Starbucks

On the way to Philadelphia to teach one of my CLNC^® Certification Programs, Tom and I went for our cross-airport trek to the Starbucks^® in Terminal E. When we got through the line, the young guy working at Starbucks looked (and sounded) like he hadn’t had his coffee yet. After repeating our order at least twice we received a semblance of our “black eyes,” a doppio expresso dumped into a vente Komodo blend. From there we stormed back to Terminal C and stopped for our standard pre-flight spicy breakfast (lunch really ‘cause we’ve been up since 4:00am) at Popeye’s Fried Chicken (nothing beats red beans and rice in the morning). The woman working the counter at Popeye’s was complaining in Spanish on her cell phone to a friend about having to be open at 6:00am and how unfair it was that she had to open the store three days a week.

When we got to our gate, three uniformed airline employees working there (including a “red coat” or supervisor) were complaining, somewhat loudly as only a group can do, about a systems problem with their airline, all within hearing distance of the customers. I was at least glad that I wasn’t overhearing a safety issue but the line of passengers waiting to board didn’t seem amused.

Even the waiter at the restaurant where we had dinner that evening got into the act, complaining about how the economy had reduced his tips (apparently his surly, complaining service had nothing to do with it).

I was trying to figure out if it was just my day to ride the complain train or if there was some other message, when it hit me. The people who had been complaining all day were doing it without regard for who was listening, or maybe they just didn’t care. Suddenly I started worrying about you and all of the Certified Legal Nurse Consultants. I worried that perhaps without thinking, you might be complaining about someone while in a public space, or even worse, using your cell phone voice and having a 72-decibel private conversation. Let’s face it, you never know who is listening to you. It could be the attorney-client you just marketed to sight unseen, it could be a supervisor or a family member of an injured party in a case you’re consulting on. The first danger is that you might harm a relationship, whether it’s with an attorney-client, with a client of the facility you work for or just a neighbor.

Negativity is damaging. Even more important, complaining by itself is counterproductive. It rarely has a purpose with an outcome in mind. The airline employees weren’t brainstorming the problem; they were just making sure each of them was as aggrieved as the other in dealing with it. What a waste of energy, not to mention brainpower. Although in my experiences most complainers don’t have much of either and can’t afford to lose the little bit they have.

I’m not advocating that we should shut our eyes to problems. We should be using our agility to recognize what’s not working and then work on getting it fixed. Someone recently told me my staff is perfect. I’m smart enough to know she’s way off base in her assessment but one reason for her positive experience is that when employees come to me with a complaint, I tell them, “Don’t criticize – strategize. Offer me an alternative, a solution or an idea I can work with.” I don’t expect the perfect solution, but I won’t indulge complaining.

Why do some people complain, even when they know better? Because complaining is easier than action, and it is much easier than personal responsibility.

There’s an apocryphal story about two dogs outside a butcher shop trying to get a pork chop from the butcher. The first dog, who’s entrepreneurial and genuinely excited about the bounty of meat in the shop, does tricks, barks and takes all sorts of action to get the attention of the butcher to earn a treat. The other dog lies on the pavement, whining and sniveling about the unfairness of all that food out of his reach and hoping that someone will take the action to feed him. Guess which dog gets the pork chop?

Twenty seven years ago I decided I would no longer stand around whining and complaining like many of my nurse colleagues about the bad state of hospital nursing. I wanted more for my career, more for me and more for my life. I decided that it was time to take action and start a legal nurse consulting business.

I stopped complaining and suddenly life’s opportunities started pouring my way. I was feeling better and stronger. People around me recognized the change. I recently severed a professional relationship with a complainer. Life is too short to be around one and a lot more fun without them. As Barbra Streisand said, please “don’t rain on my parade.”

I always say “Where you focus is where you’ll get your results.” What results are you focusing on and for what purpose? Where will you choose to put your time, energy and strengths in your legal nurse consulting business today? Choose wisely and you may change the course of your life.

