Bill's Story

Our favorite story of success with one page profiles occurred with Bill.  Bill receives Supported Living services from NorthStar.  He unfortunately sometimes expresses himself in ways that causes serious injuries to himself. So much so that he has had to be hospitalized to treat the injuries. His specific methods of communicating make it difficult for people that are not very familiar with him to understand his wants and needs.

During one of his hospitalizations for these serious injuries this was especially obvious. Hospital personnel were scared of him, so much so that they did not try communicating with him for several hours. They only talked to his support team, and not in ways that were productive. They were suggesting putting a "tent" over his bed so that he could not get out and would not injure others. We obviously felt that was not a healing environment and would only prompt him to do more damage to himself or others, so we decided to bring his one page profile in to the hospital. The reaction of nursing personnel at the hospital was incredible! They loved it! It made him a person that they now felt they could have some conversation with. They made copies of it and put one on his door, a few in his room where it could be viewed by the sink, bathroom, bed and window. They put one at the nurses station and one in his chart.

The plan tells of his love of superhero cartoons. This prompted them to get a TV and DVD player that he could watch his movies on, so we sent staff to get his movies. What a difference that made! It told of his love of cheeseburgers. Nurses started bringing him cheeseburgers when they started their shifts. This obviously endeared them to him and made his treatment easier. It talks about some ways to effectively communicate with him, what some of his words and actions mean. And it explained the need to have his staff that knows him close. This prompted them to work with us in keeping his staff present at all times, and supporting our team to do much of his day to day care. His stay could have been detrimental to himself and those trying to treat him, but instead the one page profile opened the lines of communication for all, and changed the course of his hospital stay.

And, the nursing staff loved it so much that they kept a copy at the nurses station, so the next time he was admitted they knew exactly what to do to make the stay easier on all. One of the nurses that had treated him during his first stay saw his chart, and even though he was not on her rounds, she brought him a cheeseburger and came in to say hi.