Readers of this sporadic blog may recall a piece I did about
reaping the spoils of the Exhibit Hall at the 2015 Scientific Assembly of the
American College of Emergency Physicians. This week I was at the Annual Meeting
of the Association of Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists (ACDIS).
For those who don't know, a few months ago I took a career turn to become a
Physician Advisor for Clinical Documentation Improvement. It's been great. I'm
leaning a new set of skills, doing research and data analysis, and helping to
build systems to insure the financial security of a community hospital system.
And as a night shift ER doc of over 20 years, it's also been an introduction to
things like daylight, rush hour traffic, and lunch.
Allow me to elaborate on the latter, as this is truly a new
and vital concept in my life. When you work in the ER, you eat on the run and
generally in the ER, at your desk or in the break room (the latter when the
JCAHO drops by). But it turns out that if you work in an office during the
daytime at the semi-executive level, you can leave the office and eat. Anyplace
you want, for as long as you want, until you have to attend your next meeting
or you start to feel guilty about being gone. (Which is why all the Jews and
Catholics tend to come back from lunch first. Two fine religious traditions
united by guilt and shame.)
(By now you're wondering, "Dr. Rodenberg, Oracle of
Northeast Clay County Florida, just what the heck is Clinical Documentation
Improvement, anyway?" I'm so very glad you asked. Would you like the
Official or the Unofficial Answer?
Official Answer: Clinical Documentation Improvement is about
promoting the accurate reporting of clinical diagnoses for the purpose of fully
reflecting the patient's severity of illness, risk of mortality, and needs for
care.
Unofficial Answer: More words, more buckaroos.)
But I digress. I write today to tell you about the exhibit
hall. It's another prime opportunity to scour the vendors to see what I can
acquire in my adult daytime version of Halloween, complete with costumes like
suits and ties that say "Important Professional" or "Clandestine
Russian Operative."
As before, there are rules to the game. You may take only one of each item from any one exhibitor. As long as you don't have to talk, you can feign interest in anything. If you are required to talk, you may not lie. For instance, you cannot say you love a product, but just don't have the budget authority to buy. You may, however, invoke fixed personal characteristics as a way to defer further conversation, which comes in handy when data systems have small type and you've lost your glasses because, by gosh, you'd love to learn more but you just can't see.
Let’s go shopping! Excelsior!
*****************
One metal water bottle. Turns out that inside the bottle
there was a small piece of paper with usage instructions in both French in
English. I found this out after I had filled the bottle with water and inhaled
the paper during a particularly enthusiastic swig. Once I had assessed myself
for the possibility of aspiration pneumonitis (ICD-10-CM J69.0) and dried out
the paper, I found it to be a most friendly greeting.
"Great choice!' Here are a few helpful tips to enhance
your enjoyment of your new drink ware."
(You know how they tell you you're supposed to start with at
least three positives before you introduce a negative into the conversation?
Apparently that doesn't hold in the Promotional Metallic Beverage Container
Industry. because immediately flowing that chipper introduction ware seven bad
things that could happen to you, culminating in a note that the bottle could be
an "entrapment hazard - don't stuff tongue down bottle neck. Injury can
result. ICD-10-CM S09.93.)
Three tote bags, two white and one hot pink. The pink bag
came form a vendor whose second trinket I did not acquire. They had
do-it-yourself charm bracelets in silver, gold, and brass colors. You could
select from any number of baubles to string along the wire, most of which were
either letters or shapes from a box of Lucky Charms. The Dental Empress has
fine taste, and clearly there was no way I could pass this off as David Yurman.
So I deferred.
Elvis Presley. White suit on Day #1, black suit on Day #2. I
did not get to take Elvis home, but did get my picture taken with him. I posted
it on Facebook. According to the response, apparently I have better hair but he
has better eyebrows. I also took a picture of Elvis with his
"assistant," a pretty little thing who waits for the King down in the
Jungle Room. I did not get to take home the assistant, either. Good hair only
gets you so far.
Two stress balls, one white and one green. (Insert your own
joke here.)
One small ringed binder of sticky notes of various sizes in
Skittles colors. ("Post the rainbow.")
Some kind of two-part thing that has a bottom you stick (I
think) to the top ledge of your computer and a top that kind of looks like a
Troll doll with a brush for hair. I was told you take this to brush dust off
your computer. No matter how hard you shake it, it does not sing like Justin
Timberlake.
A "Las Vegas Trade Show Survival Kit" in a black
knapsack. Inside is a notebook, an expandable button-like thing you stick on
the back of your cellphone so you can grip in between your fingers when you
take a selfie, an Elvis rubber duck holding flowers and a microphone under it's
wings that says "Stress has left the Building," a flashlight, and
deck of cards imprinted with "Deal Me Like They're Hot," five $250
foil-wrapped chocolate poker chips, and two extra strength Tylenol.
A photo booth montage of four poses of me holding a fake
taco.
