Sara's blog

Today I spent all day shadowing the charge nurse in the ER since David was out of town and I don’t have my computer or work area set up yet. I enjoyed getting to know some of the ER nurses. There’s one in particular named Randal who is quite a character. He kept asking if Paloma and I were spies and then he said he could sing some Justin Timberlake in hopes that he would get a good report from us. He also said he’ll be working on some dance moves to show us the next time we see him. I also heard one of the ER doctors say that they should be making certain decisions instead of “the suits.” It almost made me chuckle because Colonel Garner has told us so much about people calling administrators that but I didn’t think I would hear it on my real first day and before lunch, no less. I also scheduled a meeting for next Tuesday with my preceptor, Marcy Weber. I’m really looking forward to that since we haven’t had the opportunity to talk, other than just saying hello at meetings. I’m excited to learn more about what my major project with Smart Babies will be since that’s pretty unclear to me at this point. Overall, a very good first real day of my residency.

I had a wonderful couple of weeks relaxing at home as well as traveling to Arizona for a wedding. And now it’s residency time! Woohoo!

Yesterday and today were orientation days at Hillcrest, so we spent a lot of time filling out paperwork and learning about the organization. I also had lunch with David Argueta (Vice President of Operations) and Will Turner (last year’s resident who now works here full-time) in the physicians lounge. It was great to have a nice conversation with both of them about the residency and other fun topics. I think this is going to be a great experience and I know I will learn a tremendous amount. David seems so open to helping with anything we need as well as giving us access to any meetings he’s going to. Will seems just as willing to help and will offer a great perspective from a resident’s point of view. It’ll definitely be nice to have him right across the hall in case of anything.

I have a feeling I’ll have plenty to write about in the next few weeks!

Well, finals are officially over! I don’t think it has quite sunk in that I have a little bit of free time now. Maybe it’s because I still need to pack up all my stuff so that I don’t have to worry about it when I come back at the end of the month to move apartments. But once that’s done, I look forward to relaxing a little bit back home in Austin. I’m also looking forward to going to a wedding in Arizona with my husband in a couple of weeks. We’re trying to think of it as a mini vacation that we desperately need after the stressful things we’ve been through lately. It’ll be nice to be alone together away from everything and everyone, even if it’s just for a couple of days. It just feels more relaxing when you go somewhere new and different. Even if you take a couple of days off or if you have a long weekend, there always seems to be something that needs to be done at home. So a change of scenery will be refreshing.

I’d like to take a moment to wish everyone luck with their residencies and internships. I’ll see some of you in the fall and some next spring. And for those of you who are graduating, I wish you the best of luck in your future careers.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for the semester. I have several finals this week, some in-class and some take-home, and then I’ll be done for the semester. There have been a lot of ups and downs the past few months so it’ll be nice to have a couple of weeks off before starting my residency at the beginning of June. Even with tests, this week feels a lot more calm than last week. Probably because we don’t have class, which gives us a lot of time to study and also clear our heads or take care of anything else we need to. We also have our last PEP assignment due this week. It’s always interesting to see how the business plans develop over the semester and this is when we get to see all the different parts we’ve been working on put together into one comprehensive document. We’ll also see which suggestions the prisoner actually used and which ones he didn’t. We probably won’t work on it until later this week when we’re actually done with finals, though. Good luck to everyone!

A couple of weeks ago we had an interesting speaker who works in revenue cycle management at Baylor Health System. Overall, it was a good and informative discussion. Here are some of the topics he discussed:

Revenue Cycle Areas of Focus:

1.       Financial Outcome Metrics

2.       Patient Satisfaction

3.       Employee Satisfaction

4.       Cost Effectiveness

Revenue Cycle Industry Challenges:

1.       Increased Competition/ Demand for Transparency

2.       Reduction in Payment

3.       Regulatory Burden

4.       New Culture of Developing Leaders

5.       Transition to Population Health

Baylor Revenue Cycle Responses:

1.       Increase Transparency/Focus on Patient Preferences

2.       Lead on Regulatory Reform

3.       Automation/Exception-Driven/Transaction-Focused

4.       Recruit & Develop Talented Leaders

5.       Develop Necessary Information System Infrastructure, Process Reorientation & Cost    Reduction Strategies to Facilitate Population Health Management

