5 Healthcare Kernels of Corn this #GratitudeWeek

This week, many of us in the United States are looking forward to Thanksgiving. It’s a time to overindulge in classic family recipes for sure! But more important, it is a time to pause and take inventory of the blessings in our lives and give thanks. (This can absolutely be done while eating roasted turkey and mashed potatoes and pecan pie and drinking good wine.)

A few years ago, I learned about the Five Kernels of Corn story, and a thoughtful idea to use that story during the Thanksgiving meal. To sum it up, you set the table with the usual mouthwatering dishes, but you place five kernels of corn on each plate as a reminder of the time during the settling of the country when a daily food ration was simply five kernels of corn. Before you dive into sweet potatoes crisped with baked marshmallows on top, you go around the table and everyone shares five things for which they are thankful. Whenever I have taken the time to do this, it has enhanced our meal and tightened our bond as a family. It is good to give thanks, and it is good to tell the people in your life what you value. Especially when your blessings include the people sitting around the table.

In business, it is also good to give thanks. I work in the healthcare industry for Dell Services. And those of us in the healthcare industry have so much to be thankful for. We live in a time when technology is changing the when, where, why and how people receive care. At Dell, we are honored to work with some of the most innovative and thoughtful companies in healthcare, and those customers inspire me every day to think about what’s possible, and how changes in healthcare truly can change the world.

That feeling of thankfulness and inspiration compelled me to thank them.

And I invite you to join me. Throughout this week on the @DellHealth Twitter handle, we are going to say thanks to our customers. We will highlight their projects and tell their stories. You can read about how:

  • The American Red Cross is using the power of social media to intervene in times of disaster, or
  • NaturalPad creating affordable gaming software for physiotherapists to use in rehabilitation, or
  • TGen reducing genetic sequencing time from two weeks to just eight hours, improving outcomes for patients battling aggressive cancers, or
  • The University of Iowa Hospitals reducing *** site infections by 58 percent, using the power of analytics.

Or about the many other healthcare companies that have enhanced their processing power, secured patient data, built powerful analytics tools, met compliance deadlines, took to the cloud, implemented EHRs, embraced innovation, and a myriad of other projects with one single focus in mind—to provide better care and affect clinical outcomes.

Merriam-Webster defines gratitude as “a feeling of appreciation or thanks.” I couldn’t think of a better word to rally behind, because we at Dell are absolutely grateful for our healthcare customers. We will share more than 90 stories this week on our healthcare handle and we invite you to join the conversation! Share what you are thankful for in healthcare: innovative projects, caring companies, industry leaders, etc. Please be sure to use the hashtag #gratitudeweek so we can follow the conversation. I won’t force you to list five before I let you eat, but it might be a good goal to shoot for.

What are your 5 healthcare kernels of corn?

About the Author: Vickie Frieling