The QI South Area Meeting is this weekend in Ft. Lauderdale. I am in Orlando. The first SAM I have missed in 6 years. There is not a better indication I am no longer part of the board-not that I am missing a meeting. No, it is that I am making another responsibility a bigger priority.
I am attending the annual users meeting of the software company my clinic uses for our electronic medical records. I and a few staff members attend every year. For the first time it presents a conflict with the area meeting schedule. Until this year it was scheduled in August and started on Monday. This year it started this second Friday of September and concludes on 9/11, more on that later.
When we began to use electronic clinical records over 4 years ago, I became the lead physician on our team. Four and a half years later I am still our only physician sitting through the classes identifying how my partners can best utilize the new technologies. More important to them, although they don’t know it, I am the one making sure we have the capability and processes that keep us compliant with the latest of the numerous government regulations. How did I get into this position? I am the one who would make it a priority.
So here I am, just a few hours drive from my friends all gathered on the coast enjoying Quota. I am thinking more about the presentations I am missing on Quota’s future than I am about the future of medical information technologies. I want to hear what Chris and the board have to say and your reactions to it. Mostly, I am missing out on the Quota fellowship which means I had to make an alternative plan for this fall. I will attend the Central Area Meeting in a couple of weeks so I can get the scoop on all that is happening and see good friends I have made through my travels. The dates for this computer meeting have been set for next year, so let’s not let another conflict happen! Check with me on that SAD, ok?
Our clinic staff chose not to fly home on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I am not superstitious and I have flown on 9/11 during the past 10 years. But this time, it just felt like the timing was wrong. I choose to think of it as memorializing what happened a decade ago when the world changed. Many days pass we don’t think about it. Every so often we have to slow down enough to reflect and make tribute a priority.