Lazy play

I needed a de-stressing session playing with Benedict so you get a cat pic. Bit of a win-win ;-) He wasn't a happy boy with fire works last night. I wish they'd ban them from public use.

EQC has approved my plan B accommodation. I'll drive 30-40 mins each way to work or to my home. Given the circumstances the Earthquake Commission has put me into, it's a good outcome. Once I'm there and 'home' each day, it will be an oasis I'm sure.

That means the things they'd approved - packers, movers, storage, and oddly the removal and re-installation of the TV and cantilever arm (I'm not complaining, it's just odd what they did approve!) have been put into motion this afternoon.

Cattery costs are still with me and I'll battle on with those and seek to make EQC accountable at least in some small measure. I'm also trying to get in writing some other aspects that will affect the end of my repair.

It's all over shadowed this week's conference. For the first couple of days I was running around town setting up stuff in different venues, and transporting people who missed their bus.

Yesterday I got to hear speakers from start to finish, and take part in a work group. It was excellent. I was reminded of why I choose to work where I do, of the big picture of changing health systems so people are at the centre . The day to day niggles, and trial of working in a partial building site fell away.

On Wednesday morning I got to visit the ops centre of Christchurch Public Hospital. They're using data in an amazing way. It's real time and feeds directly to clinicians so they can see what is wrong and what is right. Things like admission times, how many beds are available etc. It was fantastic. It's not a stick but a tool to help identify where things aren't working so they can fixed and work better.

I also got to see a little of a place called the Design Lab. Among the things they do here is figure out the design of the bed configurations in the new hospital being build beside the old one. It's innovative and fantastic. The experiences of real patients feed into it. Real hospital beds and some equipment found in hospital rooms is used to model, complete with full size pretend windows looking out to the river and botanic gardens. It looks fantastic and unlike anything I've seen in any public or private hospital.

Work is a positive part of my life and the week that's been, and that is not to be missed.

Now it's time to remove myself from screens and take some time to relax and de-stress. I'm very tired and hopefully after a good night's sleep I'll be ready to exercise, then methodically tackle the very long list of stuff I need to do.

It isn't perfect and I feel very bruised, but at least some things look better today.