Category: SOS Blog

Cheap Productivity Booster: Add a monitor

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Sometimes I am doing so many things at one time that I lose track of where I am and need to stop and scan my environment for clues to what I was last doing. Because each of us at SOS wears so many hats, most of us multitask every day. We have found a simple and inexpensive way to increase productivity.

First I must tell you that I resisted doing this for about a year. Seth and Manon had both expanded their world view as had two of our programmers before I decided it was something that might be useful. This simple solution is adding a second monitor to your desktop.

Okay, okay…I know. What could you possibly need with a second monitor? After all, your desktop is already hopelessly cluttered with stacks of paper (at least, if it is like mine it is) and there is no available real estate for adding something as silly as a monitor. That is what I thought. Then I added one.

Now I am able to spread the six or eight applications that I keep open all the time across two screens so I can see and use multiple programs at one time. This is especially useful if I am working in bookkeeping and spreadsheets simultaneously. I can go back and forth from one program to the other by turning my head and clicking. In the past, I could only view a small window into each application if I wanted both on my screen at one time.

One Monitor
One Monitor

You can see how scrunched things are above.  Below is the image of two monitors, side by side. My two open programs shown overlapping on the screen above have now gone to five open programs plus Google Sidebar. I still have several other items in my program tray that are not currently maximized, but with the two monitor arrangement, I can easily see my multiple tasks at one time.

Two Monitors
Two Monitors

 

This is especially useful for those of you who keep a product (like SOS Software or some other mental health billing software) active on your computer all the time. You need it there ready in case you have a phone call from a client, so you can check someone in when they arrive to see their psychotherapist, so you can enter their payment when they leave. But today you are also actively writing letters in your word processor, you are working on spreadsheets you have created by exporting some of your reports from Office Manager, and you are occasionally checking your email. With two monitors, all those tasks can be visible at one time!

To add the second monitor, you need to be sure you have adequate inputs on the computer box. Then use the Windows Control Panel > Display Properties > Settings to select which monitor is primary and to verify the appropriate settings. Just Google ‘dual monitors xp’ or ‘dual monitors vista’ without the quotation marks to get guidance from Microsoft about just what to do in your operating system.

We all have too much to do, so finding the most efficient and cost effective ways to get that work done is very high priority. Let us know what kind of steps you have taken to increase your efficiency. Have you considered multiple monitors?

To enter you comments, just click on the title of this article and enter your thoughts in the box at the bottom of the page.

U.S. Healthcare…Privilege, Poverty and Pain

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This is my second day back in the office after vacation. Yesterday and this morning were filled with catching up. That will take most of the rest of the week to complete. I decided to share an experience and some reflections before I get too removed from them.

While on vacation, my back went out. I have had chronic back issues since I was a young woman…maybe even since I was a child. In January 2007, I fell from my bicycle and separated my shoulder. Since October 2007, I have regularly visited a chiropractor to manage the neck pain that has become a focus since that fall. My neck and back have become chronic problems with intensity of pain varying depending upon multiple factors.

Vacation was a bicycling getaway in the Florida panhandle. The cottage we stayed at in Apalachicola had a bed that did not agree with my back. After two nights of wrong mattress and two days of riding, my lower back went into major spasm. I spent the third day of vacation searching for a massage therapist and traveling 100 miles to purchase a mattress topper to ease the pain. Everyone with whom we dealt was extremely kind and concerned, even when they were not able to help.

I did manage to relieve the discomfort somewhat and rode for three more days after we moved on to Monticello. Some correction to my bike position and change in pedaling technique also helped. You will notice that I did not try to see a physician and I did not go to an emergency room. Dealing with out-of-network services for a chronic rather than emergent condition felt too costly to justify. Fortunately, I found a massage therapist and could afford to pay her.

On our final day, we visited Thomasville, GA. As we drove into town, we passed a demonstration opposing health care reform. Signs indicated that “they” are going to increase our taxes to pay for someone else’s healthcare, and  “we” cannot afford to pay for the poor to have insurance. The participants were overwhelmingly white skinned, well-dressed individuals.

Today I managed to get to my own chiropractor and massage therapist. My insurance only pays the chiropractor $15 per visit; they do not cover massage therapy at all. Because these services keep me functioning, I choose to pay for them and am fortunate to be able to do so. But during this summer when Congress is working hard to come up with a plan to reform our healthcare system so more people can afford to receive care, I find myself wondering how we will succeed.

