Twittering a "Day in the Life"

Over the years, many people have stopped and asked me that question, "so what is it that you do all day as the CEO of the hospital?" I have tried to come up with a number of examples to try and explain what typical day looks like, but often come up short as my days are generally anything but typical. Yes I talk with a lot of people, attend numerous meetings, and then there is always that paperwork and never-ending email box that has to be tended to, but somehow that doesn't seem to do justice to variety of issues that must be dealt with on a daily basis in efforts to provide for our patients, team-members, and physicians as we steer the organization down a path of long-term viability and success.

My guess is that many of you have also found yourself trying to answer the question of "what do I do" from time-to-time and I think there is a lot that can be learned as we each try to understand and gain a better appreciation for the role that each of us plays as a part of the health care team. With that thought in mind, our marketing department has began a new series this year appropriately entitled, "A Day in the Life..."

Each month, a different person or job will be featured and live tweets will be posted throughout the day. Our hope is that we can all gain some insight and perhaps a new perspective at looking at how we take such a diverse group of people, jobs, and a very complex environment and choreograph those individual efforts into excellence and quality care for hundreds of patients each day!

I volunteered to be our first guest in the series and thought it would be worthwhile to recap my day of "tweets" for those of you that may have missed them in real-time. Below are the actual messages posted to both the hospital and my personal twitter pages yesterday.

8:06 AM - What a day to start a "day in the life" tweeting. Roads iced-over. Traffic is crawling. This isn't looking good right now!

8:16AM - 1st calendar change of the day, sure it won't be the last. Bypassing mtg at Ky Hosp Assoc, hoping to get downtown before next mtg.

9:15AM - Made it downtown, starting meeting to discuss our physician relations and development strategy. Important that we do this right!

11:44AM - Calendar add-on mtg w/CFO to discuss contract w/outside services provider. Working to improve patient flow through hospital via bed plan.

12:05 PM - Discussing plans for upcoming Flexner Rpt Centennial Symposium w/Med School. Flexner helped shape the quality of med schools today.

12:29 PM - I'm sure no one appreciates the planning a major event requires. Budgets, promotion, conf rms, travel, catering, guest lists, etc-oh my!

1:52 PM - Conference call w/key vendor to discuss current relationship and future business proposal. We have a lot going on within the organization!

1:59 PM - Off to visit w/one of our key surgeons at his office. Good to stay connected to what our physicians think and learn how we can improve.

3:01 PM - Good mtg w/physician. Just finished impromptu conversation with dir of foundation on several mission and diversity issues.

4:06 PM - Had a great mtg with my boss to discuss campus strategy and current hot topics. We are definately moving things in the right direction!

5:26 PM - Just finished lengthy mtg about reporting and monthly review processes for the future. Need to build more accountability and structure.

5:48 PM - Short phone call w/doc about operations improvement and growth idea. Almost 6PM & finally at my desk so I can start my emails & paperwork.

8:24 PM - Heading home for the night. Hope you enjoyed a day in the life!

So that's my "typical" day as 1 of about 3,000 people downtown that it takes to make the hospital function. Was my day anything like you thought it would be? Would love to hear your thoughts and reactions. P.S. If anyone is interested in helping with this series for future posts, please let me know!

Twittering a "Day in the Life"

A Positive Experiment

Last year, I began this blog as an experiment. At the time, I wasn't really sure what to expect, but hoped for a few things...

1) That this would be a useful tool to share information and communicate with our team and the community.
2) That it would spark an interest in readers to comment and engage in dialogue with me about the various topics discussed.
3) That I would be able to find the time to keep up with this experiment and find new and interesting things to talk about.

By and large, I would consider this project a success and hope to keep it going in 2010. The reason I claim this has been a success is based upon looking at a year-end statistics report that I got from Google. Based upon the analytic tracking tools that are embedded in the blogging site, there were just over 18,000 visits to the Hospital Life blog in 2009 from readers in 72 different countries! I had hoped that I would get a lot of readers from within the hospital and our system, but I never thought that I would reach such a wide audience from one little blog on the web! And of the roughly 8,000 unique visitors to the site, over half of you continue to check back and follow the blog on some sort regular basis, for which I am greatly appreciative!

As I look forward to this year, I hope to continue to find new ways to stimulate thought and discussion through this blog and hope that my readers will also become more engaged in sharing their thoughts and opinions as well. Recently, I have tried to make the site even more accessible by linking posts and stories to my Facebook and Twitter accounts to make it easier for everyone to read. If you aren't connected to me there, please feel free to add me and help continue the discussion!

Thank you all for making this such a worthwhile endeavor, I look forward to a great 2010!

A Positive Experiment