Hmm, would pay to feed the kitties and get coffee wouldn’t it. It’s now 4:30 am and we’ve already eaten our cereal … had skipped that part, but am remembering why we want to make the coffee first. *Sigh* No rest for the weary.
Ahh … got some
Well, we didn’t get all of some. Sweetie got home late last night and we thought we were going in that direction, but we couldn’t wake up. I think he tried waking us … at least we remember him holding our hand. He came in and instead pulled the blanket up over us. It’s sorta something we do when he’s not here sometimes. We leave the blanket down, because we know he’ll come and cover us and we might wake up. Good chance at least. *Sigh*
Whoops two of them now and we’re just a few paragraphs in. Its just that I I know he will be leaving today and won’t be back until Sunday … so it will be a “camel-like” thing … Ok, one more *sigh* and we’ll have to be finished with all that. Breathing in to much air is likely to make us dizzy?
We’ve got to be up a little early today because we’re going to be going to our first physical therapy today. Yeah … like I’m looking forward to that yah, ok, right.
Shhh … don’t be so pessimistic you! It will be ok. The session is at 7 am. so we’ll have to leave here about 6:30-6:40. It is on our way to work. It will be our evaluation period.
I’m not sure if these places are franchised all over, but this one is called, “Athletico” and there are about 18 in the Chicagoland area. There’s another one in LaGrange right next to us on the other side, but then we’d have to back-track … so we figured we’d give the one in Chicago a chance first. I think I may have said this before, but we’re going for 6 weeks, then we have to go back to the doctor, and then most likely we’ll have to continue going. He agreed that physical therapy is a long-range thing. I’m not very dependable for long range so we’re a little worried, but we’re going to try. Means I should probably be in the shower by 5:30 – 45 minutes away.
I saw the area and it seems very open. I’m not sure if that’s great, but most likely will blend in. About 1/3 of the building is for rehab. They have along an open glass window length of building an entire row of maybe like 10 tall “beds” or tables and then across from them – so-so narrow aisle space a bunch of offices.
Then on the other 2/3rds of the building there are exercise equipment. I saw that
the trainers would periodically take a rehab person and say something like ok, why don’t we go over to the bikes now. So, I think part of it will be they get you loosened up and then you have to go work it out on your own with the people coming in just to use the machines. I don’t know, but it seems they fill to capacity at least at the time we saw it in motion, but there was a lot of room in the parking lot, so maybe it was just an illusion. We’ll really have to wait and see. We were intimidated to give it a full look.
I will have to give myself time to get in my exercise shorts too. I didn’t see training rooms for changing – there might be, but most likely I will have to change at work. I will get into work about a half hour to 45 minutes late … I think … I’m not sure as to how much time the sessions are, or at least the orientation. I am happy that the place is bigger than the University’s where they had like 5 or 6 machines and there was only one of each of them. This is more like women’s work out world, but there is much more space for the rehabbing. It looked though like the rehabbers were only partially into the job. I don’t know if they are as highly trained as at the University. But they must have some specific qualifications for the job. We’ll just have to wait a couple hours and see. For now we’re worried just about getting up on the high tables. They won’t let us fall off – right? I can hardly wait for one more person to be harping about my weight. People think like it must be an easy thing to do? I’m not sure … let’s pay some attention k to the part where our body is falling apart, because of size and other? Ok, now shhh … lets move on.
We’ve had a full week at work at trying to get done with all the meetings and such and today there will be a few more, though both in the afternoon. We’ll work this morning on them. We stayed at work last night until 6 pm working on cleaning up our desk space a bit. One of the things we’d found that we hadn’t done yet was to update our job description. Sr. had a very rough copy of our job description – private … in that it is different from the other Q’s. We gave it some time and filled it in well. This is it though the spacing might show up differently. It was important to get it all in about the space of one page. I’m going to spot check it now for accuracy.
