clinicals on 1/19/10 - 1/20/10 1800 to 0700

WHAT: Deb taught me about interqual reports. Interqual reports are done on all new admits as soon as possible. The interqual report is then given to a case manager who uses the report to determine if all criteria has been meet for the patients admit. If the criteria is not meet the insurance and medicaid will not pay for the patients hospital stay. The report has to include the admit diagnosis, vital signs on admit, if patient is a medicade patient, and of course the patients name ets.

Some other cool stuff she did was fix the elevator. When they said nurses do everything they were not kidding.

She also had to make sure that respiratory and other staff was available for twins being born with possible low apgare scores.

She was called by a med/surg nure to look at a picc line. The patient said that it was hurting and and she could feel the line. I have never been able to feel a line, but this one you could feel, it was very superficial. The line had just been put in that day it was drawing and flushing fine. Deb said it would be okay and had the nurse put a warm pack on it and given something for the pain.

Deb was called to help with lab draws. She is really good at the hard sticks, I have called her to help me on occations. If the patient had not already been pocked so many times I would have tried, but I have compassion on patients and know that Deb usually gets it her first time.

SO WHAT: One of the clinical objectives meet was organizing. Deb made sure that everthing and everone was organized and ready for the birth of twins. I was also able to complete one of my objectives which was to learn about the interqual worksheets.

NOW WHAT: Organizing is not just making sure you can find things when you need them it is making sure everone and everything is in place in the event they are needed. I have now made a sticker for the back of my badge that has the phone numbers of who I might need for example: lab, clinical supervior, house supervisor, pharmacy, respiratory therapy, and rapid responce. This way I can call them without having to go back to the nurses station to look up numbers not yet memorized. I feel more prepared and organized now.