1. From amidst my pain, my thinking about how to resolve my discomfort was minimal and ineffectual. Soaking in the tub did not take care of the problem. Over the counter medications did not relieve the pain. Without my husband to find resources for me, I might still be in that tub. I think about the emotionally ill individual who has no one to advocate for them…mired in their pain and confusion without treatment.

2. Even with good, costly health insurance, the community in which I was located did not have resources for which my insurance would pay. If I were not privileged and educated and benefiting from adequate income, I would have been unable to pay for the resources we did locate. There are no local mental health services at all. I think of those who live in small town America and cannot travel to the resources of larger communities, as well as those who live in cities who cannot afford to access those resources.

3. I know very few health care providers or training programs or modern treatment procedures that were not assisted by government funds. Health research and hospitals and medical school and even graduate school in psychology cost too much for most of us to pay without government grants or loans. Even those of us who can afford to pay are dramatically benefited by government funding.

4. We are a kind and concerned people.

5. We are selfish and protective of our money, our privilege and our position.

6. There are no easy solutions to healthcare reform. It is going to cost all of us. The only question is how much it will cost and how we will pay for it, and whether the mechanisms are different from how we pay now. It is unconscionable that access to basic healthcare is not guaranteed to everyone who lives in the U.S.

This is all my opinion…for what it is worth. And what do you think? Please make your comments by clicking on the title of this article and entering your thoughts in the box at the bottom of the page.

5 Clues That Its Time for a Vacation

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          On Friday of this week, I get to start an 8 day vacation. Sometimes, I am not ready for vacation. I have often said that it is harder to get everything ready to leave (both work and home) than it is just to stay and keep on plugging away. I know that it is very important to vacate; I even look forward to getting away. But when the signs start to glare at me, flashing red, and red, and red, I know the time has come. So, here is my list of clues that it is time for me to take a vacation.

1. Monday mornings consistently go wrong.
          I count on Monday mornings to take care of a variety of tasks that direct me back to the week of work, and even to get a head start on some of those tasks. It is not unknown for me to get up an hour or two before usual to take care of those things. I will read a few blog articles, settle on an idea for my own blog and maybe even start into it, put out Mom’s medications and vitamins for the week, and make sure I have everything I need for dinner if it is my week to cook. (In our house, we alternate that responsibility a week at a time.)

          Soooo….when an unexpected telephone call at an unholy hour ties me up for an hour, or when the soup I so carefully started with a Sunday night soak of the beans boils over as I sit down to begin my blog, I start to think it is time to shake up this routine and all the others.

2. Every new idea I come up with seems ridiculous….and often is.
          Sometimes I am a really good idea generator. Part of having been a psychotherapist is having good skills at brainstorming and then teaching how to evaluate the options generated and how to implement them. The closer I get to vacation, the fewer my ideas become and the more outlandish they are. I mean, even I know that calling all of our customers this summer to see if there is anything they need is not feasible. But it sure seemed like a good idea….before I squashed it!

3. The idea of delegating tasks, even small tasks, seems wonderful!
          We are blessed with wonderful co-workers. When I ask someone to do something, it is rare to get even a moment’s hesitation before I get questions about the details of the task…no matter how small or how large. Egalitarian / Feminist that I am, I have always been convinced that I should take care of small tasks myself rather than interrupt the work flow of someone else to do something for me. Grabbing something from a file, looking up a piece of information about a customer, making a photocopy… these are all things I usually don’t hesitate to do myself.
          But when I am ready for a vacation…I would have someone else breathe for me….oh no, I can’t do that, that would mean they need to go to my yoga class for me and I really need that yoga class today!

4. It is hard to get serious about anything at work.
          When the talk of our Power Ball pool starts and we need to decide what to do with the $15 we won, I am glad to sit and talk about our winnings and about every subject that spins off from there….

5. It is hard not to be serious about everything at work.
          It is most clear that I need a vacation when I begin to see doom and gloom everywhere. I already have strong tendencies toward the negative. I need to work to maintain a positive focus…and I am most often successful at doing so.
          When it is time for a vacation, the quicksand of my cynicism gets especially dangerous, sucking me in when I least expect it. My inclination to say “no” to each request or idea gets almost impossible to resist. You can see…what I had hoped would be a relatively light blog article has become a much more serious one. Yep, it is time for a vacation!

How do you know when you need time off to restore, recharge and renew your energy and creativity?

Oh, BTW, I will be on vacation next week. If I get this week’s work and next week’s work done before I go, there will be a post next Monday. If I don’t get it all in place in time…talk to you in two weeks.

Death and EMRs: Disruptive events?

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The deaths of the past week have set me to thinking. The mother of a friend passed away early in the week followed by the wife of a family friend. Then, news of the death of cultural icon, Michael Jackson, was everywhere.