Success Is Inside!

Every CLNC^® consultant worries endlessly, and to some extent needlessly, about privacy. Without getting into a discussion, let’s talk first about the hippo in the room – HIPAA. It’s been said that law firms are not covered entities under HIPAA (hooray).

That being said, in my humble opinion (which was wrong once back in 1977 – a really bad haircut), a legal nurse consultant working for the defense would be considered a business associate of the defense attorney who would be a business associate of the hospital, other facility or other defendant who is covered by HIPAA. On the plaintiff side, HIPAA regs don’t apply because you’re looking at the records with the plaintiff’s, or potential plaintiff’s permission. But to be safe, keep your CLNC^® subcontractors under contracts with confidentiality provisions and you should be in good shape. Once the suit has been filed, the plaintiff’s medical records are pretty much fair game as they’ll become public records. Here’s a Medscape article on the subject if you want to read more, but the best way to stay in compliance is to discuss any privacy expectations with your attorney-client first.

Enough of HIPAA – let’s talk tech! More and more Certified Legal Nurse Consultants are buying laptops, which means you’re working in places where other people can see your laptop’s screen. I know that every time I walk through a Starbucks^® or to the airplane’s restroom from my seat in steerage I look at what people are doing on their computers (most of them are watching movies but you see the occasional worker bee crunching away on a spreadsheet). Sometimes I get dirty looks but I really don’t see much. It’s the person sitting next to you for a period of time at a table or on a three-hour flight who is the danger.

If you’re worried about people seeing your work product, or lack thereof, consider buying a frameless privacy filter for your laptop. You’ll have to mess around with the installation and make sure your laptop will close with the screen installed, but the filter will hide your data from prying eyes. 3M makes some highly rated filters. They’re a bit pricy, none is perfect (some can be viewed from above) and all can be seen from behind you (otherwise you couldn’t see through them). The good news is that it works on all laptops, after you figure out how to install it. If you think you need one go ahead and buy it. I’m thinking about getting one to keep Vickie from looking over at my laptop to see my flight simulator score on those long “working” flights. But if people seeing your work (or play) isn’t a concern for you, save your money and put it into your marketing materials.

Another privacy concern is with getting your work product to an attorney via email. There are ways to encrypt your email but they can be pretty complicated to set up and not every attorney understands “public key encryption” like you do. So, for legal nurse consultants who want to keep their documents private, buy a copy of WinZip^®. It will allow you to compress your reports, into password-protected “zip” files, which you can then send to your attorney-client. Simply set up a different agreed-upon password with each attorney-client and then send them the password-protected zip files. If anyone intercepts your email or it goes to the wrong address, they won’t be able to read it (easily).

In an earlier blog I discussed another way to secure your work product by sending your attorney-clients your work product in portable document format (PDF). If you have the free Bullzip PDF Printer or a full version of Adobe^® Acrobat^® you can password protect your PDF documents too. Once you get Adobe, it will integrate into your Microsoft^® Word software so you can print PDF files straight from Word. The “save PDF” add-in from Microsoft will let you create PDFs but will not let you add security so you really need either Bullzip PDF Printer or Acrobat (Bullzip is a lot cheaper…free). Then you can simply email your new password-protected PDF documents to your attorney-client (just make sure he’s got the password).

You should keep in mind that it’s pretty unlikely that someone will intercept your email. It’s more likely that you’ll send it to the wrong address and password-protecting your work is a great way to keep it private.

This post should help allay some of your privacy fears but, remember, even paranoids have real enemies!

Keep on techin’,

Tom

A couple of months ago I jumped on an airplane to Las Vegas for the Institute’s CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Program. I normally work on flights. I carry my own water, jack my iPod^® Classic into my Bose^® sound-reducing headphones and crank up Prince. I’m so self-contained that the only thing that can ruin my flight is when the guy in front of me leans his seat back into my lap so he can sleep.

