The key to a great day is
to get your filing done immediately. Don’t think, “Oh, I have eight hours to
go. I’ll file later.” Later might not come. The thing about hospitals is that
the situation can change at any time. There could be a pile-up on the highway,
a disease outbreak, or God forbid, a terrorist attack.
Example: At the hospital where I work, filing is not a big deal because
our hospital is going paperless. So that means that the lab results and imaging
results are on the computer.
Sometimes
there will be situations when something tragic will happen, and our job is to
be prepared. Whether it is a tornado that pops up in the Midwest or a train
that derails in your town, you need to be ready.
Your hospital will have a code for
situations like this, and if you are there when it is called, this is the time
when you jump into action.
After first making sure that you will not be needed somewhere
else in the hospital, the next thing you need to do is make sure that the
printers are filled with paper because there may be a ton of discharges for the
patients who are “well enough” to go home so that the hospital can use those
rooms for the injured patients.
Next, go
get empty charts that are lying around in case you need them because you never
know if the “single room” will soon become a “double room” (so instead of 20
patients on your unit, you now have 40).
Next, make
sure that there are plenty of physician order sheets and progress notes for the
doctors to use. They may not have time to log into the computer and may need to
write the orders on a physician order sheet.
Next, be
prepared to stay longer than expected. Your shift may not end at the scheduled
time. Your replacement may not be able to get there in time, or leaving may not
be an option.
You will probably be
required to do things outside of being a medical secretary, such as helping the
discharged patients gather their belongings and wheeling them down to the main
entrance. You may be required to go to another floor and help them out.
Hey, you may even be required to run down to the cafeteria. And grab some food for the nurses.
You will also experience different types of patients. You will
have an elderly patient. You will have a noncompliant diabetic patient. You
will have the seriously ill. You will have a patient that was in a traumatic
car accident. You will have drug addicts. You will have smokers that leave the unit a thousand times a day to go outside and smoke.
It will be hard for you to understand why some people are in
the hospital when it seems like they do not want to be helped.
Some people go to the hospital because they need a
place to stay. You will see a lot of homeless people that treat the hospital as
a hotel. They do have a legitimate health issue, but they do not take care of
themselves. Sometimes it is because they lack money or insurance.
All of this comes with the territory.
This is something that you will have to get used to.
Personally, when I see patients who are frequent flyers, it upsets me, but I do
understand that they do have medical issues.
