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Tis the season for fireworks and a celebration of independence! Fireworks are spectacular and have an amazing WOW (or ooooohhhh aaaaahhhh) factor. Digital pathology use to have a big WOW factor but the industry has lost that over the past couple of years. This has to change! We need to shake things up and create new WOWs! We need to make digital pathology spectacular!
Stop waiting for the ultimate WOW to come from a digital pathology manufacturer. This mindset has to change– it’s time to create your own WOW with digital pathology and become independent of the manufacturers. The technology is very good and it can do what you want it to do today. It just takes work, lots of work to make your digital pathology vision a reality. Work…..ugh, I know. The good things in life are never easy but we need more success stories, more spectacular outcomes with digital pathology! I know we can do it!!
Stressed about the work it will take to make digital pathology spectacular? Need help? Give me a call.
Professional coaching can help identify and unblock barriers that have the potential to harm individuals or organizations. A great coach will define a process to meet the dynamic needs of an organization or department, and enable individuals to determine, pursue, and accomplish their professional goals.
Professional coaching will be a needed and necessary resource to help the pathology industry cope with their digital future; and Digital Pathology Consultants will be there to help. If you would like to learn more download my webinar or send me an email.
The digital pathology industry faces a complex challenge of combining new technology with well-established beliefs and practices. As a result, digital pathology faces significant psychological adoption barriers- it is the “elephant in the room.”
The famous futurologist Alvin Toffler conducted a detailed study of the acceleration of change and its psychological effects in 1970 for his book Future Shock (Random House, 1971). He suggested that it would lead to a set of severe physical and mental disturbances, which he called the “future shock” syndrome. Just like people exposed to war or disaster may develop a nervous breakdown (“shell-shock”), people exposed to the rapid changes of modern life may develop a state of helplessness and inadequacy.
Digital pathology will introduce new, modern methods to supplement and eventually replace routine diagnosis by microscope. But with the “gold standard” of diagnosis by microscope in use for over 150 years is it not fair to say that the change to digital pathology could put many pathologists into a state of future shock? Pathologists themselves joke of their archaic methods and dependency on antiquated technology but this dependency could result in feeling helpless or inadequate when faced with the new digital, modern methods of pathology.
Furthermore, the workplace has become a breeding ground for information overload. A worldwide survey (Reuters, 1996) found that two thirds of managers suffer from increased tension and one-third from ill health because of the huge amounts of information they must cope with. So will digital pathology cause pathologists to call in sick? I hope not, but to avoid additional job stress we must start to discuss how to overcome the psychological barriers of digital pathology.
I recently read an article titled, Managing Innovation Complexity, by Braden Kelly. Braden says,
The changes required by minor innovations are easier for customers and organizations to absorb. But the large changes generated by major innovations often disrupt not only the market, but the internal workings of the organization as well. This requires organizations to become increasingly flexible and adaptable.
Is your organization “flexible and adaptable?” I imagine many of you are shaking your heads no. Creating a healthcare organization that is flexible and adaptable is not an easy feat. But Braden continues to say “…with proper planning, organizational learning, and adaptation over time, any organization can improve its ability to cope with, and even anticipate, the change and complexity that come with implementing their next major innovation.”
As healthcare organizations face the major innovation of digital pathology and hopefully take the right steps to prepare and plan, do yourself a favor and create a personal plan to prepare yourself mentally for this transformation and avoid “future shock.” Do not ignore that tiny voice, your fears, or the elephant sitting on top of your microscope. Not sure where to begin? Give me a call! I would be happy to help you adjust and prepare for the inevitable compromise between the old way (microscopy) and the new way (digital pathology) of doing things.
Is it really January 19th? Many of you have probably already broken your new year resolutions, while I have yet to make one. For the past 19 days I have been behind and unable to catch up. Is it because December was the busiest month for my business in 2010? Or because I have a 3 year old who kept me (and Santa) on our toes all month? Who knows! All I know is I never had my usual end-of-year down time to get organized, clean out my email box, create a plan, and start out the new year fresh. I love this time of year, but for some reason 2011 snuck up on me and has been riddled with stumbling blocks. Including the flu (or some wicked virus since I did get my flu shot), the second cancellation of my coaching webinar (because of the flu), and the total crash of my wiki thanks to a routine (or so I thought…) software upgrade.
What’s a girl to do? Well, It’s time to declare a resolution!
Drum roll please……
With my rose colored glasses on and sipping a half full glass of lemonade (squeezed from life’s lemons, of course) I resolve to have a new attitude! 2011 will no longer control me, I now control 2011.
Sometimes all I need is a little perspective, and a tiny bit of patience to face my day-to-day challenges. But obtaining the proper perspective isn’t possible unless you have the right attitude. Armed with my positive attitude I am ready for January 20th- my proverbial new year. Maybe I’ll take my own advice from my 2010 new year blog post and not stress over setbacks, but work hard to create realistic expectations so that setbacks do not occur often.