Even before we take off, I have my laptop on my lap waiting for the double bell that allows real business travelers to work and fake business travelers to sleep (or suck down as many free drinks as they can if they’re in first class). Vegas can be 3½ hours from Houston and this time I got lucky – no sleepers. I cranked up the laptop, got to work, didn’t look up until final approach into LAS and I didn’t think anything of it.

In Vegas, I was comparing flight notes with another staff member who told me her laptop conked out somewhere around West Texas, about 1½ hours into the flight. We have the same model laptop so I was a little confused why I could work for 3 hours and she couldn’t (no it’s not just stamina). I volunteered to take a look at her laptop (it makes me look good even though it’s my job). After two minutes, I figured out her issues, at least the ones related to her laptop. One of those issues was the strain on the laptop’s battery.

Based on this experience, here are some steps and tips to extend the life of your laptop batteries whether you’re flying across the country, working in the medical library or soaking up the free Wi-Fi at Starbucks^®.

Keep a Low-Power Profile

• Right click My Computer on your desktop, click Hardware and click Hardware Profiles. If you’re undocked, copy the profile you are in and rename it to Undocked-Normal.
• Click Start, Settings, Network Connections and Panel and disable your Wireless Network Connection. (When you’re in the air or out of range of the wireless Internet, the computer will keep trying to connect and runs down the battery trying).
• Highlight the current profile, click Rename and name it Undocked-No Wireless.
• Dim the laptop screen a couple of notches. You don’t need a tan while you work, so maximum brightness is not necessary.
• Click Start, Control Panel and Power.

• Next time you boot up your laptop it will give you a choice of which profile to select so if you’re out of range of wireless, pick the Undocked-No Wireless and your laptop battery will get extended life.

Stick It in Your Ear

• Don’t listen to music on your laptop – get an iPod or Zune^® and use the ear-buds or a Bose headset.

Empty It Out

• Don’t watch DVDs or listen to CDs on your laptop and make darn sure you don’t have a CD or DVD hiding in the built-in player.

Ditch It and Stick It

• Pull out the CD/DVD player and replace it with a second battery.
• Buy the battery with the highest number of cells (6-12) and look for a high watt-hour (WHr) rating. The more cells and higher WHr, the longer it will last.
• You probably won’t be listening to CDs or watching DVDs on the road but if you think you will, just toss the modular player in your computer case and only use it when plugged into a wall jack.
• Some computers have portable battery packs you can attach – consider one.

Juice Up Every Chance You Get

• Use your charger right up to the last second in the airport or Starbucks. Any time spent on the ground using your battery is less time in the air on your battery. Don’t be afraid to top off unless you have an older non Li-ion battery.
• Once you’re on the ground, run the battery(ies) completely down and charge them overnight. Do this each night. It’s always good to run through a full power cycle as often as possible.

Make New Friends at the Airport (You Won’t See Them for Long)

• I carry one of those goofy power plugs from my local hardware store that allows me to plug three cords into one wall plug. If I need to juice it at Starbucks and some sandaled, goatee-type is already plugged into the wall socket I can usually talk him (or her) into letting me share by plugging in the adapter so we can all make nice.

I’ve flown New York City to San Diego on one charge using the above methods and highly recommend them. The only problem is my batteries last so long I can’t use the dead-battery excuse so I can shut down and dig deep into the latest Lee Child thriller.

Here’s one last tip. If your airport doesn’t have free Wi-Fi (a lot do), find the closest airline club, one club-member benefit is usually free, unsecured, wireless Internet. You’ll locate it quickly by looking for the laptop owners crouched against the club’s wall desperately downloading email.

Keep on Techin’, (and I’ll see you at the wall socket!)

Tom

I am at the airport getting ready to leave for Paris with my Starbucks^® coffee in hand. After this long flight, I’ll be ready for that glass of red wine that always accompanies my Parisian breakfast. Click on the video to find out what legal nurse consulting, comprehensive reports for your attorney-clients and Paris have in common.

Success Is Inside!

