I have no excuses....

A week or so ago I was requested to do some training during an online training session that we were conducting for some people at our hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland. The trainee's dial on a conference call number and log on to a centra session website so that they can view what we are doing on our laptops at the corporate office. Our objectives were to train on some of the features of the old version of our decision support system as well as some of the functionality of the new version.

Earlier that week I had done some training on the grouping function of our old system at our South Bend hospital but had been asked to only do a demo of the grouping function in the new version today. This is probably more detail than needed but grouping allows the user to roll the detail data up into groupings of data such as service lines (cardiology, orthopedics...etc.) or other types of groupings and report on the data.

Apparently I was the only one in our group who has touched the grouping in the old version of the system and was asked to demo it in an impromptu fashion. I was hesitant but agreed. Rather than connect my laptop up to the centra session that the trainees in Maryland were dialed in to, I just used the laptop already connected and logged in with my logon and password.

Shortly after I started demo-ing the tool I heard a very loud beep. At first I just ignored it and continued on. Not long after I heard another beep. I looked across the table at Elizabeth because it was her laptop I was using. With raised eyebrows, she shrugged her shoulders so I just continued with what I was doing. A few more minutes passed and I heard the beep again. I asked Elizabeth if the AC plug in the back of the laptop had gotten disconnected as it I thought the laptop was beeping like it was running out of power. The odd thing was that I wasn't getting a message on the screen that the battery was running out. Elizabeth said it was plugged in so I just continued on with the demo.

"Beep" There it was again. I said that I was fearful that were going to loose our connection and the presentation because it appeared the laptop was loosing power. Elizabeth popped up out of her chair and came to my side of the table. She couldn't see anything wrong either. We cautioned the people signed in on centra that we might loose connection and to bear with us. As I continued the demo, Elizabeth was crawling around the floor underneat the table pushing on all the plugs and connections ensuring that everthing was connected. The beeping continued to happen and even seemed to become more frequent as she was doing this. I was becoming increasingly fearful that we would loose our connection. I felt like I was talking faster and faster to get through the materials. Elizabeth surfaced from underneath the table and said everything was connected.

Finally the demo/training was complete and the laptop kept power despite the the continuing beeping sound that we kept hearing. After everyone had disconnected I logged off the laptop. As I was moving toward the end of the long confernce room table where my laptop was I heard the beep sound again, and it seemed to be following me. Elizabeth looked at me because she too could sense that the sound had moved. I put my hands on my hips as I was baffled, but then I knew what it was.

Clipped on to my belt was my cell phone. Sheepishly I pulled the phone off my belt and opened it up. There it was, screaming at me from the display, in bright lumenescent letters.....LOW BATTERY!

Probably the saddest thing about this whole thing is that is the second time in a meeting that this has happened to me. I have no excuse.