Stroke II: Not Just a Health Organization, A Healthy Organization

Late on the night of February 13 and early into the early morning on Valentine’s Day, I suffered a major stroke.  Quick, focused and amazing action by friends, ambulance drivers, and medical staff prevented permanent injury, possibly death.

After release from the hospital in San Jose, I spent a week at Good Samaritan Hospital.  “Good Sam?”  No, “Brilliant Sam.” Would be more apt.

Because of the astounding quality of care at “Good Sam,” I wrote them, thanking them for their work – a rare combination of across-the-board quality and compassion.

Odd that I should share my letter of thanks to them with you.  I do so for two reasons – enduring gratitude and a reflection on al health.

Most of you who read (well perhaps not read, but receive) my blog are connected to agencies that provide a wide variety of community and governmental services.  If so, I hope you’ll appreciate this blog not just as an expression of my gratitude, but a reflection on what makes an agency, no matter its purpose, healthy, vibrant and effective.  That all agencies should have Good Sam’s qualities!

So walk with me as I share with you my view of Good Sam, my take as a patient:

 

Dr. Kaisler-Meza and Director Abalos

Good Samaritan Hospital, Mission Oaks Campus

15891 Los Gatos-Alamaden Rd

Los Gatos, CA, 95032

 

Dear Dr. Kaisler-Meza and Director Abalos:

I was released from your amazing rehabilitation center on Friday, February 22.  It is now Sunday, the 24th.  I write you because I want you to know how much you’ve helped me and my entire family, and the joy you have created.

What you and your team have done is remarkable, and in my extensive career as an administrator of organizations small and large, rare.  

I’ll admit that this is my first experience with a rehab center.  Thus one might think, and legitimately so, that my judgment is skewed, that I have no base of comparison.  Not so…  I know healthy, vibrant, learning organizations when I see them.  Over more than 50 years in the public service sector, I have run many organizations, large and small, community-based, state and national organizations. So I will presume: at Good Samaritan, you are not just modeling how to run a health organization, but a healthy organization.

Let me mention a few of my reflections about what you did, what you do, and who, in my
opinion, you are:

—Team Spirit.  Staff seem to love working at Good Samaritan’s Mission Oakes Rehab Campus and with each other.  I was struck by your staff retention, how long many of your staff have worked there, one, if I recall correctly, since you opened!  I think of Sandy in OT walking with me on cold days, ensuring my footing on different surfaces, encouraging me through batteries of tough cognitive and spatial tests; of KC in speech who wouldn’t let me B.S. my way trying to pronounce “atrial fibrillation” and who taught me, to stand and sit tall loading my diaphragm with air, thus supporting, making resonant my words; of Michelle, martial arts expert in PT, who pushed me; Allison the spirited dynamo who welcomed us, introduced us to all that was going on (and what to expect) while demonstrating her golf swing; Edith our evening shift nurse who patiently explained all that was going on (and results) and maternally warned me about walking around so much unaccompanied.  I deeply apologize for those names I’ve forgotten but whose faces are etched.

—Quality of Care: Whether getting pills in the evening, meals, pulse, blood draws and heart check throughout, my doctor interactions were warm and courteous.  They provided clear and warm summaries of my progress or lack of same. All was explained.  I was not treated as an inert lump getting a dose of this or that. All questions I asked, and there were many, were answered thoroughly, patiently and often with fun, (I told Edith that the reason I didn’t sleep the first night was because she didn’t sing me a lullaby).  I always wanted to know “why,” not to challenge, but to know the purpose, goals, the context.  And because I wanted to take full advantage of Good Sam, I requested and was granted two extra classes: OT and Speech, the day of my departure! I simply could not get enough of the classes.

—Team Interaction:  This was extraordinary: while my PT, OT, and Speech therapists each had their respective roles, it became equally clear that each was fully aware of what the other was doing.  Thus I’d often hear, “You know KC in speech yesterday noted X, and so I thought I’d modify things a bit today and start you with Y.”  Instead of OT, let’s say, launching and sticking w/the prescribed protocol, it varied based on what each colleague was seeing and doing, and how I was faring, responding.  To me, this is a vital sign of a healthy, learning, organization.

—Data Sharing – The Larger Perspective: I was briefed daily by the doctor in charge, doctors who pulled all together, e.g. the summary, change in meds based on progress or lack of same.  “Data” was shared and questions/input from my wife and me were welcomed.

—Family Atmosphere:  We had laughs, and many of you shared stories and pictures of your kids, your grandkids, as we did ours.

—Compassion:  This is connected to “family.”  The core of that word – “compassion,” -means, as you know, to “suffer” (pathos, passion) “with.”  Never once did I feel that you didn’t care either about me or my wonderful wife whom you allowed to sleep in my room, she jammed in the corner almost under the sink.

—Goal Orientation: You asked me for my goals for the day and recorded them on the whiteboard in front of my bed and you told me yours. I felt I was a partner in my rehabilitation, a participant!

—Flexibility: Somehow you jammed in a cot for my wife, fed her, if you had extra food thus making us warm and comfortable, welcomed in our tiny submarine (or better, “space capsule,” because we didn’t know where or when we were going to land). And how I needed my amazing wife!  You knew that.

So I sing your praises and will continue to do so.  My wife and I feel so appreciative and welcome that we, when and if in San Jose next, will come by, say hello, and give and receive hugs, just as if we’re stopping by to say hello to the family, a family there for us at this time, the time of a huge crisis in our lives.

If anyone else in your hospital/healing world needs to hear these words, please feel free to share them. 

With deepest warmth and appreciation,

Jack Calhoun
President, HopeMatters.org