He also gave us some tips for future careers:

·         Be solution-oriented and action-oriented

·         Be analytically focused, understand numbers and problems

·         Be as coachable as possible

·         Get along with people

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This was kind of a rough week and I’m glad it’s over. Not only was it super busy with projects, presentations, and a final, but I was also quite a bit more sore and fatigued than I had expected. Luckily I had a lot of help. My group members were amazing with putting the presentations together quickly and efficiently, Zahra drove me to and from school all week, and my hubby did everything around the apartment so I could rest as much as possible. I’m very lucky to have such great people in my life and I wouldn’t have made it through this week without them. So thank you! I’m sure next week will be much easier.

I had my surgery on Thursday and I’m so relieved that it’s over! Especially since I was starting to get pretty nervous and anxious about it the last few days beforehand. Everything went well and we’re hoping that the problem is fixed so that I don’t have to do this again. My arrhythmia was coming from a very thick part of the heart that’s right by the breathing nerve, so they had to be conservative with how much they burned because if they accidentally injured the nerve, it would hurt to breathe for a year. I have a good feeling about it, though, and I’ve been sleeping well so I’m hopeful. Overall I feel good, although very sore in my chest and my groin which is where they went in to access my heart with the catheters. I’ve been told that the soreness could last up to a month. It will be so worth it if the problem is fixed! It’ll be interesting sitting in class on Monday since there’s a lot of pressure in my chest when I’m sitting straight up and since I get tired pretty quickly. I’m glad that each day, I’m one day closer to feeling like myself again.

I’d like to thank everyone who checked up on me the past few days. I appreciate all of you. And a very special thank you goes out to Zahra and my husband who were both there every step of the way, especially the past few days, including the many hours at the hospital. I love you guys and appreciate you more than you’ll ever know! I’m extremely lucky to have both of you in my life and I would do anything for either one of you.

This has been such a weird week but I’m happy to be able to say that I’ve marked several things off my to-do list. I’m hoping this will pay off when I can take some time to rest this weekend. One of the things I don’t think I’ve mentioned is one of my GA assignments. I have to come up with short quizzes for the undergrad finance class that my boss teaches and it’s been a very interesting experience. Not only have I learned a few things, but I also have a new appreciation for how hard it is for professors to make up test questions, especially multiple choice ones. I was pretty nervous about the assignment at first but I turned in the first few chapters and my boss liked my questions, so he gave me several more chapters to work on. Phew! It’s always nice to hear you’ve done a good job. I better go get started on the rest of the chapters!

I’d just like to take a moment to express how sad and horrifying the tragedy in West was last night. I’m thankful that my good friend’s family and their home are all safe. God bless all those whose lives were lost, including the first responders who were there to try to save lives. It’s amazing to think that they know their lives are in jeopardy each time they selflessly do their jobs. While watching the news, I had such a proud moment when I heard Glenn Robinson, CEO of Hillcrest, speaking to the media about what measures were being taken to provide the best care possible to all in need. I’m thankful that I have a residency at such a quality hospital and I know I will learn a lot there this summer. It will definitely be interesting to hear more about how they handled this emergency situation.

I’m glad my husband, Zahra, Marie and I were able to help out a little bit by taking donations to one of the trailers today. It all adds up and every little bit helps so I hope everyone can find a way to help even if they don’t think it will make a difference. Trust me, it will.

So I thought I’d post a list of everything I have due in the next couple of weeks:

• Operations management presentation
• 2 case write-ups
• MIS presentation
• MIS final
• Operations Management final
• 2 Operations Management quizzes
• Strategy paper
• Healthcare Finance paper
• Healthcare Finance Capital Budgeting case
• ACHE presentation
• Strategy book club presentation

I think that’s it. Haha! And then we have other finals the week after that. I’m hoping to get most of this done before next week since I’ll lose of couple of days with the surgery. I’d also like to take some time to enjoy my first Dia Del Oso on Thursday. I hope the weather isn’t too bad, although the forecast is not encouraging right now. I’ll have to report back after Dia.