Nick Jacobs, FACHE

As some of you may have noticed, last year was a tough year for education, travel, and some forms of consulting. It was “the economy, stupid.” A number of our major public speaking engagements were canceled or postponed, because hospitals stopped sending employees to educational conferences. In fact, at one of the leadership conferences where we spoke last year, there were only 90 people in attendance. The previous year, there had been nearly 500.

Well, thank goodness, things have picked up a bit, and we will be speaking a few more times over the next several months. The following is an up-to-date list of locations, dates, and topics currently scheduled:

1. Lake Erie Regional Cooperative/Amerinet Conference, Toledo, OH, May 7th, 2010
   “Redesigning the Patient Experience”
2. Risk Management and Patient Safety Institute, Lansing, Michigan, August 27, 2010
   “Blogging and Transparency -Increasing Patient Satisfaction through Web 2.0″
3. Planetree Conference, Denver, Colorado, October 8th, 2010
   “Navigating the challenges faced while transitioning to the Planetree model of care”
4. Central Peninsula Hospital, Soldotna Alaska, October 14, 15th
   “Planetree”
5. Waverly Health Center, Waverly, Iowa, October 20-22,
   Topic: To be announced

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As it turned out, the young pilot on this commuter jet forgot to turn on the auxiliary power and when the ground crew unplugged the plane, everything went down; all of the computers and the air conditioning. In fact, the entire plane was roasting, and it took the ground crew over an hour to restore the power. Seven people got off of the plane because they missed their connecting flights to places like Germany and Kuwait; one poor guy was AWOL

We took off in plenty of time to make my flight to Pittsburgh, but when we landed in Dulles we had to sit at the gate for another 20 minutes for the absent ground crew. Then we waited twenty more minutes for the bus/room that takes you to the correct part of the terminal for the next flight. Of course, I missed my flight by about 30 minutes, walked about two more miles, stood in lines for another hour, finally got a ticket for the first flight out this morning. Then had to stand in another line to get a hotel room. Walked for another three or four miles through Dulles, got lost, stood in the rain for about 20 minutes, got to the Holiday Inn compliments of the airline, was placed in a handicapped, smoking room . . . (they must have recognized me), and slept for about three hours. I guess that makes me a real road warrior!

I’m back at the gate waiting for my flight and today’s excitement.

(Could this be a possible air travel alternative in our future?)

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