So many words, words, words, words!

When there are many words, mistakes are unavoidable, but those who restrain their lips are wise. — Proverbs 10:19

On an average day in your life:

• 16,000 words are spoken each day by you and to you each day
• 110 e-mails are received/sent by you each day
• More than 3,000 market brand messages travel through your head every day

No wonder it can get confusing.

Now add the stress of something new or important and the challenge of effective communication goes up:

• Approximately 70% to 80% of all accidents over the last 20 years (NASA ) are directly attributed to interpersonal communication errors
• Communication failures were implicated at the root of over 70 percent of sentinel events (JCAHO)

Here you are in the midst of a major change in the way you go about your professional day. How do you ensure effective communication?

Not alone!

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel. — Psalms 73:23-24

It is one thing to look forward to something new; to anticipate how much better things will be, or how happier you will be, or how nice it will be to have something reliable and safe. Whether your new beginning is a skill, relationship, car, job, house, or new town, dreaming about it and experiencing it are two different things
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Anticipating the new rarely takes into consideration all the work, the changes, the stress of learning new ways, developing new habits and becoming familiar with what before was only a dream. Somehow the dream of the new overshadows the reality of the change and that is probably a good thing otherwise you might never change!

Well here you are. “Next week” is now. Everything is new at Florida Hospital Tampa: 40+ systems like; iConnect, CPOE, billing, Surg-net, Lab, Pharmacy, Radiology, Scheduling, equipment, WOWs (workstations on wheels), bar-coded wrist bands and Pyxis meds dispensing…the list goes on.

A best buddy

Most weddings involve at least a bride, a groom, a maid/matron of honor and a best man …and a minister or justice of the peace.

Do you remember your wedding day or a wedding in which you participated?

Save the date cards go out six months before the event, showers happen, plans get underway. Tickets are purchased. Church and rooms reserved for an event that was still way off…out there in the next time zone, beyond baseball season.

Then the months became weeks and all of a sudden the big event was next week!!!
IS everything ready? All the little details you said you’d get to. Will you have time? More importantly, will you remember? That funny panicky feeling sets in, even though 95% of what you needed to do is done...you still worry.

Burning hearts!

They said to each other, "Didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?"
—Luke 24:32-33

They were afraid. So afraid they were running away. Running from what they did not understand — right into the arms of what they did not know. Running from the enemy who surely was going to destroy them just as they had destroyed Jesus.

In the midst of their running they met a stranger on the road.

The stranger asked them what was going on. Why were they so worried and anxious?

As happens so often in your world of patient care, the worried anxious told the stranger everything they feared.

Listening in a way that let them know they were being heard, the stranger then began to help them understand all that had happened and what was yet ahead.

Someday is today

Work hard and become a leader; be lazy and never succeed.
—Proverbs 12:24

The most popular day of the week: tomorrow!

The day of the week that never shows up: someday!

Funny thing is that no matter how often you say their name, you cannot find either day on the calendar! Tomorrow cannot be scheduled, and someday is only wishful thinking.

Snow White captured the dreaminess of someday when she sang “someday my prince will come.” You and I also make someday a land of dreams…in our minds, with our promises and hopes as the thought of someday seems to be the panacea for the frustration, weariness, and discouragement so often encountered each day.