8-07-2016: Play Day in Milwaukee

  1. The ADHI conference is now over.  It was a good conference, better attended than last year, which is a good thing, and I think attendees had a good time and the sessions were interesting and informative.

Saturday night we went to Jay Vance’s suite for a reception.  Jay is the outgoing president of the association.  He’s done a great job as he is an energetic spokesman for AHDI.  We had a nice time at the reception and Christine got a chance to talk at length with one of her Spectrum customers, which is always good because she can hear how terrific TQAudit is.  Afterwards, we went back to our room and kind of collapsed, glad that the conference was over.  We watched the Olympics on TV during the evening.

Sunday was another play day in Milwaukee.  We’re really impressed with this city, at least the little bit we saw.  It is a clean, friendly city and is well-adapted to tourists in the tourist areas.  We decided that we would go on a river/lakefront cruise today.  We always enjoy being on the water and we like the perspective of seeing things from the water.

We walked along the River Walk for a while scoping out a nice place for lunch.  We settled on the Milwaukee Ale House, which is right on the river, and we had a nice table in the shade on the second floor balcony.  We not only enjoyed our lunch, but we got to sit back and watch all the boats going up and down the river.

After lunch we walked over to the Milwaukee River Boat ticket booth, got our tickets, and boarded the boat.  Before long, we were off.  This was a narrated cruise that talks about the landmarks and architecture of many of the famous buildings near the river and lake front.

What I really got a kick out of was learning about 3 types of bridges we went under.  There are some 180 bridges across the 3 rivers that run through Milwaukee.  The 3 types that we learned about were vertical lift, swing and bascule.  The vertical lift bridge is the one that raises the entire deck of the road.  Swing bridges pivot from a central position so that they turn from being across the water to inline with the water. Bascule bridges have heavy counter weights that use gravity to raise the two sides of the drawbridge, the typical thing that people think of as a drawbridge.  I didn’t know about the counterweights and the mechanism working with gravity.

Some of the river front has been developed and is now an up and coming residential area.  The rivers have undergone cleanup and industry has moved out.  Many large old warehouses have been converted into condos and apartments.

The confluence of the 3 rivers is near Lake Michigan, which has a large natural bay at the mouth of the rivers.  Our tour boat went out into the lake under the interstate bridge high overhead.  We then motored along the breakwater to McKinley Marina.  There were lots of sailboats in the bay and on the lake and it was a pretty sight.  Of course, I was enamored with the two lighthouses, especially the Breakwater Lighthouse because of its very unique shape.

From McKinley Marina the boat went along Juneau Park and the other parks along the lake.  We learned that all this area was reclaimed land from the lake and much of the fill came from the earth removed during the building of the interstates around Milwaukee.  From this vantage point, there were great views of downtown Milwaukee and especially the interesting building that is the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Back in to the Milwaukee River we had a pretty nice view of the Alle-Bradley clock tower which until recently was the largest four-faced clock tower in the world.  A bigger clock tower was recently built in Dubai.

Allen-Bradley Clock Tower
Allen-Bradley Clock Tower

The 90-minute boat tour was very nice and an enjoyable way to learn a little about Milwaukee and see some interesting architecture.

After our boat ride we relaxed in the room for a while and then went back to Mader’s for dinner.  We couldn’t resist using out coupon for free Reuben rolls that we so enjoyed Friday evening.  And Christine had a Mader’s famous glass of sangria, which comes with the biggest blackberry I’ve ever seen in it.  After dinner, we went back to the hotel and settled in to watch more of the Olympics.

So our time in Milwaukee comes to an end.  This is really a nice city and we’ve enjoyed being here.  The conference was good and Christine gave a great presentation with her Spectrum colleagues.  And, she was once again recognized with the Innovation Through Technology Award for all her hard work in developing a software tool that has very significant impact on quality healthcare documentation.  And, I think there will be some good things coming out of this conference for TQAudit (can you say Mayo Clinic??!!).

 

8-05-2016: Presentation Day

Yesterday, Thursday, Christine spent the morning working and then practicing her part of the presentation.  I set out in search of a grocery store to pick up a few items.  It was unbearably hot and humid by 10:00 a.m. in Milwaukee, near 90 degrees and probably 100% humidity, so my 2 mile walk, mostly in the sun, was not so pleasant.  But mission accomplished and the shopping was successful.  One thing that tickled me was a sign in the grocery.  In my previous post, I said that beer and brats reigned supreme in Milwaukee.  This sign kind of reinforces that.

Sign in grocery store
Sign in grocery store

On the way back to the hotel I saw this sculpture that was kind of cute.  Its title is Dancing Through Life.

Dancing through life
Dancing through life

Thursday afternoon Christine attended the gallery to the AHDI Board meeting while I lazed around in the room.  Starting at 5:30 there was a reception put on by M*Modal, the premier sponsor of the conference.  M*Modal is the second largest transcription company in the country and they have been very active and supportive in AHDI conferences and initiatives.  What was cool about the reception was its location, in the round top of the hotel on the 21st floor in a space called Vue.  From there one can see quite a bit of Milwaukee.  What I liked was finally being able to see Lake Michigan.  So in addition to good food and drinks, we got a wonderful view.

