July-September

July-September 2009

Dr Charlie Easmon
Business Blog

People Internal/External:

We have recruited 2 excellent new team members. Welcome Vanessa Hallick and Gemma Cannon! Vanessa heads up our outside vaccines for Primary Care Trusts and Flu vaccines on business sites. Gemma currently is in reception. Both came from the agency May and Stephens and we are really impressed with the candidates. Ms Kristina Evangelou returns on 1st October from extended maternity leave as Practice Manager. The excellent Ms Avril Bunton-Williams stays on with an HR and a Project management role to cover our increasing NHS Primary Care Trust work and other items.

I have done 2 team appraisals in the last month and found the experience very rewarding. It is great to have such a fantastic team.



Operations:

I was amazed a few weeks ago to realise that for Swine flu/H1N1 Yahoo is more up to date than both WHO and the Health Protection Agency! I worked with City HR and Simmons and Simmons on a breakfast seminar for HR managers on the subject and this went well – we do another event on 10th of September.

I have had 2 trips to Africa since the last blog.

One week in Rwanda in July

Dr Jane Hill works with Rwanda Aid and works for free in Rwanda and pays the salary of a doctor Chris from the Congo. Jane was the host for myself and UK nurse Uma Fernandes. She was a great host and we visited 3 clinics. At first, Uma and I did wonder what we could contribute but over time we realised we could help train local medical staff (doctor/nurse) on basic primary care issues.

The Rwanda clinics had very good record keeping and most basic drugs but patients were not examined as often as I thought they should be (the least a medical can do in a resource poor area is look at and examine the patient!). It was also a shame that they do not have access to the latest simple diagnostic tests for HIV and malaria and so many patients are over-treated and no-one every knows what was really wrong with them!

Day 1 Nkombo Island (in the Congo. 16000 inhabitants – very poor!)
Day 2 Bugarama (the most ill people we saw)
Day 3 Banda in the forest


The pathology seen included:
HIV and associated nervous system destruction
Filariasis
Possible Tuberculosis
Probable Trachoma conjunctivitis
Balinitis
Parkinson’s (I donated some money for this guy to get new clothes)
Warts, herpes, Chlamydia (all in the same man!)
Malaria
Dental abscess
Thyroglossal cyst
Burn
Pleurisy of unknown cause


I donated my Optylse for opthalmoscopy and sphygmomanometer.



Rwanda reminded me that as I see it:
Quality in primary care is made up of:
Dignity and respect for patients
Physician listens examines and uses best available laboratory resources
Has essential drug kit
Has optimal equipment
Explains diseases and treatment
Hands out patient information
Gets feedback from peers and from patients
Physician has Continuing Professional Development Programme
Integrates with best of local health and welfare systems
Uses Education, Information and communication in public health

Have a look at the Rwanda video which will soon be uploaded to www.youtube.com/numberonehealth

My next trip to Africa was for the British Council in Botswana and Mozambique. I have not been to Botswana sine Raleigh International in 1994 and then I was 3 months in the gorgeous Okovango Delta (JP and Clive are still great mates from that period). Gabarone is now more famous since Jill Scott acts as the Number One lady detective. Rasina met me at the airport and the man is a star. He had me featured in 2 local papers, interviewed for a third and a slot on Botswana National TV. My subject matter was management and occupational health with the core message that HIV should now be treated as any other chronic illness. The audience of 50 plus were superb and we had some great discussion and I think I made some new friends.
Then off to Mozambique where Liz McManus treated me to a delightful supper in the naval club. The seminar had not been prompted as well here bit the quality audience of only 7 included 4 people from Rio Tinto whom I had done medicals on last time I was in Maputo in September last year!! Definitely need to consider setting up Occupational health services in Maputo.


Strategic: Based on the HR meeting with is now published in the magazine HR Director, I have designed with Phil Dias of Karma Creative a new promotional PDF – based on the idea of Number one as a Health Navigator. In next few weeks we will have a top team meeting to review our Balanced Business Scorecard.

Financial: Favourable result from Inland Revenue with a rebate! Well done Usman and Cartwright’s. Have plugged a key financial gap by getting us work during our quiet periods (October to December) vaccinating school girls for Ealing and Wandsworth Primary Trusts.
Marketing: Have learned can do loads more with Linked In and need to find the time to do this.
Innovation: Our Facebook sites and Twitter are now within the website. We have launched our You Tube channel with its first video. www.youtube.com/numberonehealth. I love the Flip Video device.
Best Business Reads this month: Robert Heller downloads and I finally got around to reading ‘In Search Of Excellence’ (Peters and Waterman) and that has inspired me with a book idea (more later).
Best past business reads:
Jack Welch ‘Straight from the Gut’ and with Suzy Welch on Winning. First, Break all the rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman of Gallup ISBN-13 978-0-684-85286-7
Quote of the month: 'Marketing is an approach to business rather than a specialist discipline. It is no more the exclusive responsibility of the marketing department than profitability is the sole charge of the finance department.'

'There is no such thing as a marketing skill by itself. For a company to be good at marketing, it must be good at everything else from R&D to manufacturing, from quality controls to financial controls.'
Howard Morganis, past chairman of Procter and Gamble
Charity of the month: Rwanda Survivors www.equityforafrica.org and KIVA www.kiva.org but this has no health projects – why?