MHKH 1/23/15 and GC 1/22/15

MHKH 1/23/15

Responsibilities:

My responsibilities this week were to learn from my supervisor in Administration and learn what really goes in the business office. I observed the process of charting a patient's information into the hospital database, what type of system is used, how to chart that info down, how to find the patient in the lobby and how to attend to them, and how to send the info to the department the patient is gong to.

New Skills/Knowledge:

I learned that when a patient's information is done being accounted for that the info is then sent to the department i which the patient will be in. My supervisor taught me to always bring a snack because you get to the office at 5 am and lunch break isn't till around 10 or 11 am. I also learned that there is a whole library in the back office with physical records on patients. Right now the whole administrative office is working on digitally filing both those files and insurance info.

The Best Thing(s):

• I got to see a patient's info be registered.
• How that registration works.
• How it's sent to the departments
• How ridiculously old the system is.

The Worst Thing(s):

• The first person I was supposed to be with left for break 5 minutes after I got there.
• After the height of excitement I had learning charting things got slow.
• There was like 10 minutes of awkward silence before the rotation ended

The rotation went rather well. The office isn't the best place to learn medical information, but it's a pretty good place to learn soft skills and communication skills.

My Experience In: Administration

Technology: 

The technology in the administrative office ranges from everyday office technology to advanced patient recognition system and even an old charting system from like 20 years ago. The office stuff is printers and computers, the really cool technology is the palm scanner that reads a patient's palm and registers them into the system for future reference so all they do is scan and all their info pops up. There is also a tablet-like computer that they use to have patients sign documents. The system that is used to register all the info looks like something out of an 80's movie, it is REALLY old.

Diagnostic Procedures:

The office doesn't really perform diagnostic procedures but my supervisor said that  the diagnostic procedures that patient's come in for the most is diagnostic surgery, cardiology, and radiology. The only diagnostics the office performs in running tests on the computers.

Therapeutic Procedures:

The office also doesn't deal with therapeutic services personally but most therapeutic services that patients come in for are in rehab. This usually happens after a patient comes in from another doctor and is recommended therapy here. Other therapeutic procedures that pop up are cancer treatments and checkups.

Diseases/Disorders:

My supervisor told me that the office gets a lot of  patients who register with different diseases. She said that the most common was disease that she registered was a cardiovascular disease. Some others are cancer and lung diseases.

Med Terms/ Abbreviations:

The office isn't full of medical chatter so it's hard to hear any medical terms or jargon. A few words I encountered were PPO and HMO plans that the hospital offers. PPO is short for Preferred Provider Organization and HMO is short for Health Maintenance Organization.

Other Info:

Medicare records must all be digitally recorded upon patient consultation and all this year from the physical records. If that info is not recorded a letter must be sent to the insurance provider telling why the info wasn't registered and the hospital could be fined for that.

I. Environmental Assessment:

The office that I was in was clean and organized despite the amount of paper info that is being registered. It smelled like garlic bread, which was nice. The office is small but comfortable. The people who work here are nice but they don't really have time to talk because of all the work that goes on there. The administrative office provides record keeping services and registration of patient info. The office uses a computer to electronically chart the info and the system it runs on is very old.

II. Observation:

 The personnel here is all about the business. They move quick and communicate using as little words as possible. The offices have one individual each who processes the patient's info but there is teamwork to be shown when one employee leaves for break and another takes over her patients. The office has 2 exits in case of fire, the front door and the door that leads to the back office. Every computer is locked to a certain employee's username and password. The staff shows effective communication when the front office sends a notification to the office which gives a physical description of the patient so that finding that patient is easier.

III. New Knowledge:

There isn't really any formal degree required to work in the business office. Some employees do have a medical assistant's degree. It also takes a lot of familiarization with the system that is used to chart info. The system is old but the office is hoping to upgrade once all the construction is done. The only med terms I heard were HMO and PPO.

IV. Evaluation:

The business office is a really good place to learn how the hospital is run from the inside. You learn a lot about computer charting, patient registration, soft skills, and how to handle patients. The office has a lot of educational and professional values to learn from. There is always something to learn from charting and other office practices. There is also lessons in professionalism to be observed in the staff's behavior, efficient communication, and system of record keeping and teamwork.

GC 1/22/15

This week I was in the LTAC unit and it was pretty interesting. For once we had a nurse who seemed genuinely interested in teaching us and letting us do something medically related. We were able to take blood oxygen levels from a few  patients and learn how to do it and what levels are normal for most patients. If there were any abnormalities we were told to report them. After that we asked if we could do anything else and the nurse asked us to go check the beds and make sure that the alert button was on each patient's beds. Afterwards we went off and talked to some of the residents, and I know that we made their day just stopping by and talking with them for a while.