In The Know
Hello World,
I'm thinking that people should probably be sitting down before I just blurt this right out, but the fact of the matter is that we find ourselves perched atop the very last weekend in July, believe it or not, and Monday will already be August, as impossible as that might seem. I can't imagine what's ahead for the weather, since we've already had three weeks with the most torrid temperatures and soaring humidity, so that if the fabled "Dog Days of August" are going to be even worse than this, heck, even the dogs will be flying to Canada for the summer, and not just the famous geese of the same name. Several days, the state declared a Heat Emergency, and at work, they asked us to shut off lights and turn off unnecessary equipment, and when even that wasn't enough, they sent us home early. Although why they thought I wanted to go home, where it was hot, rather than stay at work, where it was cool, is a mystery to me, I'm sure. And I realized that it would do no good to sneak downstairs into the Morgue to chill out, when I discovered that the line for that was wrapped completely around the building, thanks not.
On the local scene, alert readers may recall the contractors-in-the-driveway scenario while I was trying to pack up the car for vacation, some of whom turned out to be roofers. They worked their magic while I was away, and I came home to find that all of the gaping holes in our old roof were a thing of the past, with all the patches seamlessly integrated into the rest of the roof without leaving a trace. For the first time in years, our roof was prepared to act in its original capacity of repelling the elements from the outside, while keeping everything on the inside safe and secure. We could not have been happier if the late and lamented Ed McMahon had shown up at our door with one of those big cardboard checks, because for us, it really did feel like we won the lottery. Unfortunately, I said to Bill, we'll never know if it actually worked or not, because now that the roof was fixed, it would surely never rain again in our area for the rest of our lives, or perhaps ever, until the end of time for all we know. But it didn't take long for us to have a few days with tremendous thunderstorms, with lightning crashing about in all directions and thunder booming like cannon fire, and amazingly enough, we didn't have to go scurrying off for pans and buckets like we usually would in those conditions. So that was either an early Christmas present, or a late Easter miracle, but whatever you want to call it, kindly do so with a few choruses of "How Dry I Am."
Meanwhile at work, we received a broadcast memo from the President of the hospital, for the purpose of welcoming aboard what he described as "the most recent addition to our team," who is now apparently our Senior Vice President for Clinical Systems Development. How remarkably coincidental that this position has just been instantaneously created out of whole cloth, and there's already someone on the spot to fill it - and not just any old anybody who happened to be kicking around the place anyway, but some total unknown who comes to us from some entity identified as Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine, of all things. It goes on to say that the person " ... will be responsible for assisting us in transforming our clinics to a patient centered medical home. This will broaden access to primary care, while enhancing care coordination for the patients we serve. An additional responsibility will be developing an Independent Physicians' Association, ensuring a complete continuum of care for our community." I have to tell you that I have been working here over 20 years, and I have a pretty good grasp of healthcare gobbledygook after all this time, and I have absolutely no idea what this means. I walk through the Clinic almost every single day, and I could not begin to tell you what the heck is a "patient centered medical home," much less how this will "broaden access to primary care." I'm sure an Independent Physicians' Association (whatever that is) would be a great idea, but how that ensures "a complete continuum of care for our community" is entirely beyond me. If this was four months ago, I'd say the Yalies were pulling an April Fool's joke on us, because as it is, I have no other explanation for this in any way.
Also at work, I happened to be filing a memo from one of the consultants, about an equipment proposal that listed two different units for comparison purposes. It then went on to say:
=========================
Once we let them know which model we are going with, they will remove the remaining unit from the quote, which will intern lower the quoted amount appropriately.
=========================
Just when you think you can't be surprised by homophones anymore, along comes someone who manages to take the word "intern" and the phrase "in turn," and somehow make them interchangeable, which you would think would be impossible for just about anybody except the horoscope computer. Well, as I always say in cases like this, the spell-checker is never going to help you with this, although you wouldn't think it would take a college education and a wall full of degrees to come up with a whopper like that one, by golly.
Going in the opposite, but not any better, direction, is a memo from the Accounts Payable Manager about a new program for rental equipment that was initiated in October 2010, but without any of the necessary paperwork that should have been processed beforehand. She notes that the expense for the program is about $22,000.00 per month, and none of the invoices can be paid, for lack of documentation. Her final salvo is this arresting declaration:
============================
Please advice if this info is correct. If so this will have a great in pack when the company starts looking for payments.
============================
So while the consultant combines the expression "in turn" into a single word, here in A/P they go the other route by breaking apart the word "impact" and somehow winding up with "in pack" instead, and not any sort of an improvement, as far as I can tell. Once again, the over-burdened spell-checker is going to have no choice but to leave you high and dry, and hanging out in packs, if you can't get any closer to "impact" on your own. [Please see note above about college education, etc.] Actually, my favorite part about the whole thing is not the linguistic transgressions, but the pure hospital-centric obliviousness to the reality of the situation. The program started in October of last year, and we are now on the brink of August, which is a full 10 months later. Her concern is "when the company starts looking for payments," and I'm afraid that I've got a news flash for her. At $22,000 a month, you can believe that the company no doubt started looking for payments last year in November, and December, and every month after that, and hasn't just been sitting around on their hands all this time, until we practically owe them $250,000.00 by now, and never made any attempt to bring it to our attention. Of course, when you're dealing with a place where the interns are great in packs, getting their attention is probably a lot harder than it sounds, particularly when they're busy transforming into a patient centered medical home, and I ought to know. (NOT)
Elle
I'm thinking that people should probably be sitting down before I just blurt this right out, but the fact of the matter is that we find ourselves perched atop the very last weekend in July, believe it or not, and Monday will already be August, as impossible as that might seem. I can't imagine what's ahead for the weather, since we've already had three weeks with the most torrid temperatures and soaring humidity, so that if the fabled "Dog Days of August" are going to be even worse than this, heck, even the dogs will be flying to Canada for the summer, and not just the famous geese of the same name. Several days, the state declared a Heat Emergency, and at work, they asked us to shut off lights and turn off unnecessary equipment, and when even that wasn't enough, they sent us home early. Although why they thought I wanted to go home, where it was hot, rather than stay at work, where it was cool, is a mystery to me, I'm sure. And I realized that it would do no good to sneak downstairs into the Morgue to chill out, when I discovered that the line for that was wrapped completely around the building, thanks not.
