased it and encouraged me to take an interest in other people. Ask questions, and if they start to talk about something they seem to enjoy talking about, ask more questions. When I went off to my college interviews, Dad reminded me again to ask questions. He was always reminding my sister and me to take an interest in others. Be inquisitive!

So that brings me to today, the paradigms keep shifting and we’re playing with social networking as a collaborative tool. We are bringing together health care professionals eager to interact and learn from each other. But stop dangling your toes in the water and really start to play. What brings you on-board? What is your biggest challenge? Why haven’t you been back? What was your biggest success last year? Who do you want to talk to? How can I help?

I miss the old white World Book Encyclopedias my Dad bought one year that sat on a walnut book rack in the center hallway and I paraphrased for many a school report. I don’t have to run up and down the stairs to look up something any longer, now I can just shift over to another open window and search Wikipedia. Thomas Kuhn first mentioned a paradigm shift in his 1962 book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” Somewhere in the late 80s and early 90s, Paradigm became a pretty popular management buzzword. And the frog in boiling water was a popular analogy. I’m no scientist but I think the acceleration rate for shifting paradigms is rapid these days. However, I’m not sure it is too cool to talk about shifting paradigms any longer, as I’m probably dating myself. But today you can reach out easily and CONNECT with colleagues across the country, no need for area codes or even phone numbers.

I’m going start asking questions, as I make CONNECTions, I’m hoping some of you will answer, and in return reach out to others and ask the more questions. Post those questions in the communities you are interested in and let’s watch what happens.

The way we do our work keeps changing.

CONNECT is an exciting way to be part of yet another change. In a lot of ways, CONNECT is your Friday Night Recreation, but available all hours, every day. If you want to hang out in the gym and talk ICD-10 check it out, there’s arts and crafts and ACOs in the cafeteria, and if you want to step outside and hide in the bushes… for a private chat… well yeah, that’s possible too... you can set up a private community within CONNECT... you get the idea.

Talk to strangers! I think my parent would approve.

Start with asking questions. And suddenly you’ll realize we’re not strangers, we’re all healthcare professionals working, exploring and solving together today’s healthcare challenges! Collaborative networking and problem solving, learning together and from each other. Make CONNECTions; it’s for the patient!

Thanks for reading.

John McDowell

Senior Community Manager / Next Wave Connect
February 6, 2014

Non Technically Speaking / Sometimes it is all just a bit confusing

Non Technically Speaking is my professional blog appearing on NEXT WAVE CONNECT a collaborative social network for Healthcare professionals. 

I mean I sit down at my desk and I start to think about Meaningful Use, ICD-10, Patient Engagement, Accountable Care Organizations, just to name a few and I scratch my head, and perhaps mutter an expletive and then I think where do I begin. Ever try to talk healthcare to your friends? 

MUS2, HIX, CAH, EHR, ACO, EPs… I stepped away from Healthcare for ten years and all that has changed are the acronyms. It can be one big alphabet mind boggle, or at least sound like a conversation in your head before you make your next “Words With Friends” move on your mobile device.

Sometimes there is a great sense of being lost.

Welcome back to Healthcare. About eight weeks ago, I joined Next Wave Connect, and returned to the Healthcare industry. Next Wave Connect made sense! Start-up, relationship driven, collaborative tools.

I spent 14 years in Healthcare Administration and then my professional pendulum swung back to my own retail startup ten years ago. Seemed like helping men dress better, more stylishly, was easier then healthcare. You could assist a customer and hear about their problems while helping them buy a new pair of jeans and feel better about themselves. But it was never about the clothes, it was always about the relationship, the connection and helping someone spruce up for that date, interview or trip to Vegas with the guys. 

But here I am, now back and energetic about developing CONNECT. Building “smarter communities” online, right on your desktop, and the desktop down the hall, and the desktop across town and the desktop in the neighboring state as well on the opposite coast. CONNECT, a collaborative tool to help Healthcare professionals and clinicians work together through the alphabet mind boggle. The possibilities of finding the answers together, sharing successes and helping others learn how you did it, assisting someone with the answers you figured out last week, or month or season, and building virtual relationships that will help us solve the challenges of Healthcare 2014 and beyond are endless.

But why?

For me it was quite simple. Somewhere in every issue we are challenged by, for every dialogue we pursue, for every organizational implementation and goal we strive to achieve… we are helping someone. And for me it was not the kid dressing for a weekend in Vegas, but for the mother fighting breast cancer, or the neighbor who suffered a back injury when he fell off the ladder, or the baby born prematurely. When you walk back into Healthcare, no matter where you land, everything you do should be for one reason… and that’s the patient.

The only person who should ever feel lost in Healthcare is the patient and that should only be on the very first day of their diagnosis. After that day, after their first encounter with their provider, with their diagnostic exams, with their treatment protocol, our patients and their families should never feel lost again. That’s what we are here for. Think about it, Healthcare is really about building one big large interconnected safety web of relationships and collaborative processes, best practices and shared data to assure no patient ever feels lost. Working together and sharing, creating a smarter community gets us the answers to solving that alphabet mind boggle. A “smarter community” working together.

That’s why I jumped to work on CONNECT. I don’t get to see the patient, and there a good chance maybe you don’t either, but in the end, the patient remains foremost in our minds, and is truly at the core of all we do. It is why we believe here at CONNECT that the synergies that social networking can create, the experiences that we share, that methodology that emerges, the processes that are enhanced, the system integrations that are achieved; it is for the patient. And that patient is often, our daughter, or father, or neighbor, or best friend. That’s why we are so eager to get you, your colleagues, your business associates, near and far: CONNECTed. We can accomplish great things working together; it’s for the patient.

Thanks for reading!

John McDowell 

Senior Community Manager / Next Wave Connect

January 4, 2014