Day 44 - Sitka, AK v.2.0

Spent my second day in the OB clinic in Sitka today. But, before that, I spent the morning in the dental clinic talking with Colleen, the receptionist, and a few of the dental assistants - explaining my surveying and how I thought it could help the SEARHC organization better serve their patients. It is always interesting to hear the perspective of someone like Colleen who has been at SEARHC for many years because those people have insight into the evolution of the organization and what has worked in the past and what ideas were not quite as effective.

This morning I also had a run-in with a patient. I was walking through the clinic when I suddenly I saw a woman pointing at me an Colleen responding, "Yep, that's him." After the patient left, I asked Colleen why the patient had wanted to know who I was. Apparently, I called her during my phone survey and she was none too happy to receive my call. She felt scolded and disrespected by my call. It is funny to think of the different ways people interpret things. From a provider standpoint, I think that the phone calls are a great opportunity for patients to offer some feedback to dentists and administrators and explain why they weren't at an appointment. Further, the information the patients provide will eventually make their health care experience much more seamless and accessible. The patients do not appear to be having the same interpretation. Intriguing and interesting.

I also had the opportunity to make a few phone calls since one of the Sitka dentists was not in the office today. My numbers are climbing and the trends and reasons for missed appointments are becoming very clear. Dr. West, one of the dentists from Juneau, was in Sitka helping out in the orthodontics clinic so it was nice to see a familiar face and have someone to eat lunch with today.

I spent the afternoon in the OB clinic interviewing the patients who had an appointment. Last week, Valerie convinced 15 women to take my survey so that made up for the fact that there were only 8 patients the last time I was in Sitka. The afternoon got off to a good start as I interviewed the first round of women without a hitch. About an hour into the afternoon the women suddenly stopped coming over to speak with me. About that time, I overheard a patient talking angrily to the front desk worker. She was apparently furious about having an extra person in the exam room while she was interacting with the OBGYN.

She stormed over to the area where I was sitting and sat with her arms crossed. Valerie motioned over that I should avoid her at all costs so, what did I do?, went over and spoke with her. Before I could get a word out she said to me, "I don't understand. You are working for the dental clinic, why do you have to come into the exam room and observe?" Needless to say, I was a bit taken aback and confused. After explaining to her that I had absolutely no interest in being a part of her examination and that I only had a few questions her stance softened and we laughed about the misunderstanding.

One of the front office workers had gotten her signals crossed and did not completely understand the premise of my surveying. She thought that I was going to have to be in the exam room with the women during their invasive procedures. When the front desk worker was asking these women if I could be in the room with them she was offending them and, in turn, allowing them to opt out of my survey. Once I figured this out I explained that I, without a doubt, had no interest in shadowing during the actual physical and that I wanted no part of the inside of the examination room. Once we wrinkled out this small detail I had no problem getting plenty of interviews completed.

After that excitement, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I watched the Cardinals game (I'm not a machine, OK. I'm just Albert...) and took advantage of the free access to the weight room. Just finished packing my bag because I am heading back to Juneau tomorrow morning.

Hard to believe I have less than 20 days left in Alaska...