On my trip from Houston to San Diego to attend the christening of my new great-niece Reese, I experienced a strong dose of branding. Many of you know I enjoy my cups of healthy green tea almost as much as I enjoy a glass of healthy red wine. You probably don’t know that I have a secret addiction for Starbucks^® coffee. One that’s not entirely healthy if I’m not careful to tame it. I don’t get a Starbucks fix on a daily basis, but I manage to fit in two-three cups a week (usually at least one free one) on my morning walks with Tom. So, anytime I hit an airport in the morning (and I tend to fly only in the morning), my internal GPS goes off as soon as I clear security. That GPS will lead Tom and me directly to the airport’s Starbucks for my “red-eye.”

Tom’s favorite part of flying is sitting in Continental Airline’s Presidents Club. It’s all I can do to keep him from getting us to the airport three hours before our flight. He likes the free newspapers and will plow through the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Houston Chronicle and The Financial Times and then jump on the club’s free wireless Internet to blow through his email on his laptop – all before we head to the gate. Even though I’m a president, I’m not crazy about the Presidents Clubs. From my point of view, although the seats are comfortable and the restrooms are clean, there’s no decent food. We usually fly before the bar is open and, here’s my pet peeve, the coffee is terrible.

As part of the process of being married for almost 19 years, we’ve worked out a bargain (one of many). I agree to get to the airport a little early. Tom agrees to go to Starbucks with me for my Starbucks fix. Then we both go to the Presidents Club so Tom can get his “news” fix. That bargain sometimes turns out to be more than Tom expected and a little frustrating for him as our last few flights have gone out of gates 27 or 30 in Terminal C at Houston’s George Bush Airport (IAH) and the closest Starbucks is way over in Terminal E. In fact, it’s so far that I joke with Tom that it’s in another time zone. What makes it frustrating for him is not just that we’ll have to walk one mile across the entire width of the airport, but that we’ll pass by at least two other brands of coffee shops (Peet’s and Einstein Bagels) and any number of fast food joints serving coffee on the way to the Starbucks in Terminal E. Tom loves to drink coffee, but he doesn’t really care that much about the brand. It can be airline coffee, McDonald’s coffee or even the brown water they call coffee in our office. As long as it’s hot, he’s happy. Me, I’m stuck on Starbucks. In fact, I’m so hooked, I go without coffee if I can’t find a Starbucks. Now that’s brand identification!

Let me ask you about your brand as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. Do you provide your attorney-clients with the quality of service that creates that sort of brand identification with you? Will your attorney-clients use only you for their medical-related cases? Are you the first and only legal nurse consultant they think of? If yes, you’ve accomplished what all entrepreneurs strive for. If no, ask yourself what you can do to create the Starbucks experience for your attorney-clients. Make it more than just providing the best CLNC^® work product available. Add a little lagniappe (as we say in New Orleans) – something more. In the technology age when everyone emails each other, show up at the door with bagels and a box of Starbucks coffee, deliver a bottle of champagne after your attorney-client wins or settles a big case or send a handwritten thank-you note.

I’d like you to comment and post some of your favorite tips for fostering brand loyalty to your own CLNC^® business. While you’re doing that, I’ll have another cup of one of my favorite brands.

Success Is Inside!

When I was a young girl, my father didn’t eat leftovers (still doesn’t). That caused my mom to be very careful about how much food she would prepare for meals. My sister, Karen, still jokes with me that mom would prepare only five pork chops (one of our favorite dishes) and not one more (despite our pleas). I hadn’t really thought about pork since my letter to President Obama or pork chops since the last time Karen and I talked about Mom’s pork chops.

That all changed this week when I was having a skylight repaired in my bathroom. The ceiling is pretty high so it required a long ladder and two repairmen – one to do the work and one to steady the ladder. Naturally the guy holding the ladder got bored quickly and became quite chatty. At one point, apropos of nothing, he mentioned that he couldn’t wait for lunch. I overheard him and asked him if he’d had breakfast (healthy green tea and a healthy breakfast is an important way to start your day). He told me he’d had a small one – his wife didn’t cook him any bacon to go with his eggs. I replied that he was lucky on two fronts: (1) his wife cooked him breakfast (I was glad Tom didn’t hear him say that) and (2) she’s helping him watch his diet.

