How Work Life Balance Affects Us All
Mary grabbed Tom’s hand and squeezed tightly as Tom drove them frantically to the hospital’s emergency department. Mary was feeling her heart race in her chest, and her head was spinning. Something was off with her, and she intuitively felt it since her recent gallbladder surgery.
Thoughts were flying through Mary’s head, and she was reflecting on her care during her recent overnight stay at the hospital. She had been a bit confused about the medication prescribed and the aftercare. Mary had been admitted and rushed to the operating room so fast everything was a blur. She didn’t have time to process the post-surgery instructions completely but was assured she was well enough to be discharged and go home. Thoughts raced through Mary’s mind; she kept wondering if she had taken the medication incorrectly or perhaps forgot some part of her aftercare instructions. As Tom pulled up to the hospital’s emergency department doors, Mary felt weaker; her head was spinning, and her legs felt numb.Tom rushed around to help her out of the car, and Mary collapsed at the door.
The medical staff ran out and quickly put Mary on a stretcher, rushing her in as Tom quickly followed. Tom was confused about what was happening; a week ago, Mary was fine, then an emergency gallbladder operation and since had felt off.
After Mary’s surgery, the hospital staff discharged her with some instructions for an antibiotic and some physical limitations. Tom and Mary were reassured that Mary would heal fine and be back to normal within a few weeks.
Now, Tom could not imagine what could have gone wrong; Mary had been feeling off for the past couple of days, not feeling well, and had developed chills and a low fever. Her symptoms worsened, and her fever spiked, and the hospital medical staff advised her to go to the local emergency department. As Tom waited for what seemed like hours, a doctor finally returned and told him Mary would be okay, but unfortunately, she had an allergic reaction to the medication prescribed.
Tom was horrified; it should have been in all of Mary’s records that she had specific allergies to a few antibiotics. How could this have happened? How could they have missed this? So many questions were going through Tom’s head, and at the same time, he was grateful that Mary would recover.
It is all too common that when we have heavy workloads, we naturally feel the need to rush through to get everything done. When we are in a position of serving other people in some capacity, rushing can incur more cost as attention to detail may get lost. We may miss some essential information that could result in more time spent fixing something or a situation, or worst-case scenario, compromise the physical or emotional well being of the person to whom we are providing a service. The story above is an an example and demonstrates a valuable lesson for everyone. I am using the medical field because it is one of the most stressed out, taxed and comprised system currently.
Although the scenario in the story is focused in the medical field it applies to many other professions. Rushing and trying to do too much at once can have serious implications. In the story above, the medication prescribed caused an allergic reaction, and, for some reason, the allergy to the medication had been missed by the medical staff. Doctors, nurses, and clinicians are pushed to be more productive and see more patients. The way medicine is delivered has changed significantly, and the demands of the technological world weigh heavily with time constraints. The whole system has become very complicated.
Things like being present, listening, making eye contact, checking for a clear understanding with the person we are in service to or working with goes a long way to achieve better outcomes in any situation. When we are so busy that it is impossible to retain or pay attention to details or so stressed our focus is spread thin not only is the bottom line effected, more importantly, an error can cause compromise safety. Some mistakes result in costly litigation. Taking a few extra minutes to slow down could have prevented harm to Mary in the scenario above and avoided a potential lawsuit. Take a look at these statistics around litigation.
In the time it takes you to read this sentence, roughly US$7,000 was spent on medical malpractice in the United States alone. Let that settle in for a moment. That number is based on a Health Affairs study that estimated annual medical malpractice related costs to reach approximately US$55.6 billion, or 2.4% of total healthcare spending. That startling number does not include all defensive medicine costs like prescribing unwarranted tests and treatments to avoid lawsuits. Money spent exclusively on medical malpractice lawsuit payouts topped a staggering US$3 billion in 2012, according to Forbes.
Addressing the organizational factors that contribute to taxed workloads and excessive stress becomes more than just a question of the bottom line.
The medical field is not the only business suffering from unrealistic work load and job responsibilities. The corporate world is also affected in a big way; any business that involves people and relationships is greatly affected when we have feel overwhelmed with too many tasks.
Another aspect of being over loaded in the workplace is that it impacts all of our relationships. They become strained and reactive causing all kinds of problems that extend into a person’s private life.
As our life has evolved along with the evolution of technology and information at our fingertips human beings are being pushed to their limits to keep up. It is not our fault, but we have to remember that we are human. We must remember that this is not the way we are naturally wired, we are not computers, we are not meant to process and focus at lightening speed with a million different things going on.
Until we all join together and take a stand, create a movement for our self preservation and the preservation of the human connection we will continue to feel stretched, exhausted, compromised. Attention to detail, focus and reasoning will continue to decline. I am all about creating solutions and healthy work boundaries and balance. Joining together to help one another and develop systems to create an atmosphere of well being and functionality in a realistic way within our human capacity.
