Time to Step Up for the Patient

Time to step up for the patient.

I feel it coming from every dedicated clinician, and all the truly dedicated people that really support the interactions that occur at the place we call the bedside, that I am fortunate to meet. It is a weird combination of drowning in a system that is called healthcare, and hopefulness that someday it will be better. Some have held out against all odds to not only hold the line, but to advance changes on behalf of the most important part of the bedside exchange, the patient, and envision a day when so many of our hopes for not just better care, but great care being the undying standard every clinical deliberation, decision and action. These rare few exist, and they hold tightly to their own version of the Golden Rule. They endeavor often against a strong tide of cost cutting and compromise. I personally find those individuals are rare, but they exist everywhere or we would be totally done. For me, the collegial benefit of my position with Hayek has been one of the real perks. I have met and rubbed shoulders with so many real heroes. We just attended the CRASH conference in Vail. I could not help but marvel at the combined skill and knowledge of the attendees. People who have stood in the gap repeatedly for so many. We did around 25 conferences last year. I was at better than half of those. Supporting a product that represents creative and out of the box decisions an actions often puts us on the outs with those who are incapable or do not desire to delve in such. We meet the curious and the innovative at our booth. We are not telling you about the way you have always done it and how to tweak it so you don’t make the existing side effects of your fully evidence based actions worse. We are telling you about a new and better way that may well make you reconsider much of what you have learned and have provided about your standard of care. It is not in my nature so it is hard for me to understand, but that seems to create discomfort for quite a few. Those that come up and ask "what do you have here", are of a different stripe from those that breeze by careful not to make eye contact with a vendor lest they have to consider a new concept that might replace or modify an erroneous one of their personal favorites.

What I am wanting to say here is several things. First I want to elevate and appreciate those heroes on every level. They are cooking or taking your money in the cafeteria and they are doing heart surgery. They are researching, and teaching, and nursing, and putting every ounce of their enormous hearts, skills, knowledge and efforts into better patient care and improving this broken system. God bless you strivers!! I see you and I appreciate you! When I see what you do for those in your care it is hard to contain myself.

Second, I want to also express disdain and exasperation for the rest of the spectrum of dedication. In this role with Hayek I have also had extensive exposure to the profane and evil side of our business. I know deep down from taking part in many effective quality initiatives that cost considerably, but ultimately provided greater efficiency, that supporting the best patient care is cost effective. When the business plan is to deny first, even with well supported interventions by well trained, competent, and even renowned physicians, then profits can soar to truly profane levels. Profit if reasonable is not bad, but when it is driven to insane levels at the cost of lives as it truly is in this system so many times, it taints everything. Somehow the influence of profit and removal of the final clinical say from the physician and extenders and replacing it with a profit based generally incompetent group of deciders is killing more that any pandemic ever will. Can people that work for, and happily with these entities really feel like they contribute to health care? I was as many others were introduced to the bedside when the physician’s say on behalf of the patient was final. The physician was the only buffer between the agents of insane profit and the patient. That was very healthy. Continuous improvements on such a system, however it could be established, would result in greater and greater efficiencies and is not an impossibility. That is not what has evolved. The heroes are beaten down and many are going away. It feels like we are drowning in a system called healthcare, and it is getting harder to feel the care was able to be given, and not because it is not there to be, but sadly for so many at the bedside, it’s just the way things are.

This concept I call the spectrum of dedication applies to anyone in any roll, job or position. Is an individual really bringing it? Are they putting their heart into what they do, as long as what they do positively contributes? Or, are the phoning it in? Do they show up, maybe, but when they do their words and actions do not add anything to the equation. In healthcare these individuals seem to proliferate in many places. They drag the heroes and overachievers down and burn them out and shut them off. They make decisions that benefit the company not the patient. They rush through, they are the greatest source of errors, and poor patient care. It is these people and entities that I have some of the greatest disdain for. I believe this great experiment that we at the bedside are participating in called clinical human medicine is failing in large part due to those in healthcare who do not have any inkling to consider our Precious, the patient. It is my humble opinion that those individuals and entities in the system who do not have the patient and the patient’s best interest at the forefront of their deliberation, decisions, and actions should not exit but correct course. If not, McDonalds is hiring. Please GTFO. Sorry so strong, but we can have a truly beautiful thing caring for those unfortunate people we have trained to, and my heart breaks daily as profit motive kills another and another.

Thirdly I want to say, there is a team of dedicated clinicians and clinical support staff that at the present time against all odds has come together to bring new concepts and ideas to the bedside of patients needing support of cardio-pulmonary function. That is our team at Hayek. We set out with the intention of putting together a group of highly competent respiratory care professionals to support the clinical concepts and bedside applications of the Hayek RTX. ?These are heroes that I want to hold up! I am so fortunate to be able to associate with this amazing, group of very dedicated pros. At Hayek we make every deliberation, decision, and action about those patients we are privileged to serve. We execute with a team of people that serve with the highest level of dedication and are here to fight with the rest of the heroes. BCV is really the answer to so many clinical problems with no mask, no tube and no more drugs, and essentially no crazy or even any side effects. We have a team here that wants to help everyone learn what a difference a little thinking outside the box can make. So I take my hat off to this team from top to bottom. We see no limit to the difference we can make. BCV applied competently will increase efficiencies in so many ways with the most costly groups of patients and provide them a more satisfying experience with non-invasive extrathoracic support of their cardio-pulmonary treatment and recovery. That is always a good thing.

Can a dedicated team with an out of the box intervention really make a difference within this system? We were told, never in 2010 when we began in the US and likely Dr. Hayek was told the same when he developed the greatest cardio-pulmonary clinical tool ever, but we are still here and it is still here. We cannot however do this alone. It is so many out of the box innovators and thinkers who have been and are out there fighting for the best for those in their care that have sustained us and helped us to get to the bedside with this amazing tool. Together we are just beginning. So many light bulbs are coming on over heads every place we go and for many of the dedicated caring at the bedside that we speak to. If you are one of the highly dedicated I urge you to continue to not just hold that line, but lets advance things for the patient. The many burned out, disengaged and unmotivated need leadership from within the ranks to be shaken out of it and back to being contributors or shaken out of the system. We are here with a truly great team of dedicated professionals at every level to help bring better and even best back to the bedside. HayekMedical.com

ALL OPINIONS EXPRESSED MY OWN

Gary W Mefford RRT