He replied that it wasn’t his diet she was worried about, it was catching swine flu from the bacon. I laughed and told him he could safely tell his wife that you can’t get the swine flu from eating bacon or other pork products. In fact, I went on to tell him that unless she was sleeping with an infected pig or had a sick pig running around the house she was safe. Just as I was getting started on a lecture regarding the facts surrounding swine flu, I noticed his eyes began glazing over (just like an attorney’s do when a legal nurse consultant goes on too long about their services without engaging in their positioning strategies). I cut to the chase and said, “Tell your wife that the best way to beat the H1N1 Influenza A virus (we can’t call it swine flu anymore because we’re apparently offending pigs) and just about any superbug, is to follow the hygiene practices championed by that 19th Century nurse, Florence Nightingale. Her practices are still valid today: vigilantly wash your hands and stay clear of anyone who is ill.”

For attorneys who are reading this blog, before you call our office, any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant can tell you there is no product liability suit against a pork producer for an H1N1-infected piggy. Those same Certified Legal Nurse Consultants also know that there might be a medical malpractice case for failure to diagnose, since the symptoms of H1N1 Influenza A are so close to those of “normal” flu.

As RNs we can and should contribute to this public health issue by reminding everyone around us (not just our spouses and children) to wash their hands. We should also remember that nursing and medical personnel can be a source of infection.

I’ll be washing all the way up to the elbows for a long time to come. Stay clean and healthy!

Success Is Inside!

P.S. When I walked over to Starbucks this morning for my “free” coffee, the staff must have read my blog about them because they had my tall “red-eye” (bold coffee with a shot of expresso) on the counter by the time I got to the register (darn)!

When the weather is as glorious as it’s been here in Texas this spring, Tom and I’ll often take an early morning walk to one of our local Starbucks^® – we have three to choose from but only one serves free coffee consistently. How do you get free coffee at Starbucks^®? Easy – go to the one where the staff has developed the bad habit of not being ready when the doors open.

I don’t know if it’s a Starbucks^® corporate policy, but it’s certainly a policy at this local Starbucks that if you show up after they open and they’re out of coffee, or even worse, haven’t brewed it yet, they’ll give you your coffee for free (if you can stand the waiting around for your caffeine-fix).

This works out to my advantage more often than not. Like a hospital, Starbucks^® has a staff rotation and different staffing acuities (based on rush hour, etc.). One of the shifts with low acuity consistently shows up late (i.e. to open at 5:30am – they arrive at 5:29am), has trouble grinding the beans, stocking the pastries, filling the creamers and generally getting going. You’d think, working in a coffee shop, they’d get there early enough to brew some go juice or toss back a red eye so they’re caffeinated when they open. Nope, instead they’re passing out free java to what should have been the first crop of paying customers. The best part for us is, their shift rotation coincides with our walks (hmmmm…coincidence? I think not.)

I’m not trying to sound like a “pointy-haired boss.” I remember my early nursing jobs – at first I showed up early, hat on straight, whites starched and ironed, even with polished shoes. But soon I was in the same rut as all the other nurses. If handover or shift change was at 6:30 – I’d roll in at 6:29, slightly unkempt but, ready to work. I understand where these kids are coming from. However, if a coffee shop opens at 5:30am that means open with cauldrons of steaming hot, fragrant lifer juice just waiting to be poured into the cups of the caffeine-fiends clamoring at the windows like zombies in a movie.

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, isn’t it also making the same mistake over and over and expecting a different result? Maybe my mistake is expecting them to be ready to serve brain juice when I show up looking for my fresh cup of joe when the store opens. But I’ll admit, when the reward for my mistake is free jitter juice for me it’s a mistake I can live with.

