041 Protocols Hospital

Good morning from Chandler Regional Hospital. I'm Kim Gaskill, and this is the Daily Spark. Protocols. Oh my goodness, in the hospital there are so many protocols, and I understand it. They're there to protect us. They're there to protect the hospital and the staff. There are things put in place so that people don't hurt each other, so that mistakes don't happen with medications. All of that stuff. But yesterday I was learning— and I'm using air quotes— learning how to get out of the bed with a walker and move to the chair. Now I can't put any weight bearing on my leg, and so it's not safe for me to do it by myself. So somebody's in here helping. And I don't mean that they have to actually help me. I can do it, but they need to be near me in case I lose my balance. Well, yesterday occupational and physical therapy came in. Now it is their job to get you past the difficulties that you have in moving and functioning and getting back to some normalcy. Of your life and taking care of yourself. And their protocols are different than the technicians or the nurses who've just been in here standing by in case I fall. Their protocols include many more steps. Now I'm doing this in a minute or less. Doesn't take me very long. I get it done. I get moved to the chair. And then I rest. But it actually took over 20 minutes for them to help me— now I'm using air quotes— help me move from the bed to the chair, because all of the protocols that they had to put in place for me to move were actually ridiculous. I mean, at one point I even said to them, please stop helping me. You're hurting me more. You're making it take so much longer. I can just do this safely. But they couldn't allow that. They had to measure everything, make sure that it was the right height. They had to add a little arm piece to the walker. They had to put a belt on me for safety. They had to rearrange everything in the room to give me a clear path. All of these things that they had to do created all of this frustration, all of this extra time. It kept me from meeting my goal. And I'm thinking, you know, we do this all the time. We get in our own way by putting obstacles and putting restrictions and putting protocols on what we do, or what we think we need to do to get to a place, to get a result. And sometimes there's a much easier, more efficient way to do it. We just won't allow ourselves to get out of our own way and do it. Just do it and make it happen. We overthink things. So my challenge to you today is get out of your own way. Stop overthinking things. Make sure the protocols you have in place make sense and are efficient and needed. See you again tomorrow for another Daily Spark.