I am so excited to be blogging from the HeartMath Best Practices Conference

Written by Todd Linden, president and CEO of Grinnell Regional Medical Center Wednesday, 18 May 2011 13:43

News - Best Practices Conference

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This is Todd Linden, president and CEO of Grinnell Regional Medical Center blogging from the first ever, HeartMath Best Practices Conference: Creating Coherent Caring Environments. Due to a scheduling challenge, I actually flew in from JFK on a 6:00 AM flight this morning, arriving at the beautiful Seascape Beach Resort in Santa Cruz, California.  I have to admit I am a little travel weary at his point, but was able to get in on the last two presentations for the morning.

It is clear the conference is off to a great start with the folks from Fairfield Medical Center and Scottsdale Healthcare following welcoming comments from HeartMath CEO Bruce Cryer.

Interestingly enough me and my team went through training at the HeartMath Institute with the Chief Nursing Officer Cynthia Pearsall from Fairfield Medical Center several years ago. It was really fun to see her again and hear about their journey at Fairfield with HeartMath. Their presentation was all about integrating HeartMath into a hospital culture and it was very inspirational to hear all the lives that are being touched by the gift of HeartMath.

The Fairfield team followed up their presentation with a wonderful video featuring seven staffers sharing their personal stories with HeartMath. One woman shared how it helps her and her husband deal with the hectic life of parents of six; another shared how HeartMath changed her life after a horrible traffic accident was a teenager created lifelong anxiety whenever driving and now she is not paralyzed with fear; Cynthia shared how she uses Heart Lock-ins to solve difficult problems during meetings; yet another women told the touching story of how HeartMath transformed a very stressful bath time routine with her son into a loving and special bonding time; someone shared how HeartMath got her though the difficult time dealing with several family member's significant illnesses; and the video ended with the CEO and executive assistant sharing about the transformed executive suite after HeartMath came into their lives. We will have to talk them into putting their view on U-tube...it was awesome!

Mariralena Murphy and Linda Larkey from Scottsdale Healthcare gave a presentation about how research in nursing practice at their institution is helping to expand HeartMath usage among the care team. One project focused in the surgical services department.  Early indications of the project indicate there is likely a correlation between the practice of HeartMath and the reduction of Adverse Events.  More research is necessary to find correlations with HeartMath and patient satisfaction, turnover and employee satisfaction.  The second half of their presentation focused on how HeartMath coherence correlates with the meditative movement practice with breast cancer survivors.  Watch for a journal article out soon indicating the very positive impact of both HeartMath and Qigong have on patients with persistent fatigue after treatment.

Lunch time and then an afternoon full of more stimulating presentations from the Mayo folks...