A collapsible blue, round, flat, wire-rimmed fan that I
originally thought was a Frisbee. It
flies well.
A geometric designs coloring book and colored pencils.
A stone drink coaster bearing a picture of a bridge in Austin,
Texas in a cardboard case whose cover is embossed with the words
"Especially for You."
(Do you remember Bob Eubanks and the old Newlywed Game? How
the couple that won got a prize "chosen especially for you?" I always
wondered how that worked. It's not like they could have had that many prizes
just sitting around the back lot, waiting for the final question. No, they must
have interviewed the couples and asked them what they wanted, and then the week
the producers got a dining room set they called the couples who wrote down
"dining room set" on their "What prize can we pick especially
for you?" survey and asked if they could come on own to the studio for
taping. Speaking of which, I've figured out a foolproof system to win the Newlywed
Game but I can't tell you what it is until the Dental Empress and I win the
large Tax-Free Trust Fund selected Especially for Us.)
A plastic water bottle. No instructions found inside. I can
learn.
A daisy-shaped pen in a plastic pot. These were given away
by a Captain America cosplayer. Because if I had an adamantium shield, this is
the first thing I would do.
A mouse pad.
A nail file.
A set of ear buds. (When I was typing, I accidentally wrote
“rear buds.” LOL.)
Two stress balls, one white and one green. (Insert your own
joke here. Yep, it was worth mentioning
twice.)
A three-inch-tall snowman stress reliever that kind of looks
like a miniature version of the inflatable clown punching bags we used to have
when we were kids. It wobbles when you flick it on the head. The head is also
magnetized so you can dress it up with paper clips.
Three kinds of phone stand. One cradles your phone so it
stands upright. One holds your phone horizontally. The third, which you paste
the back of your phone, has a kind of folding loop that you bend in place to
keep your phone upright. None of these will work with my Otter Box phone
protector.
Three decks of cards. It's Vegas, baby!
A first aid kid with a single alcohol wipe and six small
bandages just large enough to cover that meth injection site. It's Vegas, baby!
(Now that I think about it, maybe the duck is Liberace.)
One small, barrel-shaped flashlight on a caribener. You
take it out of the wrapper, push the button to turn it on, and watch it do
nothing. You do this about twelve times before you wonder if there's even a
battery in it. Then you open it up and there's a pieces that says "remove
before use." You realize you've just been a subject in one of those
chimpanzee problem solving, tool-using experiments. You're pretty sure it only
took the chimp eight.
A portable cellphone power stick.
Four unflavored chapsticks.
One bottle of hand sanitizer for keychain use.
Six coozies. I've got a great idea for a science fair
project. Take cans of soda out the refrigerator. Place the first can in a
single coozie, the second can in two, and so on. Open the cans and measure how
fast the temperature drops in each. Since coozies really don't work, the
temperature will drop at the same rate no matter how many coozies you use. Say
something about a null hypothesis. Take home ribbon. Results are disseminated
on the Internet. American Coozie
Industry fails. Wreak untold economic
damage. Raise tariffs on imported coozies to Bring Back Our Jobs and Make
America Great Again. You're welcome.
A bottle opener and corkscrew. Finally, someone remembered
we were in Vegas. Keeping that.
Eighteen pens and one highlighter. Yellow, if you must know.
Two cylindrical clear, fluid-filled plastic tubes. I thought
they were glue sticks. Turns out was lens cleaner and the other hand sanitizer.
Which explains why I couldn't fix my broken glasses after I sat on them, but
they were certainly clear and germ-free.
I'm probably not invited back next year.
I'm probably not invited back next year.
***************
It should also be noted that CDI professionals are mostly
female. I point this out because vendors were not only giving things away, but
raffling them off as well. At ACEP, with a roughly equal mix of genders, the
prizes were specifically neutral. Not so this week. Vendors had drawings for
purses by Michael Kos and Fendi. While I'm not a purse guy, I did register.
Over the years I've learned that it never hurts to have some designer product
hidden in the closet for the next time I do something stupid and the Dental
Empress rolls her eyes at me. Which may be as soon as she reads that Elvis joke
a few paragraphs back.
"What's that? Coming, my dear!"
***************
Ahem. Grammar Guy here. Now that the other guy is gone, may
bring up one more item? I realize that one of the glories of language is that
it's alive, not rigid, always in flux, always in change. But it drives me crazy
when everything's a journey. As in
"Begin you CDI Journey with Us!"
Granted, the book definition of journey is simply the act of traveling
form one place to another, but in use the term has some sort of spiritual or
adventurous dimension to it. Long Day's
Journey into Night, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Steve Perry. But this
week it seemed that every project and program was a journey, the end of which
seemed not to be ritual enlightenment or remarkable discovery, but the same old
recognition that change is hard, it's all about the money, and doctors are
curmudgeons. (All of which are true.) So can't we say project, or progress, or
something else? I'll be the first to embrace this change with Open Arms. Who's
Crying Now?