September Update
What an interesting ( or awful, depending on your point of view) few weeks it's been.
First of all, work is going a bit better. I'm finally starting to feel like part of the team, and people are being nicer. The new administrator is working out well, and I DO like her. She's the kind of manager I like working for, one who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, and is willing to let you run your department, as long as you keep her informed.
The last week in August, we underwent a mock state survey. This is an opportunity to see where we might need to make changes, improvements, etc. before the state of Ohio conducts their annual inspection survey. Talk about stressful. Everyone looking at every minute piece of information, making sure that every I was dotted and every T was crossed. But it was worth the pain. We found out that the facility is actually doing a very good job, and that there were very few things that needed to be changed or corrected.
Just as we were relaxing and working on action plans from the mock survey, the REAL survey team from ODH showed up at 6:40 AM on September 9. Talk about great timing. Since we were all in "survey mode" from the mock survey, handling the real one was a lot less stressful than it could have been. We passed inspection, with NO deficiencies. That is something rare in the nursing home world. Needless to say, the new administrator is thrilled, and and so are the people at the corporate office.
We were still feeling the warm glow from the perfect survey when, on Sunday, Sept. 14, a MAJOR wind storm swept across Ohio. This was the remnants of hurricane Ike, combined with a strong low pressure system coming out of Canada. We had sustained winds of 35-40 MPH, with frequent gusts of wind clocked at 65-75 MPH. Needless to say, the entire central Ohio are was a complete mess.
The electricity went out everywhere at around 4:00 PM Sunday afternoon, and still isn't back on in many parts of Columbus and the surrounding suburbs. (We were lucky at our house, power was restored about 8 hours after it went out. ) There were trees down everywhere, major property damage (Mostly from falling trees and branches), and no one anywhere had cable or internet service for about 3 days. (I will remember that next time I'm tempted to bundle our phone service in with the cable and internet service. No thanks. I don't want to be completely cut off.)
The power was also out at the nursing home for 2 days. Not such a bad thing, since we have an emergency generator that will power some lights and all essential equipment. The biggest problem was getting everyone fed when we didn't have any working kitchen equipment.
Now that the weekend is here, life seems to be getting back to normal (or as normal as possible) and things are settling down a bit. Hopefully next week will be a little less hectic than the last 3. (knock on wood!)