Cc:
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:20:13 -0400
Subject: Now for a Movie!
VNA EMPLOYEES!
A movie!
OH, and a book too for bonus!
Hello to each of you on this glorious Monday morning, March 26th, 2012. This week commences the last week of my "de-Tour" of duty here at the VNA and I know you remember I started you out with the five songs that motivated me to raise my hand for this post. Well, now my farewell to your VNA will include a movie recommendation.
BUT, I think we have a few things to talk about between here and there! First, I want to express to you my gratitude for howyou have embraced me from the moment of my arrival, to the imposition of my one-on-one meetings and demanding your time, to the variety of visits and introductions and detailed requests I might have had of you, and certainly to the nurses that welcomed me on visits with our patients.
For anyone that did "call me" in the Diana Ross fashion, I am hopeful I was attentive and listened and transcribed what I heard into action on the part of the VNA to help you in your daily work. I also hope that if I missed you, and you tried to call me, know that it is my error and oversight and ultimately my loss for not having had the time with you. How do I know that? Well, the time I did have with so many of you was unique, special, inspiring and all driven toward renewing the VNA as an organization that is connected, informed, and committed.
How'd we do? I think we did well, but you and I also know we have a long way to go in this competitive, challenging time for both the VNA and the world of healthcare. We have to do more with less, and that trend has already been in place too long. We need to have better partnerships with our managed care partners, with all of our partners, and we need every person on this team to do his task, as efficiently as possible, so the whole cycle works even more seamlessly, despite the challenges of doing so.
WE need to EMBRACE change, not fight it, starting with the software that drives our business, because refinement andinnovative approaches will be required next year too, and they will be up to YOU! While embracing change, management has to be committed to providing the proper training and resources one should expect of your leaders. That is something we will recommit to.
Wow, so much to do, I can't imagine all the fun you are going to have. Speaking of wow, all that fun will start and end with our nurses, therapists, home health aides and all other walks of the VNA that touch and WOW a patient and their loved ones. WOW! That is how you and I want our patients to feel about our presence in their homes, our service to their care, and the feeling of warmth that exudes from us while representing and serving the VNA. We need OSCARS to be embraced internally,and we need WOW experiences for our patients in every encounter externally or on the phone. WOW!
Well, enough about you and all you’re going to do, what about me?
A movie!
Ladies and Gentleman, nurses and caregivers! Well, it's just a movie, but I thought it appropriate at the end of this journey for me that I recommend a movie to you. It's about a journey, a walk, a path, a Camino, my Camino, the Camino de Santiago, andthe name of the movie is "The Way". It's a simple movie talking about a simple walk in a very complex world. I started out on the walk just the way the movie does, in St. Jean de Pierre de Port, France. As in life, things just happen on the Camino. No explanations, no answers, some sad, some happy, all experiences. Like this one I have just had with the VNA. It has been an amazing experience, and I am enriched, in the depth of my heart, for it. Who would ever trade that? for anything? I wouldn't!
A Book!
Along the way of the Camino I came to know of a book, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey", by Thornton Wilder. It won the Pulitzer in 1927, and it's shorter than my average email, so it’s also a pretty easy read. So, I read it. I've never forgotten it, just like I'll never forget the Camino. Just like I won't forget each of you.
The theme, or question, of the book, according to the author: "is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual's own will".
The story is of a missionary priest, Brother Juniper, trying to "prove to his converts that our destinies are controlled by God and"everything"-- even the apparently random accidental collapse of a bridge, has a divine purpose. And of the five people on that bridge that day who lost their lives when it collapsed, the last line of the book goes on to say;
"But soon we shall die and all the memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while andforgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love"
And the last line of the book reads:
"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."
My departing wish for each of you, as I allow new leadership the privilege I have had of leading the dedicated employees of the VNA, is:
May you love and be loved, in your work, in your walk, on your camino, in your life. Fill it with love. Let that be your cornerstone.
I pray it is mine, and I pray you have felt my sharing it with you. I have.
Thank you-
TT
Tom Thees
Interim President & CEO
VNA Health Group
176 Riverside Avenue
Red Bank, NJ 07701
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