When you
earn a degree in nursing, you have many doors with opportunity waiting for
you. Many people make the assumption
that if you earn a degree in nursing, you are going to be a nurse, but that is
not always the case. Some people opt to
study nursing, and then use the education to work elsewhere in a health-related
field.
Healthcare
management is a very good profession. Like nursing, there
will always be jobs available. Healthcare management workers work primarily behind the scenes. They are responsible for maintaining the
patient's record, which is a very big responsibility.
Physical
Records
With
patient records now mainly electronic, it's s changing field, and health care
management personnel have changed as well. In years past the health care management had offices that were usually
located in the basement of the hospital.The main room was filled with file cabinet after file cabinet, and on
occasion storage boxes as well. When a
doctor, nurse, or patient needed a copy of a medical record, a person
physically went into the file cabinets and retrieved the file. There were problems at times, if a file was
accidentally placed in the wrong spot, it might be quite some time before it
was located. This system worked fairly
well for many years, other than the occasional misfiled patient record, things
usually ran well.
Electronic
Records
The
introduction of electronic health records changed the health care industry
entirely. A patient's record can be
retrieved by entering a password, and pushing a few buttons. The records are still guarded carefully,
there are strict guidelines that must be followed, and only certain employees
have access, all records are secured with extreme protection. If a patient requests their record be sent to
a physician, after signing a consent to the effect, the record can now be sent
electronically in a matter of seconds.
Some medical facilities also offer patients the opportunity to sign up
and have access to their own records online.
Health
Care Manager
There are
degrees in health care management, however many health care managers have a
nursing degree instead, or in addition to healthcare management. The manager of the healthcare management
department needs extensive medical knowledge in order to communicate
effectively with physicians and other medical personnel. Medical terminology is a very big portion of
the job in this position, and much of the terminology is often written in a shortened
form, or abbreviated terms, and the health care manager is responsible for
entering information correctly so that the records are accurate and easily
readable.
A Typical
Day as a Health Care a Manager
Ann has
been a health care manager for 20 years and works, for a large hospital. She describes her day as follows:
Ann arrived
at work at 6:45 a.m. She prefers to
arrive well before the official opening of the office at 8, so that she can
make sure the previous day’s work was entered correctly. If information has not been entered, and a
patient is awaiting surgery, the anesthesiologist may need the records quickly,
and if they have yet to be entered, this can be a big problem. Surgery could actually be held up, which in
turn could change the schedule of the operating room for the entire day. With health care management one thing affects
another, and in patient care, which is the most important thing, a properly
entered health care record can be the core of the patient's treatment for the
day. Ann prepares the office for opening
and one of her staff calls her attention to a record she is entering. A notation was made in the note that referred
to the patient having an injury to the right leg, and yet surgery was being
scheduled for the left leg. The health
care management, employee caught this handwritten error, and it was brought to
the attention of the surgeon before a serious mistake could have been
made. Ann points out that a right and
left leg mix up are easily spotted when being entered, however, with complex
medical terms that may not always be the case.
For this reason, even the staff must have some medical knowledge and be
familiar with medical terminology. Ann
works her day, and answers numerous requests for medical records. She also has to deny records to a very
unhappy physician because he was not the attending physician and the patient
had failed to sign off allowing the release of records. As the manager of the healthcare records
department, this is not an uncommon occurrence, the patient has yet to sign
giving permission to release records, and there is a physician or his office
needing the records right away. According to Ann, it takes the right person to
manage the department.
There are
challenges as a health care management employee, of course that's true with
every job. Health Care Management is a
job that requires medical knowledge, and with some administrative training, a
nurse could easily assume a role in this department.
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