But what bad habits have you developed in your legal nurse consulting career that are causing you to give your attorney-clients a cup (or pot) of free coffee? Have you been slipping deadlines and then working overtime to catch up? Are you not returning calls promptly? Is your availability limited or are you not subcontracting? Maybe you’re appearing needy to the attorney-client or you’re not listening. (Newsflash: Unless you’re married to him/her you HAVE to listen.) Or worst of all, maybe you’re running down rabbit trails in your research and not being cost effective with your time. Each of these represents a free cup of hot, steamy, expensive Starbucks^® ready to be served to your attorney-clients – in order to keep them.

The hardest thing about bad habits is recognizing them as bad, not just as habits. Take a few minutes and honestly evaluate your own habits. Make a list and work at eliminating one a week. If you need to get yourself a cup of Juan Valdez’s best to get started, feel free. We’re looking at the end result – not the process. The main thing is to stop giving away free coffee and start working like the caffeinated first-rate Certified Legal Nurse Consultant you’re capable of being.

Meanwhile, I’ll be enjoying another free cup of the nectar of the gods!

Success Is Inside!

P.S. While I enjoy a small cup of coffee, my favorite beverage is healthy green tea. Try it.

As I’ve grown older I’ve learned to appreciate the difficulty of keeping my body (and mind) in great physical (and mental) shape. I hit the gym three days a week to lift weights with a trainer. On the odd-date days I really stretch myself by doing yoga or speed-walking to the Starbucks^® a couple of miles from my home. As my age has increased so has my strength and muscle-mass. I only wish I’d been as dedicated when I was in nursing school.

Before I became a nurse, my exercise consisted of scrambling for Mardi Gras beads and doubloons in the crowded parades of New Orleans (a true contact sport), playing intramural basketball for my high school, playing neighborhood touch football and baseball in the streets, and wrestling with my twin brother Vince (and sometimes his friends, wink-wink). Closest I ever came to an injury was burning my mouth on a bowl of my Grandma’s seafood gumbo.

In nursing school I got a whole different education in exercise that involved weightlifting – lifting patients, lifting more patients and when we were done, lifting even more patients. At 5′ 2 ½”, 110lbs I was hardly Arnold. No training could really prepare me to lift and/or turn patients twice my size. The result? Nursing school turned out to be more hazardous than a childhood of physical activity! It was in the hospital that I strained my back trying to lift and turn a patient. Being the good old days I was prescribed a period of bed rest and, of course, Darvon. I remember telling my nursing student peers, “what a worthless drug it was despite all the hype.” Obviously I’m not much of a drugstore cowgirl. All it did was make me feel fuzzy – it didn’t touch my back pain.

An FDA advisory committee recently recommended a ban on Darvon, Darvocet and their generics, notably after they have been in use for more than 50 years (check out the presentations from the meeting). According to the testimony, Darvon and Darvocet have been associated with over 10,000 confirmed deaths and 2,110 reported accidental deaths in the United States, and the risk of death, overdose, addiction and life-threatening side effects, outweighs the minimal benefits provided by these drugs over other available painkillers.

The committee’s recommendation is nonbinding on the FDA which has 90 days to act on it and either pull the drug from the market or let it go on killing people. Hard to believe but, yes, a drug that according to the AMA is less effective than two adult-strength aspirin, kills.

As of the date of this posting I haven’t seen any cases filed yet, but plaintiff attorneys are already advertising for potential clients. This is where you, the savvy Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, come in.

If you are interested in consulting on these potential products liability cases, research the plaintiff attorneys who are advertising for these cases and market yourself to them. Defense firms are a potential market too. There will be plenty of issues for both sides in these cases as the drug is often prescribed to elderly patients, it’s addictive, it doesn’t mix well with other drugs and a good portion of the deaths are suicides.

If you’re looking to get involved in pharmaceutical cases – Darvon will probably be a good starting place. Just do your research and watch your back.

Success Is Inside!