After the reception, Christine and I were invited to the suite of two of Christine’s favorite Spectrum customers, Ann and Lucy.  These two have been on the team who became first users of TQAudit at Spectrum, and as guinea pigs, they have been instrumental in troubleshooting and problem-solving during the rollout of the software.  They are absolute hoots and so we spent the next couple of hours talking and laughing with them, and one of their colleagues, Lois.  It was a great time.

And so we come to presentation day, Friday.  Christine is part of a presentation with two Spectrum presenters, Sheila and Joyce, and they are talking about the really interesting process that Spectrum has pioneered in assessing and analyzing the quality of clinician-created healthcare documentation.

The process developed by Spectrum became very labor intensive, so they chose TQAudit as their software tool to help automate the process.  As a result, they can better analyze the quality data they are collecting and identify areas requiring improvement.  This enables them to pinpoint their educational efforts with clinicians in order to improve the quality of their documentation.  Errors in electronic health records is a really hot topic and increasingly, the errors are being produced by clinicians who are entering data directly into the EHR.  The presentation was well-attended and I thought all three of the presenters did an excellent job discussing the process at Spectrum.

There was a lot of interest in the Spectrum process and I think there will be some good leads for TQAudit as a result.  It’s one thing to implement a process, but there needs to be software to enable good data mining and analytics.  So, time will tell if Christine comes away with some prospects.

Later in the afternoon came another momentous occasion for Christine and her Spectrum colleagues.  AHDI presents a series of award each year at this annual conference.  There are awards for several association/profession-related things, one being Innovation Through Technology.  Christine won that award in 2011, which was a real feather in her cap and gave her a great deal of visibility.  This year, the project Christine has been working on with Spectrum Health was nominated for the Innovation Through Technology Award, which was ground-breaking because it focused on the partnership and collaboration between a QA program and its use of technology, specifically TQAudit.  When the winner was announced, there was a resounding cheer from the audience.  I think this was because Christine has made such an impression on the members of AHDI and her cheerleading for healthcare documentation integrity and quality and has made many, many friends in AHDI.  The members of AHDI recognize her work and the effort she puts in to supporting the work of healthcare documentation specialists.  So, it was quite gratifying to her to hear the cheer she got.  While the Spectrum project is very impressive, their collaboration with Christine and her ability to customize the TQAudit software to meet their needs is the real winner of this award.  To say the least, I was very proud of her.

For dinner Friday night we met up with our friends Linda and Karen Fox-Acosta and went to a German restaurant, Mader’s.  This was a really cool restaurant and it seemed like we really were in a German pub and restaurant.  We had a delicious dinner and sampled some really good beer.  It was nice catching up with Karen and Linda and Christine was now able to relax and just hang out now that the stress of the presentation and awards ceremony were behind her.

That picture of Christine in the big chair was taken at Mader’s.  The chair sits in the foyer of the restaurant and it is a hoot seeing people sit in it having their picture taken.

So the end of the first full day of the conference.  Sessions start at 7:15 in the morning and we’re tuckered out.  So it will be lights out very soon.

 

 

 

8-03-2016: Milwaukee Adventure

Hello to all you blog readers!  We’re back to share our next little adventure with you.  We’re in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Neither of us has ever been to any place in Wisconsin, but now we can say we have.  What brings us to Milwaukee is the annual conference of the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI).  Christine is presenting with some colleagues/customer and is also receiving an award.  This association and its annual and regional conferences has been very important to Christine and the work that she does.  I have also been a member for many years and we have met and gained many new friends, colleagues and customers.  The annual conference is held in a different place each year and this has enabled us to travel to some places we’ve never been to, like Milwaukee.  More about the conference in a later post.

We flew to Detroit and then to Milwaukee late yesterday and arrived at the Hyatt Regency.  Even though this was a short trip distance and time wise, it still is tiring to travel, so we were bushed by the time we arrived and pretty much just unpacked and went to sleep.  The conference doesn’t start until Thursday afternoon, so we came a day early and will stay a day after so we can do some touring around Milwaukee.  And, I must say, what we’ve seen so far is very interesting and beautiful.

Sunrise in Milwaukee
Sunrise in Milwaukee

Milwaukee is on the west side of Lake Michigan, almost directly north of Chicago.  It is really, really flat in this lower east part of Wisconsin, being along the lake.  Milwaukee is a city of around 600,000 people and is famous for its beer brewing history.  The founder of the city was Solomon Juneau, a French Canadian explorer and in 1846 Milwaukee was formed by the merger of three neighboring towns.  By then, there were waves of immigrants, primarily German, coming to the area.  By 1900, 34% of Milwaukeeans spoke German.  A large Polish wave of immigrants also settled in Milwaukee.  The area  historically has been home to manufacturing, stockyards, rendering plants, shipping and other heavy industry.  But Milwaukee became synonymous with Germans and beer starting in 1850.  Milwaukee was the number one beer producing city in the world for many years.  The brands Schlitz, Pabst, Blatz and Miller have all been made in Milwaukee, but Miller is the only brewery still producing in Milwaukee.   Beer and brats reign supreme in Milwaukee, but I was interested to read that Milwaukee is home to 6 Fortune 500 companies – Johnson Controls, Northwestern Mutual, Manpower, Rockwell Automation, Harley-Davidson and Joy Global.

