(Guest post by Miss Emily Litella)
So what’s all this about peanut butter and jelly? Emily Mongan wrote the other day that, “Providers could face Five-Star sanctions for late PBJ data.”
Why are they keeping track of our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? I appreciate their concern that we residents might have our lunches served late, but what about the tuna fish sandwiches? And the chicken? Doesn’t it matter if those are served late as well?
Speaking of late, what about the times when the call bell is rung and the aides don’t show up for 45 minutes and then say they were working short? Is the “call bell delay due to working short” on the five-star rating system too?
And regarding shorts, I lost mine in the laundry the other day and they haven’t been able to trace them. I spent a lot of money on those shorts and believe me, clothes in my size aren’t easy to come by. Usually they come in teeny-tiny-itty-bitty little sizes. I had to have my daughter-in-law go to Kmart and Walmart before we finally found them on Amazon.
I have good news about the Amazon, by the way. A friend of mine is working to plant trees in the Amazon, doing her part to give back to the world.
Now that I mention backs, I should tell you that mine is hurting. I went down to rehab to ask them to give me a hot pack, or a cold pack, I forget which it is that they’re recommending these days, but anyway, a nice young man whose name I can’t pronounce or recall, gave me one of them and it felt so much better. But now it’s aching again.
Speaking of aches, my stomach has one. I think it’s because I’m hungry. I might order a PBJ but I can’t decide between chunky or smooth and grape or strawberry. I once had fig preserves with walnuts, it was delicious, but it came from some fancy store and I’m pretty sure it’s not stocked down in the kitchen. If I ordered that, you can be sure my PBJ would arrive late and then the whole place would lose a star for sure and it would all be my fault.
Excuse me, what? PBJ doesn’t have anything to do with sandwiches? Then what does it stand for? Payroll-Based Journal? What the heck is that? A system developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to submit staffing and census information? Oh. Well, that’s very different.
Never mind.
(Click here for background about today’s author.)
Eleanor Feldman Barbera, PhD, author of The Savvy Resident’s Guide, is a 2014 Award of Excellence winner in the Blog Content category of the APEX Awards for Publication Excellence program. She also is the Gold Medalist in the Blog-How To/Tips/Service category of the 2014 American Society of Business Publication Editors Midwest Regional competition. A speaker and consultant with nearly 20 years of experience as a psychologist in long-term care, she maintains her own award-winning website at MyBetterNursingHome.com.