I come from a family and culture (New Orleans-based) where death is an intrinsic part of life. It very much affects those who are touched most directly by the loss, but it is also integrated into day-to-day life in such a fashion that life moves on with barely a ripple. The deceased is celebrated and mourned in one or multiple events ranging from wake to jazz funeral. Burial in above-ground graves and mausoleums (the water table in New Orleans is very high) caps off the events, and the cemeteries are daily reminders of the short-term nature of life. As with everything else in New Orleans, after death there is a party, but there is real disruption only for those immediately touched by the death. Life goes on.

I married into a family that shares the more traditional views of death held by most of American culture. It is not to be talked about too openly, lest it be invited to approach. And, as for most people in our culture, death is definitely considered to be a disruptive event, dislocating those related to the deceased from the ordinary course of life for an extended period of time. In fact, the disruption is frequently so severe that it is no surprise to those around the survivors that they are forever changed.

The term disruptive technology was introduced by Clayton M. Christensen in 1995 and together with his modification disruptive innovation has become a catch-phrase for technological change that is so radical that it dramatically alters the course of events that follow. If you read any articles about technology, you will come across the terms.

On the way to an event yesterday, we were listening to a podcast of The Week in Technology (TWIT) in which Twitter was discussed as a disruptive technology…disruptive to the field of journalism and to our whole way of communicating and thinking about news events. The techno-nerds who are the mainstay of TWIT are convinced that the immediacy of communication enabled by Twitter is and will continue to radically alter the way in which we receive information, likely becoming the jumping off point for even newer innovations in the realm of communication and information sharing.

I find myself wondering if Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) will not become the same kind of disruptive technology for our current healthcare system. Since EMRs have been around  for a while now, many would argue that they will certainly change healthcare, but do not reach the level of disruptive technology. But when I think about many of our customers in the behavioral health community and the radical changes to their organizations that will be required to move to EMRs and to use them in a meaningful way, I can imagine few more disruptive events.

Some would say that managed care had the potential to be just as disruptive…it certainly changed the way in which private mental health practices have conducted themselves over the last twenty years…but it did not intrinsically change the way in which the provider interacts with the recipient of healthcare services. The consumer may be seen less frequently and for a shorter total length of treatment, the managed care organization may refuse to pay for certain types of care (which the patient can then purchase with their own dollars), but the provider still sees the patient, assesses the problem at hand and provides treatment.

EMRs have the potential for changing that sequence of events. If used in a “meaningful” way, if decision support tools and treatment protocols that are based on scientifically assessed methods (evidence-based treatment) are incorporated into the EMR products and utilized by providers at the point of care in the way envisioned by the framers of HITECH, we will have a new healthcare system….or maybe not.

What do you think? Will widespread adoption of EMR systems be a disruptive innovation for healthcare? Do behavioral health EMRs have the potential to be disruptive technology for the mental health community?

Please add your comment by clicking on the title of this article and typing your thoughts in the comment box at the bottom of the page.

Personal vs. Professional: Social Networking Sites

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I checked my email on Sunday night to find two new requests for “friend” status on my Facebook page…one was from a customer, the other was from my mother-in-law. The juxtaposition of requests brought directly home the conflict and confusion that some folks are having about use of the social media sites. Is your use personal or professional? Is it acceptable to mix the two? Would you and your contacts be better served if you have two separate online identities, a personal one and a professional one?

I am a firm believer in synchronicity. I think of Carl Jung and his notion of synchronicity (an acausal connection of events in time) often as I experience the unexpected confluence of events. This weekend was no exception.

  1. On Friday, I had time (for the first time in weeks) to tune in to HubSpot TV, a podcast done by staff members of the Internet Marketing firm whose products and services I use. They mentioned this issue of social media utilization and the possible need to keep one’s “identities” separate. One of their blogs addressed the issue on Friday and the author lays out some considerations.
  2. On Friday evening, my partner, Seth Krieger, suggested that I write a blog on social media and professional vs. personal concerns.
  3. On Sunday I got the Friend requests I mentioned above.
  4. This morning I looked at two print newspapers I receive: The New England Psychologist ran an article featuring input from Thierry Guedj, Ph.D., “Psychologists navigate use of online social networking sites“; and The National Psychologist included John Grohol, Psy.D.’s article “How ‘tweet’ it is: Social networking using Twitter”. Both of these psychologists explore some of the concerns unique to providers in the behavioral health community.

This confluence of events was impossible for me to ignore. I have found myself thinking about these issues often over the past several months. Since I began use of social networking as a way to spread our business presence more broadly on the Internet, the differences between personal and professional presence have been playing around the periphery of my mind.

