Today was our first full day at the hospital. Vijay sent a car to pick us up from the hotel, a welcome treat and no need to leave extra travel time for negotiating with rickshaw drivers or potential breakdowns! All four of us spent the morning at the Chilakalguda facility. First we met with the COO, who shared with us his background and his vision for LifeSpring. Next we talked to the Business Head responsible for the Chilakalguda facility. There are 4 Business Heads at LifeSpring, each responsible for the management of 3 facilities. The CNMs, who we are shadowing, report to the Business Head.

Around midday our team split into our pairs to begin the shadowing process. Half of our team remained at Chilakalguda, while the other half traveled to Bowenpally.

At Chilakalguda we were introduced to Reyeswari, our gracious host, and the CNM at the facility. It turns out that despite our best efforts we are not particularly good shadows! Everyone at LifeSpring is concerned about our well-being and continually urges us to take a seat or remain seated. In fact, whenever Reyeswari would leave her office to go to another floor she would tell us to stay seated so that we would be comfortable. Sadly, this does not do much in the way of adding to our time motion study. We also found that we tend to stand out relative to the typical customers and employees that can be found at LifeSpring.

Our attempts to be “flies on the wall” were not very successful!
Despite these setbacks, we were able to learn a lot about the CNM’s role. They are truly involved in every aspect of the day to day hospital administration. We accompanied Reyeswari on her midday rounds and got to see newborn twins. They were the tiniest babies we had ever seen! We also learned that the doctor is called “madam” and the nurses are referred to as “sisters”. This certainly took some getting used to on our part.

With all of this newfound knowledge under our belts, we are eager to learn more in our subsequent days of shadowing.