What's up with Ed

Hi Ya’all…

Nope they don’t say Ya’all in Arizona.  It’s more an “east coast” thing.  OK actually more a south east coast thing.  Well it’s been 6 months since I moved to Arizona and I thought you all deserved an update on what’s up.  So here’s the list of greatness that has occurred:

- Um… OK wait.  There was, no that didn’t happen.  OK yeah I’ve got it..  No wait that wasn’t here.  OK I’ve got it..  No dang, that happened a while ago.

Ok Ok, I exaggerate but let’s say that AZ wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.  It’s a long story, and if you really want to have some bathroom reading I’d be happy to share with you the long saga.  Bottom line is the hospital I moved out here for didn’t meet the promises they made nor my personal goals I set.  So after 6 months of trying I gave up and went a new direction.

I have accepted a job as a Senior Consultant for a company called ACS Healthcare Solutions.  ACS is a Fortune 500 company that has most of its 5 billion dollar market share in healthcare, government, and various other industries.  My role will be as a Work-Flow and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) consultant.  I’ll be focusing specifically on Emergency Department EMR. Roughly translated, I’ll be helping hospital ERs define their work flow and integrate it into any number of software packages.  My initial software focus will be the Epic software.  Epic is an industry leader in EMR so it will be an interesting ride.  I’ll be on the road 4 days a week and home on weekends.

I’m sorry to be so quickly leaving the bedside nursing, I still have a lot to learn and the past 2 years (and of course Marymount) have taught me a great deal.  I really do enjoy the excitement of ER patient care.  But there’s still too much business process and technology left in my blood.  (Thanks to my nurse training I now know which cells in my blood those specifically are.)  I was frustrated (that’s an understatement) when I looked at the leadership of some hospitals (some not all) and seeing how stuck the staff were.  I hope as a part of the ACS team I’ll be able to work with the hospitals that have realized that electronic clinical documentation and a progressive leadership approach is going to be part of their next step forward.  I can’t let my clinical and teaching side die, so I plan on doing some agency work and teach a little on weekends, if I can find an agency as good as the one I used back east (they are lame here).

I realized the place I was, probably wasn’t the right move, almost 3 months into my tenure here.  Originally I looked at other nursing and “nursing informatics” roles throughout the country and was so desperate I was willing to enslave myself and pay out my contract with the hospital, but I wasn’t sure I was willing to break the lease on top of that.  That was one reason to have me stay in Phoenix

The other was that I “accidentally” met someone and she and I are having too good a time for me to up and move right away.  I figure I’ve messed up with relationships in the past due to work, so I wasn’t going to try the long distance thing again.

So here I am, in triple digit heat on weekends and god knows where on weekdays… and we’ll just see what happens.  In the mean time.  Be well and enjoy the Fall!