Van Kemenade ACT

Our world is shocked by the COVID-19 virus.  Un-order occurred, chaos if you want to say so. The world is in crisis, as if it was in war. We are in a situation far-from-equilibrium and more than ever we depend on each other for our health and safety. Habits we are brought up with and used to all of our lives, like shaking hands, have been unlearned in  just a few days. We get simple rules to follow: wash your hands, stay at home, stay away 1,5 meter from someone else. Social distancing and lockdowns. Everyone realises that he or she is part of something bigger, where the whole is very different from its parts.

At the same time we see that in the interaction between people in a context like this new patterns arise (novelties), that are unexpected, that we could not have predicted and are unplanned.  Thousands of in-active nurses pick up their old job to support their colleagues in the Intensive Care. People in communities help elderly with their food or shopping. There is a lot of improvisation going on: hotels become hospitals, an ice palace becomes a morgue. In Holland thousands of people clapped their heads at the same time to give the people in health care institutes a boost. Music is made by people from their homes and still together like the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Many videoclips go viral to keep up the spirit. In our streets people massively put teddy bears in front of windows for the kids to see that are walking in the neighbourhood to get some fresh air.

What is happening to us? I would call it ’emergence’. In the last few years it has become my research topic: The emergence paradigm in quality management.  If you transfer the theory about emergence in quality management from a complex environment of an organisation to the situation of the world in times of COVID-19 interesting parallels can be drawn.

I hereby present my latest power point on the topic. With video, since I cannot present it at the moment in a conference or workshop, like I would normally do. We have to find new ways in this context that is out of order. And yes, we can!

At White and Yellow Cross Care Foundation two new groups got involved in the process of Client Centered Care. They worked on topics like customer delight, happiness of staff and clients, empathy and compassion. A Life Story interview was held with some of the clients. This time we had besides participants from Sint Maarten’s Home also participants from Sister Basilia Centre and District Nursing.

The participants were very satisfied with the training, overall score group 3 was 9.1 and group 4 even 9.3 on a ten point scale. The training competences of the trainer were rated 9.7 by both groups as well as 9.7. for his subject knowledge. More and more staff members now have been affected with the virus of CCC. The movement starts to grow!!! It was a great joy to work with you all!

Keep up the spirit!

Everard

participants of group 4          

On Monday, February 3rd a workshop was held in Woudenberg (NL) for 16 volunteers from Bulgaria, Ghana, Lithuania, Czech Republic and the Netherlands, who work on the International Award for Young People. That program seeks to support young people to get to know and explore  their talents.

This workshop was the start of a week with the title Non Formal Learning and Youth Work Methods and was organised by the Dutch Award programme in a Erasmus+-project. The participants were very motivated for helping the youngsters and very much willing to reflect on their own behaviour. They explored their passion, mission, calling and purpose.   Remarks from the evaluation: The workshop was very useful and revealing; it inspired me to work on my own goals; it was very meaningful. The participants rated the workshop in average 4.3 on a 5 point-scale. Special thanks to Tom Kuijpers who granted me the assignment.

The first two groups of staff of White And Yellow Cross Care Foundation have been trained in Client Centered Care. Participants came from all over the organisation, nursing, but also laundry, kitchen, facility management. The idea is that every staff member can make a difference in a resident’s life.

Important part of the training was the Life Story Guide (see blog #26). Participants interviewed in groups of two a resident about his/her past, about what he or she likes now and even about a bucket list. Preferences about food, activities and music were inventoried, so in future we can better fulfil the needs and wishes of the clients or rather we can delight them!!! The plan is to summarise the most important topics out of the life story on a poster that then can be stuck on a wall in the resident’s room. Resident’s were very happy that they were asked and the interviewers learned a lot they did not know about them.

Two more groups of staff will follow in March 2020.

 

On the 15th of November the fourth SYNERGY meeting took place on Sint Maarten. This meeting of the Caribbean Network of Leadership in Health Care was hosted by Sint Maarten Medical Centre this time. There were 29 participants, from 9 healthcare institutes from St Maarten, Statia and Saba.

Th network keeps growing. From 13 participants the first meeting to 23, to 28 and to 29 this time. The topic of the day was Prevention. Eric Gertner , Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of South Florida, Morsani School of Medicine in Tampa, Florida held the keynote speech. His presentation scored 8.0 on a ten-pointscale. Thereafter there were 10-minute presentations by each of the partners (score 7.6).

The lunch by Emilio’s was very good, as usual.

In the afternoon a WorldCafe session was organised around three questions:

1. What is the take home message from the presentations on prevention?

2. Wat hinders prevention?

2. What supports prevention?

This event scored even a 8.1. The day overall was rated the first time 8.2, the second time 8.5, the third time 8.6 and now back to 8.4 on a ten point scale.  Still a good score, but the participants feel the topics need to be discussed deeper and there should be some activity in between the half yearly meetings. The possibility for networking in all four meetings was rated 8.7.  The question to what extent this day motivated to come next time rated 8.0  (third time 8,7, second time 8.7; first time 8.3).

One of the suggestions made is not only to present what has been done, but also the results. Furthermore there is a need not only to present success stories, but also show what did not go well and ask the audience for support, suggestions for improvement. Actually , the presentation of Saba Healthcare Foundation by Joka Blaauboer ended with the question for suggestions how to improve the compliance to hand hygiene.

After the meeting we gathered at Emilio’s for a final networking session.

The next meeting is planned in March 2020 hosted by Mental Health Foundation on St Maarten. Topics will be incident reporting  and health education.