On the local scene, alert readers may recall the contractors-in-the-driveway scenario while I was trying to pack up the car for vacation, some of whom turned out to be roofers. They worked their magic while I was away, and I came home to find that all of the gaping holes in our old roof were a thing of the past, with all the patches seamlessly integrated into the rest of the roof without leaving a trace. For the first time in years, our roof was prepared to act in its original capacity of repelling the elements from the outside, while keeping everything on the inside safe and secure. We could not have been happier if the late and lamented Ed McMahon had shown up at our door with one of those big cardboard checks, because for us, it really did feel like we won the lottery. Unfortunately, I said to Bill, we'll never know if it actually worked or not, because now that the roof was fixed, it would surely never rain again in our area for the rest of our lives, or perhaps ever, until the end of time for all we know. But it didn't take long for us to have a few days with tremendous thunderstorms, with lightning crashing about in all directions and thunder booming like cannon fire, and amazingly enough, we didn't have to go scurrying off for pans and buckets like we usually would in those conditions. So that was either an early Christmas present, or a late Easter miracle, but whatever you want to call it, kindly do so with a few choruses of "How Dry I Am."
Meanwhile at work, we received a broadcast memo from the President of the hospital, for the purpose of welcoming aboard what he described as "the most recent addition to our team," who is now apparently our Senior Vice President for Clinical Systems Development. How remarkably coincidental that this position has just been instantaneously created out of whole cloth, and there's already someone on the spot to fill it - and not just any old anybody who happened to be kicking around the place anyway, but some total unknown who comes to us from some entity identified as Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine, of all things. It goes on to say that the person " ... will be responsible for assisting us in transforming our clinics to a patient centered medical home. This will broaden access to primary care, while enhancing care coordination for the patients we serve. An additional responsibility will be developing an Independent Physicians' Association, ensuring a complete continuum of care for our community." I have to tell you that I have been working here over 20 years, and I have a pretty good grasp of healthcare gobbledygook after all this time, and I have absolutely no idea what this means. I walk through the Clinic almost every single day, and I could not begin to tell you what the heck is a "patient centered medical home," much less how this will "broaden access to primary care." I'm sure an Independent Physicians' Association (whatever that is) would be a great idea, but how that ensures "a complete continuum of care for our community" is entirely beyond me. If this was four months ago, I'd say the Yalies were pulling an April Fool's joke on us, because as it is, I have no other explanation for this in any way.
Also at work, I happened to be filing a memo from one of the consultants, about an equipment proposal that listed two different units for comparison purposes. It then went on to say:
=========================
Once we let them know which model we are going with, they will remove the remaining unit from the quote, which will intern lower the quoted amount appropriately.
=========================
Just when you think you can't be surprised by homophones anymore, along comes someone who manages to take the word "intern" and the phrase "in turn," and somehow make them interchangeable, which you would think would be impossible for just about anybody except the horoscope computer. Well, as I always say in cases like this, the spell-checker is never going to help you with this, although you wouldn't think it would take a college education and a wall full of degrees to come up with a whopper like that one, by golly.
Going in the opposite, but not any better, direction, is a memo from the Accounts Payable Manager about a new program for rental equipment that was initiated in October 2010, but without any of the necessary paperwork that should have been processed beforehand. She notes that the expense for the program is about $22,000.00 per month, and none of the invoices can be paid, for lack of documentation. Her final salvo is this arresting declaration:
============================
Please advice if this info is correct. If so this will have a great in pack when the company starts looking for payments.
============================
So while the consultant combines the expression "in turn" into a single word, here in A/P they go the other route by breaking apart the word "impact" and somehow winding up with "in pack" instead, and not any sort of an improvement, as far as I can tell. Once again, the over-burdened spell-checker is going to have no choice but to leave you high and dry, and hanging out in packs, if you can't get any closer to "impact" on your own. [Please see note above about college education, etc.] Actually, my favorite part about the whole thing is not the linguistic transgressions, but the pure hospital-centric obliviousness to the reality of the situation. The program started in October of last year, and we are now on the brink of August, which is a full 10 months later. Her concern is "when the company starts looking for payments," and I'm afraid that I've got a news flash for her. At $22,000 a month, you can believe that the company no doubt started looking for payments last year in November, and December, and every month after that, and hasn't just been sitting around on their hands all this time, until we practically owe them $250,000.00 by now, and never made any attempt to bring it to our attention. Of course, when you're dealing with a place where the interns are great in packs, getting their attention is probably a lot harder than it sounds, particularly when they're busy transforming into a patient centered medical home, and I ought to know. (NOT)
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:56 PM
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