While I have not seen clients for the last 16 years, I was trained as a psychologist and saw patients in a private practice and in a CD program setting from 1978 to 1993. I am well aware that boundary issues are confronted regularly by psychotherapists charged with providing a safe space in which consumers of their services can deal with issues ranging from relatively minor personal problems to serious chronic mental health issues. Protecting that ‘space’ is part of building trust and of maintaining the privacy of the client.

The sanctity of that space is challenged regularly, sometimes by the spill-over of the therapist’s life into the therapy. Personal illness and family deaths are regular intruders, but many others exist. I hosted a live, call-in television show on psychology topics from 1981 to 1983. Some of my clients were proud of the public education work I was doing; others felt that they lost a part of me that they owned and were not happy to share me with the public. As a feminist psychologist treating lots of women, it was not unusual to cross paths with a client in the ‘real’ world. Prior agreements about how or whether to greet in public aside, face-to-face interaction outside the therapy space was often a cause for discomfort for me and for the client.

Those challenges to privacy are part of the physical community in which we live. Now we add the complication of a virtual world in which massive quantities of information, both personal and professional, are available to anyone who bothers to Google us. Factor into that the fact that we have no idea which information the client has. Each form of social media provides different challenges.

1. blog: A weblog, or blog, can be an excellent way for you to provide useful information to your own clients and to many others who see your blog articles. But if you go out there into the blogosphere and take a look at the material available, you will find that the writing styles are much less formal than other published documents, especially journal articles. Because of that informality, there can be a tendency to slip into personal revelation.

Potential benefits: Great way to become more known in your community, to educate and share valuable information with your clients, and to provide a community service through public education.
Potential risks: Informal style of blogs can lead you to share more personal information than you would usually do in journals or in direct contact with your clients.

2. Facebook: When I started to use Facebook, I intended that use to be purely personal. My nephew’s wife invited me to join first. I resisted. When an age-mate with whom I share a book club and a social sphere invited me, I joined. Facebook has been great fun! I have connected with classmates, friends and family members. As with many people in my age group, my postings are rather tame. They do reveal personal relationships and history. I was a little conflicted when business associates asked for ‘friend’ status, but decided that I do not live a wild and crazy life and there is little about me on Facebook that I am not comfortable sharing with customers and other business associates.

Potential benefits:Facebook is a great way to keep up with new family photos and to stay in more frequent contact with friends and family members who are far away.
Potential risks: If you do live a wild and crazy life and do not want your clients to know that, do not give ‘friend’ status to those clients.

3. LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the only one of the social networking sites I use that is designed for professional purposes. It is professional networking, par excellence. If you want to connect with other colleagues, this is the place to do it. If you are looking for a job, this is certainly the place I would start. There are headhunters who frequent the site looking for the most qualified individuals for their position postings. You can join groups that meet your interests and connect there with other folks who have like concerns. 

Potential benefits: LinkedIn is a great place to network with other professionals. It is designed for peer-to-peer connections.
Potential risks: If your clients/patients are other professionals, you might run into them here and need to make some decisions about who your network should include or exclude.

4. Twitter: Twitter is something else. I am still not sure about Twitter. I use it in a purely professional way. In fact, the name under which I tweet is @SOS_Software. The people I follow are other professionals who have similar interests. Those other folks are great sources of information. The tweets I find most useful are about articles, blogs and news that is relevant to my professional world. Most of the people who follow me are also interested in healthcare and software. Sometimes, I get a follow from someone who seems totally unrelated to anything in which I am interested. I blocked the clearly pornographic Follow that appeared last week.
     The way I use Twitter is totally contrary to the way most young people use it. To folks who are used to text messaging for everything, Twitter is a way to disperse text messages much more broadly. You can let everyone in your network know your status all at one time. To me, this is useless. To many others it is an essential part of staying connected.

Potential benefits: This is an excellent way to disperse a communication to a large group of people at one time. You could use Twitter to communicate educational information to all of your clients at once.
Potential risks: Twitter is like Facebook. Everybody who follows you sees everything. If you intersperse personal messages with your professional ones, everybody who follows you still sees all of it.

What do you think about these social networking sites? Do you use them? Does your organization use them to keep in touch with consumers? What do you see as the potential benefits or glaring weaknesses of being connected 24/7?

One last word of advice: If you decide to jump into the sphere of social networking, decide whether you are going to do so as a professional or for your personal needs. Once you decide, choose your networking sites accordingly. If you want to do both, you might be best served by having two different social networking identities.