Human Drum Set

I kid you not. This guy's a real human beat machine. Give it a go for a weekend laugh. Click on the image below to start video. Turn your speakers up. It starts a little slow but once it gets going, hang on to your seat!

From YouTube:

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Avian Flu---Time's A-Tickin'...Part 9

This is our 9th posting in a series to help share information about Avian flu. The next few weeks will provide an overview of how a hospital might plan for Patient Surge. All information provided is only draft information and may vary depending on the particular situation an individual hospital might find itself in.

A Patient Surge Plan may be lengthy. Here is a brief overview of some of the possible elements.

Level One Patient Surge: Warning Level

When the first patient that has a suspected case of the pandemic flu is admitted, a hospital may initiate its Level One Patient Surge Plan. It should expect that one patient will lead to many more very rapidly. To be ready for the influx, each department will have specific things to do.

For example, critical care units will assess all their patients for pending transfers and patients that are appropriate will get orders. Those orders for transfer will be identified with a Code Surge identification stamp for priority handling. Acute care units will have a similar process, but with an eye for patients that can be discharged. If a patient meets certain criteria for discharge, they may be asked to wait in a unit waiting room until their discharge process is completed. The plan should have specific criteria to define who may give up their patient room during the discharge process.

Another key element may describe the flow of patients from the Emergency Departments (ED) to the nursing units. It makes sense to anticipate that the EDs will be the first areas impacted by the increase in patients. ED surge should then be part of the overall plan and is partially dependent on moving patients from the ED to the nursing units quickly. The rapid transfer from ED to the acute care units may include the arrival of the patient from ED some 15 minutes after ED report. Patients may have to be moved from the ED into patient rooms that have been given rapid "emergency cleaning measures". Worst case scenario: the patient may have to be moved in even if patient room is not "clean". In this case, the patient on the stretcher will be placed in the empty room. The nursing staff will disinfect wipe the call light and the phone and make them available for the patient. The bed may be placed in hall for housekeeping to clean if necessary.

Next Week: Overview Level Two Patient Surge

Fishy Thoughts

Been seeing political ads a lot again lately. They used to capture my attention. They used to stir this strong urge within me to jump into the fray and get involved. To me it's not so much the personalities but the issues that get twisted and warped to suit someone's campaign. It just drives me nuts when I know something is being pounded deliberately out of whack to make someone look good or bad depending on whose side you're on. I just want to go out and, like adjusting a skewed picture frame on a wall, just set the record straight.

I'm old enough to know, though, that that's like wishing that the Niagara would flow upwards.

So now, knowing that it's an election year and the airwaves will be filled with political stupidity again for the next several months, I am bracing myself for a whole stretch of boredom until it's all over and done with---at least until the next election comes around. Talk about a cycle being vicious.

That's why on days like this, my mind just tunes out and drifts to thoughts of fishing. Out there by my favorite lake, seated on rocks in the warm sun, pole in hand and line in the water, no political ad can reach me.

Not exciting enough for you? Well, have you ever heard of bounty fishing?

Try this quote on for size:

Caldwell has been bounty fishing since the program started in 1991, full-time since he sold his gas station and tackle shop three years ago. His best day was 141 fish…

''For some people this gets pretty competitive,'' he said. ''There's been problems with people where they want to fight over spots to fish. I mean bad enough to get the police involved. I've actually had my life threatened.''

Out in Oregon, it's a federally funded program that pays sports fishermen to catch pikeminnows, a voracious fish that preys on baby salmon trying to swim their way out of the river to the sea.

It can be good living. There are people who really work at it, 12 to 18 hours a day and seven days a week, and they can gross $20,000 during the May-to-October season. Last year, two of the 1,800 people who collected bounties got paid close to $40,000 each.

Read all about it.

Singing Flowers

And just to cap the day, click on the flower image to play video of singing flowers. Honest, flowers that sing! From YouTube. I promise you'll enjoy it.

Make sure your computer speakers are turned up for best results.

Click away:

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Today I Didn't Do It

Got this today in the e-mail. Thought I'd share it to put a light twist to Mommy Day week:

One afternoon a man came home from work to find total mayhem in his house.

His three children were outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house.

Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she may be ill, or that something serious had happened.

He found her lounging in the bedroom, still curled in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?"

She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and ask me what in the world I did today?"

"Yes" was his incredulous reply.

She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it."

[forwarded by Ralph West]

From: MIKEY'S FUNNIES
www.mikeysFunnies.com

Like A Breath Of Fresh Air Long In Coming

New White House Press Secretary Tony Snow is issuing detailed rebuttals to what he considers unfair coverage of Bush.

Cool! Snow started only Monday and has yet to give his first public press briefing. But boy, is he giving notice of how he intends to operate.

Bill Sammon in the Examiner.com National/Top News page posted today a story titled, Snow issues detailed rebuttals to media coverage of the president.

A couple of quotes:

“The New York Times continues to ignore America’s economic progress,” blared the headline of an e-mail sent to reporters Wednesday by the White House press office.

And,

“CBS News misleadingly reports that only 8 million seniors have signed up for Medicare prescription drug coverage,” Wednesday’s missive said. “But 37 million seniors have coverage.” On Tuesday, the White House railed against “USA Today’s misleading Medicare story.”

Read the whole thing.

Avian Flu---Time's A-Tickin'...Part 8

I've written here a lot about flu---the Avian kind, that is---I just have not given much thought about what if I came down with a flu bug myself. True enough, I did. The variety I came down with, though, was the stomach flu. Got me flat on my back, just too sick to do any sort of blogging.

There was an unexpected but pleasant upside to it. I rediscovered some photos I've taken in the past and thought they might just be useful to visually express what a bad dream it is like to be sick. Might just work as a segue to our 8th installment on the Avian flu.

Click on the cat's picture to play video. From YouTube:

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This is our 8th posting in a series to help share information about Avian flu. The next few weeks will provide an overview of how a hospital might plan for Patient Surge. All information provided is only draft information and may vary depending on the particular situation an individual hospital might find itself in.

Surge Planning

A hospital may put together several groups to work on a strategy to enable itself to care for a rapid influx of patients with an infectious respiratory condition. This Surge Plan should address the individual employee’s role in continuing to provide care to the community.

ALL hospital employees have an essential role in the plan implementation.

DEFINITION: Patient Surge is when the patient census at the hospital has increased to levels that staff and resources have been maximized or when a local condition occurs in which it is anticipated that patient admissions will exceed the usual staff and supply resources.

The plan identifies actions dependent on the number of patients and the impact they will have on resources. There could be three levels identified that will initiate specific action.

Level I: Admission of a suspect index case. Warning stage for potential surge.

Level II: Health department notification of the presence of a pandemic/epidemic infectious respiratory outbreak in the community or multiple index case admissions.

Level III: Patient volume exceeds staffing and patient care supplies availability.

Next Week:
Level 1 Patient Surge overview