President John Griffith called the meeting to order promptly at 12:21, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.

Deb Theriault and Miamie Sleep were our greeters today and Miamie introduced the members who brought guests:

Miamie Sleep, told us that Chastidy Greenwood’s 9-year-old nephew was diagnosed with Leukemia last week.

President John Griffith told us that Mike Lougee’s son was racing in the State track meet and broke the State record while Mike was being a dedicated Rotarian and running a committee meeting.

Larry King announced that they have a new Grandson.

Mike Lougee nominated everyone who was at the committee meeting last Thursday, John Griffith, Lori Klatt, Nicole Tholson, Deb Theriault, Bill DeGraeve, and Kyle Gamroth. It was a 2.5-hour meeting with great things accomplished.

President John Griffith nominated Mike Lougee for leading that meeting.

Dave True reminded us that registration for District Conference in Greeley at the end of May is open, it will be a great conference and the club pays for registration and hotel if you want to attend. The club will pay for two nights of hotel and they have about 25 rooms reserved, please call Wendi in Dave’s office at 266-0254. The fees for the meeting go up at the end of this month so get registered if you think you may attend.

Dick Jay needs a volunteer for a nominating committee and needs to know if anyone is interested in being on the board for the upcoming year.

Richard Schwahn announced that they need volunteers for the outbound exchange orientation. On the table is a sign-up sheet if you are able to help with the orientation.

President John Griffith announced that March 28^th is the Spring assembly here at the Ramkota Please attend if you are able. Also, he noted that the Scholarship applications for Graduating Seniors are due by the end of the month so if you know of a senior that needs scholarships encourage them to apply. He also noted that we have two very active committees right now that could use more people, so if you are interested in being on one of the committees, the membership experience committee, or the upcoming large project committee. Please reach out to John if you are interested.

Barry Johnson reminded us of the Reveille club bingo night on Fat Tuesday February 25^th at the Senior Club, the tickets are $20 and it will be a fun family night. Please help support that club as they are a small club.

Dave True let us know that next Tuesday through Thursday we may have an opportunity from 9 to 10 am to learn more about the candidates for UW President.

Holiday today so no SOM

Luke Gilliam, sponsored by President John Griffith, was inducted into the club today, Welcome to the club, we look forward to getting to know you.

President Elect Lisa Scroggins, introduced our speaker today, our very own Carley Applegate. Carley spoke to us about the Caregiver Boot Camp which was designed to help those who are or will be a caregiver for a family member. Carley started by thanking Kendra Ziler for asking her to present at the Women’s Expo this past summer which helped them to launch this program, she also thanked Tim Monroe who has done a lot of the printing for the program which has helped immensely. She then asked us all to stand, then she had everyone who was born in an odd year to sit down, she said those people would require caregiving for greater than 90 days sometime in our life. She then had those who were born on an odd month to sit, they would require caregiving for 90 days or less, those born on an odd day, due to their caregiving needs they have displaced a Spouse or child or grandchild out of work for greater than 90 days. Se then had everyone but the left-over women sit down, these would have to leave the workforce for greater than 90 days and upon returning would see a 25% decrease in their previous wages. This demonstrated how caregiving effects everyone in some way.  Everyone thinks that it will not happen to them, but statistics show that it will. Her organization compiled all of their data to focus on what could be done to help the care giver burden in Natrona County. In the State of Wyoming we have over 12,000 lay caregivers. So they developed the Care Giver Boot Camp to help these people learn about the resources they have and how to use them. They put together the data on those who had to return to hospitals while being cared for by family members and why the had to return so that they could see the types of things that these caregivers need help with. They saw patterns in four distinct areas that were causing the issues, 1. Changes in vitals, 2. Medication mismanagement, 3. Falls consistent with inappropriate or unsafe transfers, and 4. Caregiver Burnout.

One of the huge obstacles are the knowledge of and how to use the resources that are available, due to not having a central point for access to this information. Sheridan County has a great model and Natrona County is working on modeling this but it will take probably five years to get there. There is also confusion among the medical profession about these resources which delays intervention and assistance. There is also the assumption that the family members already know what they need to be doing. This assumption is a huge deficit in the medical field.

The diagnosis is the starting point for people to start getting help, that is the opportunity to get them the help that they will need, rather than waiting until they are at burnout. The healthcare profession is failing to remember to include the family member caregiver in all of the healthcare decisions. When the caregivers are properly trained, they become more confident and the level of care is much improved. If they start with the basics then they can build on that to help the caregivers. They need to give them the first basic information so that they have perspective.

They developed a 5-week Bootcamp with each week focusing on a different module. They are right now in their 3^rd session for this round. They start with the first week training on vitals. How to take the vitals and how to determine the baseline for the patient and how to watch the changes and how important those baselines are to communicate to the doctors.

The second week is medication management, most of these patients are on multiple medications and this is one of the leading reasons that people end up back in the hospital. Medications are way more complicated as are the places and times you have to order. You need to know how to track and maintain the medication list and how to talk to the Pharmacist about the medications, they are highly trained professionals who have a lot of knowledge that you need to learn.

The third week is about safe transfers of the patient, how to properly move them in and out of chairs and vehicles and beds etc. to prevent injury to them as well as to yourself. Also, they train on good exercise routines which are important for the soul and mind as well as the body.

Week four they go over all of the different paperwork that has to be done, such as the DNR, which is only binding in the institution where it is written. They cover all of the different paperwork and what it means and what you need to know about it.

Week five is all about Caregiver burnout, which is Carley’s favorite week and she teaches this week. She said there are three types of burnout, 1. Caregiver burnout, 2. Caregiver failure, and 3. Global burnout.  Caregiver burnout is that momentary lapse in judgement, can last a minute or two or a short time which you are able to reset from and get back into the swing of things. Caregiver failure is when the caregiver becomes sick or injured or becomes emotionally or spiritually exhausted and just can’t do it anymore, this one lasts for an extended period of time. Global burnout happens a lot in the healthcare industry where healthcare givers have the complete inability to empathize or perform any of the tasks of caregiving anymore at all. Caregiving can be very traumatic. This week they go over how to prevent burnout and they do a burnout quiz and if they have someone who scores very low on this quiz, they do not let them leave until they help them put resources in place to keep them from burning out.

The bootcamp is done once a quarter for 5 weeks, currently they are doing it on Thursday evenings at 5:30 at Summit Medical Center and there is no charge for this class. It is a training that everyone needs to attend and it is best to do before you actually need this training.

 

President John Griffith concluded the meeting at 1:13, PE Lisa Scroggins let us know that next week, we will be back at the Ramkota. Our program will be Miamie Sleep and Chastidy Greenwood speaking about Mimi’s house and the teenage homelessness in Casper.

 

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