PS. Don’t worry, the digital pathology wiki is up, has a new look, and is better than ever! I guess everything happens for a reason.
Digital Pathology Consultants introduces a new webinar on December 16, 2010 at 12 PM EST/ 9 AM PST titled “Unlock Your Future: Embrace The Potential Of Pathology” supported by our sponsors at the www.thedigitalpathologywiki.com.
Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.- Timothy Gallwey
I am very passionate about the fact that we must consider our people (ie. pathologists, lab managers, histotechs, administrators, assistants, etc) in the evolution of pathology. I know that might sound obvious, yet, so often the future of pathology is described by the change in technology, policies, tests, techniques, procedures etc rather then the impact these changes will have on the people involved. However, these people are essential and the key to all of these changes becoming a success. I’ve discussed this briefly before in another post titled “Is It Your Hardware, Software, or Peopleware?” This webinar will focus on the needs and benefits of having a professional coach for pathology departments, laboratories, and individuals. The official description and registration link are below.
Description
The practice of pathology is evolving rapidly and pathologists must prepare for tomorrow. Over the next 10 years several changes such as the advancement of personalized medicine, the onset of electronic medical records, and the emergence of significant technological advances like digital pathology, will greatly impact how a pathologist performs his/her job. Therefore pathologists must start to explore, experiment, and learn new ways of thinking, and working professionally. Coaching has proven to be a very powerful means of guiding and supporting people and/or organizations to solve difficult problems and achieve complex goals. This webinar will discuss how working with a coach can make a difference in your organization and help everyone prepare for the future of pathology.
To register, click here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/458253376
I love resolutions and the start of a new year! Being an entrepreneur, I have many resolutions. The most important one, resolving to make my company a smashing success in 2010! To achieve success, I am working on a business plan. Once complete, I will break my plan down into smaller resolutions, or milestones.
Creating milestones can make big, overwhelming goals or projects manageable, and allow you to celebrate accomplishments along the way. Along with my resolution milestones, I routinely use milestones in all my consulting projects. Milestones outline a path of success, and allow clients to monitor and quantify progress clearly and easily. This methodology can be used by anyone working on a Digital Pathology project, and here are some tips to get started.
In 2010, create and celebrate your digital pathology milestones. Need help getting started, read my post “Empowering YOU To Take The First Step Forward.”
Organ donation became a very important part of my life when my father was diagnosed with end stage liver disease (ESLD) in August, 2007, only two months after he retired. ESLD is an irreversible condition that leads to complete failure of the liver.
Once diagnosed with ESLD, my dad’s quality of life decreased and his MELD score, a numerical scale used for liver allocation, rapidly increased. Fortunately, my dad was a candidate for liver transplantation, and was accepted onto the Colorado transplant list in early 2008. However, my dad did not get his transplant in Colorado where he had received his routine care for over two years. It was Cleveland Clinic and an unknown donor that saved his life.
But why did my dad have to “shop” (multi-list) for a new liver? There are three main reasons:
UNOS encourages transplants centers to advocate multi-listing, however, very few transplant candidates do it. The topic of multi-listing became hot when Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, received his liver transplant in Tennessee, even though he lived in California. The fact is organ transplantation is not a fair and equal process, and as a result, multi-listing is necessary to save lives.
My parents do not have wealth and fortune like Steve Jobs, but they still multi-listed. How did they do it? They made a commitment that they would do whatever it takes to save my dad’s life. That included doing lots of research, pushing on their insurance company, and taking a BIG risk both financially and with his life. Overall, the multi-listing process was much easier than they ever thought it would be. Within 30 days of joining the Ohio transplant list, my dad got his liver. If he had not multi-listed, he would either still be waiting or have died waiting here in Colorado. My dad is 3 months post transplant and doing great. It’s a tough recovery road, but a road that leads to jam sessions on the drums with his granddaughter, hunting with his brothers, and Harley riding across our country with my mom.
Anyone can be a potential donor regardless of age, race, or medical history!
Learn more & sign up @ www.donatelife.net
As a child, I dreamed of being a physical therapist. I wanted to help patients develop the skills necessary to restore lost movement in their body and maintain a good quality of life. Confucius said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” In many ways, my childhood dream came true. As a consultant, my patients are digital pathology consumers; consumers who need to understand how to take their first step. In the disruptive world of digital pathology that first step can be hard to make, especially if you have a thousand miles in front of you. Here are some suggestions on how to begin:
Once you understand why you need to take that first step, empower yourself to put that knowledge into action and go do it! But if you are worried about the journey find your “physical therapist”- someone who will motivate you to move forward and improve the quality of life of your business, one step at a time.
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