Ask Me Anything
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This month, Cindy Firkins Smith, MD, Senior Vice President Rural Health, responds to a question she received from Dana Woelfel, Director of Imaging Services in Willmar.
How do you add something like an HRO journey and a mindset that comes along with that, if you feel your plate is already full and you’re worried about maxing out?”
Dana Woelfel, Director, Imaging Services, Willmar
Response from Cindy Firkins Smith, MD:
No matter how good we are, we can’t do everything at the same time. So what we need to do is prioritize our priorities. One of the things we can do is just sit back and tick them all off.
I’m not recommending that we throw any of them away, but I would recommend that some of those priorities can go off to the side today. When I look at my list of 10 priorities, what’s essential to do today versus what can I put off for tomorrow versus what can I put off for next week? Who am I collaborating with on these? How can I get help?
For me, when I split them up, it helps me become less overwhelmed. So what’s always more important is what’s going to be the most critically important thing from a patient health and wellness standpoint.
If I have a patient and there is a situation where someone’s potentially going to die or be injured, obviously that is the most important thing to take care of. That’s easy. We all know that’s the direction we go. After that, I tend to look at the priorities based on when the project is due and how much time I have to work on it. I prioritize based on time. If I have a list of things and a job that’s going to take me five days to accomplish, and it’s due in three months, I can put that aside. But if I’ve got a job that’s going to take me five days to accomplish and it’s due in six days, I need to prioritize that.
I use my schedule to help me prioritize. Of course that’s easy to say, but in reality, sometimes people come in and throw other things on our schedule that are unanticipated and you have to be willing and able to flex.
And I think one of the things that we do pretty well in healthcare – to reprioritize based on what the emergent needs are, the situation, and the timeliness.
So it’s a matter of not becoming overwhelmed when that happens. Sometimes when that happens so much, we just feel overwhelmed. So try to a step back, breathe, and look at the situation. Once we’ve eliminated the emergent nature, take a few minutes to figure this out and reset priorities based on the timeliness, needs, and work commitment.
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