Job Description – QMRP
Ann M. Garvey - July 1, 2007
Administrative Assigned Duties
• Keep Administrator up-to-date on any and all changes
• Update policies and procedures
• Attend out-of-building in-services and in-house meetings
• Substitute for DSPs or front-end when necessary
• Duties not otherwise assigned, but delegated
CARF
• Complete timely reports, such as the Business Improvement report, Performance analysis, risk analysis, and technology plan
• Maintain standards and up-to-date files
Program Planning
• Maintain affiliation with CSO, UIC, the ARC, or other professional organizations
• Submit ideas and recommend changes when necessary
• Develop ideas and implement change
• Complete Annual Report including program summary
Staff Training
• Compliancy to Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) standards
• On-the-job (OJ) training and course registration to new personnel
• Registration on the Health Care Registry
• Provide guidance and in-services to staff (One QMRP and Eight DSPs)
Groups
• Thinking Group - meet all individuals served 3 to 4 times per month
• Circles Group – meet each of four groups once per week
• Maintain book of topics discussed
QMRP duties for a caseload of 10 individuals
• Observation and Problem-solving with individuals served
• Contact with families of individuals served
• Annuals – Individual Program Plans (IPPs) and other reports such as ICAP and Personal Preference Interviews (PPIs)
• Maintain goals, Qnotes, and case files
Pshwoo – that seems like a lot of work, but we are not comprehending it as a whole. One of the last things we did was to reprioritize the events so that it balanced differently, especially putting the client load at the bottom of the list rather than the top and vice-versa with the administrational duties. I liked the way it balanced differently … not that the clients were the lowest priority, but that the things I take now for lesser really aren’t lesser and demand some fair amount of time and thought.
Ok … so we’re going to have to remember 6 areas … Administrative assigned, CARF, Program planning, staff training, groups, and QMRP caseload of 10. It is much more professional and detailed than sister made it sound at first. There may be some friction, because it is going to sound like much more than I’m sure the other two Q’s will be, although it must be up to them to define their responsibilities too.
Thing I’m having trouble with is trying to frame it in my head so that I can be accountable for all the tasks all the time. I don’t seem to be holding on to it all together. If I can’t do that, I won’t be able to do it in the planning or acting out of it either. Like I can do any task on its own, but how do I remember to do reports, when I’m focusing on compliancy issues, or groups. And, when a client walks in needing help, how do I remember to do the program changes if necessary. I don’t know need to do something. I’ve been thinking of the main areas of my job to be CARF, clients, staff, and program. It’s a good idea to break them down and include groups and administrative-assigned duties. It’s those kinds of extra things that rock the boat.
I might have to add some kind of a check-list to assure that I’m covering all those areas like for say in a week’s amount of time. That might be one way to skin the cat … but, don’t let Missy and Chief hear me saying that. I might scare them!
I tried to group it as administrative duties taking priority over all the rest. If there is something sister wants done … that takes priority. CARF stuff should be the outline for everything else. And, if one of the other things is highlighted then it should be backed up in CARF. Program planning is the section where we see if all the work is going according to schedule, but then again it is something bigger. I think we are up to the need to make a flowchart to see how that all fits together. Staff training is how we affect the program being run smoothly. Sister Theresa takes such a big part of the programming though that sometimes the to separate. She is the one likely to walk in each of the rooms and complain that so and so isn’t operating to speed, or someone or another is using too much busywork.
The program is really the some and substance of a lot of preening of service
delivery. Groups is next according to size and the number of people affected. We haven’t been keeping notes of the meetings, but we started yesterday in going over the first two circle groups. Tomorrow will be the first Thinking Group of the new order and today the first in-service of the new program. It’s pretty significant to be getting to each of the individuals training wise at least twice weekly – once through the large group and once through the small. That whole things should be better planned. And, last is the QMRP duties. We are back to QMRP rather than QHSP. But, that is not the least of the activities. We really are always on duty watching for problems, contack with family and other tasks assigned with the duties.
I figure now if I can say all this in the paragraph then I should be able to consolidate it within my mind’s ability. We’ll have to think about that more in a little bit though, because it is time for our shower. Be back soon.
Hmm, that went by fast … we’re up to 6:10 … we woke up Sweetie just after the shower, got dressed and talked some. I sure am going to miss his company, but there is always then the hope that we could get something done. I’m going to go with that thought. So, for now … why don’t we get this posted, put on shoes and socks, and be ready to hit the road, right? I can do this, right?
posted by Ann Marie @ 9/13/2007 06:15:00 AM
Comments: 1
