1. Introductions

Everyone introduced themselves and said hello to Rich’s mom, who was visiting from Alabama.

2. Certificates from Dinner

Rich distributed certificates of appreciation to Liaisons who had missed the dinner in April, and Jinny talked how nice the dinner had been. Liaisons who missed both the dinner and the meeting can pick up their certificates in the ANII office.

3. Years of Service Pins

Rich said that George is looking into having pins made for Liaisons who have reached milestones (i.e., 1 year, 5 years) in the department.

4. Smocks

Bryna had reported to Rich that the smocks should be ready in two weeks. If anyone doesn’t have a smock or needs to get a different size, they are stored in the box atop the magazine storage cabinet.

5. Liaison Website and Listserv

Everyone had kudos for Sandy Kwon for the job she is doing on shift scheduling and maintaining the new website at http://emc.mednet.ucla.edu/pl/. Any information regarding the site or the listserv mail reflector should be directed to Sandy.

6. Social Workers in the EMC

Evening Social Worker Doug Worker talked about his job in the EMC and how it relates to what the Liaisons do. He said he is usually called in for worst-case scenarios, such as when traumas arrive, and he is on-call for other departments in the medical center besides the EMC (there are more than 30 social workers in the medical center, assigned to different departments). John Lippsett is the daytime Social Worker for the EMC. The social workers are available to authorize bus passes for homeless people and make phone calls for trauma patients to notify families. He said he felt comfortable asking the Liaison on duty for assistance on tasks that were within their scope of practice. Some Liaisons noted that some nurses refer them to the social worker for questions that they should actually address themselves, such as whether the patient needs a psych evaluation.

7. New ANIII (Bagher Habibi)

Bagher attended the Liaison dinner in April and has been an ANII in the department for some time. He will be doing many of the types of administrative things that Janice Boron was doing previously. He said at the dinner that he would vary his schedule so that he could meet both day and night staff and volunteers.

8. Medical Center Open House

The next Open House will be Saturday, June 1^st, at 300 Med Plaza. Anyone who is interested in helping should contact Torill. Rich said that we have gotten several volunteers for the department through the Open Houses, so they are a worthwhile use of an afternoon.

9. Positive Experiences

· Joan helped a French visitor and helped him make a call to France without charging it to the department; she also helped one of the attending physicians who was in the department as a patient.

· Beth relieved a patient’s anxiety after midnight by helping them with a phone call

· Cathy chatted with a patient in Spanish

· Rich said the translation cheat sheet had come in handy on Tim’s O3

· Michael said a friend of his who had been to both UCLA and Cedars said that Cedars’ staff and volunteers were not as friendly as ours

10. Misc.

· Liaison phone: Jinny said she nearly lost the phone one day and she discovered that the department has already had two stolen in the short time they’ve been in service. Please remember to hover close enough to the patient so they know you’re waiting on them and not leave the phone unattended. You can do this by just standing at the door to the room, which still gives the patient some privacy.

· Shuttle to Med Plaza: The shuttle to Med Plaza picks up people in the MC parking lot, not in the EMC garage.

· Tiverton House is closed: Due to a water problem, families are being redirected to Hilgard House temporarily. Vita said the information desk has a list of inexpensive local hotels; she will make a copy of copies and put them with the manila folders at the Security/Liaison Desk.

· Nurse Walkouts on May 29^th? Michael asked if the department was expecting problems with the contract negotiations that have stalled on UC nurses. No staff was available to respond.

· Who do we report to regarding trainees who shadow? Rich said to e-mail your evaluation to him, George, and Sandy to keep everyone in the loop. Rich is still in charge of training new Liaisons.

· Who gets food trays? There is still a problem with clerks and even ETTs asking Liaisons to leave the department to go to Dietary. Rich said the appropriate response is to say “We’re only supposed to leave the department when the ANII asks us to—we usually only leave when there are no regular volunteers or ETTs available.” Rich will e-mail the ANIIs to remind them about the problem but asked the Liaisons not to exacerbate staff’s confusion by readily offering to run errands.

· Change in Nurse and ETT uniforms? Rich wasn’t sure if ETTs were now allowed to wear printed tops or not, but would check with George and Bagher.

· No notice in binder regarding meeting: Rich apologized for not putting a reminder in the binder since he had been gone to past two weeks.

· Pictures on website not current: Rich said Sandy is probably updating things as she has time, but that he had sent her current files and pictures for everyone except the most recent graduates.

· Is Alicia Kalvin still a Liaison? Rich wasn’t sure—she’s still on the schedule. He will follow-up with Alicia and remind Sandy to remove people from the schedule when they quit.

· Suggestions for next meeting? Michael suggested having one of the attending physicians speak at the next meeting.

Next Meeting: Thursday, July 18^th at 6:00 pm.