Documentation

So much of our therapist's time is spend doing documentation and unfortunately much of it is of poor quality.  Teach your therapists the difference between a goal and a functional objective.  A goal might read something like "Patient will demonstrate 3+ strength in bilateral upper extremities" and the intermediary will say "So??"  A goal that reads something like "Patient will propel self to diningroom and other locations within 150 ft radius of her room 80% of opportunities" would be a functional objective.  This type of goal matters to the patient and to the reviewer because it will make a huge impact on the patient's quality of life and ability to live more independently.  I'll be discussing more topics surrounding documentation in upcoming posts.

Weed Your Garden

I view my therapy team as a "garden" and sometimes you get a weed in your garden.  If you don't remove the weed, it will drain the energy out of the rest of your garden.   A weed affects everyone on the team.  They stir up trouble every chance they get.... point out everyone else's flaws... determined to "right the wrongs" in the department.... gossip... criticize.... ignore the rules.... WEEDS!  What do you do with a weed?  You could spend hours on end trying to change the weed... teach it to grow the right way... and produce the right fruit.  But in the end a weed is a weed and it will never be a productive plant.  Get rid of your weed and the rest of your garden will flourish.  Try to recognize the difference between a struggling plant and a weed.  A great manager can tell the difference when someone is trainable and when it's hopeless.  Don't waste your time on a lost cause...  spend your time pruning the other plants (training them) and watch a department come to life.

Accountable

Always be accountable to your therapy team or nursing staff or patients.  Identify who your customer is in your job position.  When someone asks for something, I do my best to get it for them immediately or I ask them if I can get it to them at ____ time.  And then I do it.  If I can't get it to them by the time I gave them, I notify them right away and give them the new timeline.  Accountability can make or break the relationship between employee/manager, patient/therapist, manager/nursing/administrator.  When employees get "put off" indefinitely and many requests they give go unanswered... they start giving up and regard management as a joke.  When you as a manager answer requests and get information immediately for your team, their respect for you will grow and they will feel more secure following your leadership.

Introduction

I am a Speech-Language Pathologist with over 20 years of experience. I work for an amazing company; Transitions Rehab as a Clinical Educator. I have worked in nearly every facet of the Sub-Acute Rehab world and still learning something new everyday. I've worked all over the country and the therapy world is smaller than you might think. We all have similar frustrations, but fortunately we all have different strengths which we can share to make our careers more successful and less challenging.