Monday, July 20, 2009

Reasons Your Doctor is Prematurely Bald

The hospital I work out of has been transitioning over to an electronic chart system.

This morning, while back on rounds, I dialed in to the hospital system to dictate a consult. I was stunned to be told that my priviliges had been suspended while I was gone for delinquent medical records.

This was a shock, as I treat medical records with an obsession. Every Thursday I stop by medical records and ask if there's anything for me to sign. For the last 6 weeks the girl there has politely checked her computer, then said "Nope, thank you for checking".

So I promptly marched down there:

Dr. Grumpy: "Excuse me, do I have anything to sign today?"

Ms. Helpful: (looking at her computer) "Um, nope. Thank you for checking."

Dr. Grumpy: "Well, when I dialed in, it says I've been suspended for medical records delinquency."

Ms. Helpful: "That's correct. You have over 60 charts to complete, 28 of which are delinquent"

Dr. Grumpy: "WHAT!!! Then why didn't you tell me that?!!"

Ms. Helpful: "You only asked me if you had anything to sign. You have nothing to sign. We are all electronic records now. You don't actually sign anything."

Dr. Grumpy (in shock): "Okay... So how do I complete my records?"

Ms. Helpful: "You have to log into the e-Chart system."

Dr. Grumpy: "No one told me we'd completely switched to e-Charts, or that I had records to complete. How was I supposed to know this?"

Ms. Helpful: "Because the first time you sign in to e-Charts it tells you that".


No wonder my hairs are jumping off like lemmings.

20 comments:

girlvet said...

We have been doing this for about 4 years. Advice: accept it. It really isn't that bad. There is nothing you can do abouit it anyway...

Grumpy, M.D. said...

I'm not complaining about the e-charts. It's the stupidity of the medrecs girl that's the problem.

Anonymous said...

PUNKED by a barely above minimum wage Dronette. Our medical records dronettes lived for messing with the doctors.

The same thing happened to my shrink friend. Hopefully it didn't take too long to straighten the mess out.

LD/50 Rat

Kim said...

Wow! Gotta love the proactive nature of that girl. She's a winner! You would think after the 2nd or even 3rd time you asked that, she might have caught a clue and asked you if you had been informed of the new procedures.

It's people like that who need to be beaten senseless with their keyboards.

BTW, love your blog!

Anonymous said...

whatever a manual system, staffed by humans, can foul up, a completely automated, state-of-the-art computer system, staffed by the same humans, can foul up even worse.

the google ad accompanying your blog post is for "medical record software that saves time..."

Chris said...

"Ladies and gentlemen, may we have your attention please . . . for today's post, the role of Ms. Helpful will be played by Lou Costello . . . "

Anonymous said...

I work in a place where procedure is EVERYTHING. The office that sets procedure, however, is famous for changing them and not telling anyone.

The result, periodic chaos as people all over the organziation find out at various times that a procedure is changed. ARGH!

You'd think a simple email would avert these crises, however, the Procedure People seem to believe we are all receiving these notices via osmosis or something.

I feel your pain.

And the medical records girl is twit.

D

Maha said...

It would have taken every ounce of self-restraint not to strangle that girl!

WWWebb said...

She is the sort of person about whom it is said, "She should be shot and put out of OUR misery."

Fiz said...

Maha, I was thinking more along the lines of giving her a good slap!

Theresa said...

Two words...Fire her! Sorry to get vulgar here but what a dumb shit. Sorry, but that sort of thing just perturbs the heck out of me.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

I wish. She doesn't work for me, though. And the hospital doesn't care.

Placebo said...

Beware of the leopard.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Ah, back to Hitchikers Guide.

Anonymous said...

'because the first day you sign onto e-charts it tells you that'. Haahaa. Funny one. The med rec girl is a real ding-bat, a closet nincompoop, or maybe one of us that finds it difficult to 'think outside the box'.

The day the hospital went HIPAA and removed patient last names from the room board (the one that lists where patients are for attendings) at nurses' station, replacing them with initials, was the day the doc I was rounding with removed his name from the attendings list in public view and replaced it with his initials.

Initially, I was given to understand the HIPAA thing was set up so that insurance companies couldn't farm patient records and accounts...in some places the privacy song-n-dance is not unlike a circus side-show, complete with mirrors, smoke and gauzy curtains.

Where I work now, there's only the full-time director and two of us part-timers working different parts of the week, so the facility has 'learned' to think outside the box in letting us know what is going on if they want pharmacist participation.

Now, where might these 'jumping hairs' be landing?

The Bus Driver said...

sounds like you had a run in with the same idiots i dealt with today... when i've got a minute i will definitely have to blog about it.

DreamingTree said...

This was an excellent way to jump back into the saddle after vacation! I can just imagine the dull look in her eyes, plastic smile on her face.

Sandy said...

so you are the one she has been blogging about on RagingMedRec.com

Qex said...

The comment from Anonymous about procedures being changed without notice reminds me of the Sally-Anne test. It tests whether a child understands that he can know information that somebody else doesn't. It is (or was) normally used as part of an evaluation for autism, and the OCD characteristics often found in those who love procedure above common sense can mean they assume everybody knows about it, since it is so important to them.

Then again, I often talk about things I know nothing about.

WWWebb said...

Something just occurred to me:

This young woman might just have a promising future in hospital administration.

 
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