Milwaukee has invested a lot in its river and lake fronts.  It is a very inviting tourist area in some sections of the city, primarily East Town and the Third Ward.  Our hotel, the Hyatt, is close to the River Walk and so we set off after a lazy morning to go exploring.

As we headed towards the River Walk, a block away, Christine was interested in the building with the clock tower that we see from our hotel window.

Daylight view from our hotel window
Daylight view from our hotel window

At night, the clock face appears as a big moon in our line of sight.  The large building in the forefront is the Milwaukee Center, an office tower.  The clock tower to the right is City Hall, and it is a beautiful building built in the 1890s and opened in 1895.  I was fascinated to learn that the building was built without using any scaffolding, an amazing feat, I’d say.  As we were looking up admiring the building a woman walked by in kind of uniformy clothing.  She turned to see what we were looking at and made some comments.  We soon learned that she was a volunteer Public Service Ambassador.  These folks are billed as walking concierges and walk around the downtown area with maps and other handouts helping tourists with information and directions.  I was super impressed by this.  She encouraged us to go into City Hall and also told about some other things like like music in the park tonight across the street from the hotel.

We did go in to City Hall and we’re very glad we did.  It is a very interesting building with an open lobby all the way up about 12 floors.  The walkways are around the edge of the opening and the offices and rooms are entered through the walkways.  This City Hall was modeled after architecture in Germany and at the time it opened was the tallest habitable building in the country, with its tower being the second tallest in the country.  The building is now a national historic landmark.  We wandered around looking at photos lining the wall.  One floor showed city council members through the years and we noted the first female council member came in 1960, but there have only been a handful since then.

Across the street from City Hall is another beautiful building, the Pabst Theater.  Built in 1895, it is the fourth-oldest continuously operating theater in the United States.  I had no idea that Milwaukee was such a trailblazing city!

The next block down were two other fantastic buildings, the Mitchell Building and the Mackie Building.  The Mitchell Building was built in 1876 and must have been a knockout mansion in its day.  Andrew Mitchell was a U.S. Congressman.  He was a Scottish immigrant and made his fortune in the railroad business.  He also built the building next door, which housed the Chamber of Commerce for the grain industry.  Really wonderful buildings visually.

We then walked some of the River Walk.  I had my picture taken with the Fonz.  All you Happy Days fans will remember him.

Thumbs up with the Fonz
Thumbs up with the Fonz

The River Walk is along the Milwaukee River.  We toured the section going south.

We’ll explore more of the River Walk going north later.  Hopefully, we’ll have an opportunity to eat at one of the many sidewalk cafes along the River Walk.  We also saw kayak rental places.  I think it would be fun to paddle up and down the river.  We’ll see if we have time for that.

For lunch we walked over to the Milwaukee Public Market. It is advertised as Milwaukee’s most unique downtown food destination and bursting with one-of-a-kind, high quality selections of artisan & ethnic products and freshly-made prepared foods.  Before going, I thought it might be along the lines of Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, which is such an overwhelming place to visit.  The MKE Public Market is a lot smaller and very much less hectic.  We wandered around trying figure out what to have for lunch.  Christine first bought some items to carry her through lunches this week.  We then settled on a pita plate, mine veggie and Christine’s chicken curry.  It was very tasty.  We finished with a strawberry mango smoothie, which really hit the spot.

After the market, we went back to the River Walk and we saw a really cool thing.  I was aware that there were some river cruises going up and down the Milwaukee River, but I had wondered how the boats go under all the relatively low bridges.  I figured some were draw bridges, but these were the first that I have seen like these.  Rather than two halves of the bridge going up at angles, the whole bridge deck is raised so that boats can clear the bridge.  Fascinating to watch!

We walked for a while longer and then turned back towards the hotel.  We haven’t walked at all since Malta, and so our backs and feet were telling us we’ve been too sedentary of late.  Near our hotel we saw a couple of other interesting buildings.

The county courthouse looked kind of weird, like it was unfinished.  And it looks rather imposing down at the end of Kilbourn Avenue.

Now, we’re lazing away the rest of the afternoon.  Christine is trying to nap.  She needs to be rested and ready for her presentation on Friday.

This evening, we met up with several AHDI colleagues.  The lobby was a great greet and meet area as AHDI members shuttled in from the airport.  We eventually went to dinner at the MKE Brat House and had $2.00 Schlitz beer (on tap) and famous German sausages.  Christine had a combination platter that included the local delicacy – fried cheese curd.  Really yummy!  It was a fun dinner with AHDI friends, but by 7:30 we all were ready to crash and back to the hotel we came.

We had a really nice day in Milwaukee, but tomorrow at noon, the conference begins, so we won’t be able to goof off much.