Comments on: WTF Moment #897

By: Dr. S

Dr. S — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:51:46 +0000

It apparently isn’t as easy as you might think. Our nurses were developing their Hemoccult cards with Gastroccult developer. It’s not the same thing.

And, for that matter, the regulatory agencies figured out that nurses weren’t doing “simple” things like this correctly (see above) and started requiring the people doing them to be trained and to have that training documented.

By: Subhi S Hashwa

Subhi S Hashwa — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:34:02 +0000

@ladyk73 In the construction industry they call these helicopters, you need helicopters to be shot down. It’s one of the “games” that need to be played in a work environment, if you don’t play, you lose, and you end up losing a lot more than your time.

By: Marilyn

Marilyn — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:36:19 +0000

Ahh, the blessings of bureaucracy…

By: Don Salva

Don Salva — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:38:01 +0000

Expiration date on a clock. Wow that must be the fail of the century.

By: ladyk73

ladyk73 — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:47:27 +0000

It starts with the dimwit manager who discovers some “expired timer,” and removes it without replacing it with something else….

I used to be an accountant (for federally funded non-profits) who would have to present all of my work to a third person accounting firm. I would have hell for week/ month, while they tried to find something wrong….When the CPAs find a mistake, it justifies their very existance…

When I have seen agencies who really had accounting disasters, the third party auditors would love it because they had the ability to charge the agency lots of money to fix it.

I have had multiple “perfect” audits. In which
the CPAS could find nothing wrong. However…they would then creat these “problems” in which the agency had too big/ too small line of credit, or that we should buy a better depreciation program…

If Accounting audits are anything like a Joint Commission audit… you need the non-compliant timers in the hospital. It shows those “3rd party auditors” that your agency is well run enough to understand that having a properly calibrated radiology equipment is much more important than a freaking egg timer…

Sort of like the accounting clean ups I have done. “So why did this expense go to misc?” “Oh…that $6.00 charge? Yeah, it would cost the agency $50 in my pay to find it…so yeah..I put it there, and moved on”

I am babbling now…sorry

By: Nurse K

Nurse K — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:03:20 +0000

I’m just telling WC how to solve the problem. $8 and a form makes the problem go away. If you’d rather wait until the purchasing person comes back from vacation, sift through 200+ medical supply catalogs until you find one, order it, and wait 7 days for it to arrival, that’s your choice. Meanwhile, JCAHO or the health dept shows up and cites you for not timing the tests, and you have hours more of work explaining yourself to directors et al. Research labs aren’t really doing tests that need to be done NOW in an ER, so maybe you can afford to take the week off until your $8 timer essential to do one of your quality controls arrives in the mail.

It’s no different than teachers buying magic markers and glue for their classroom and getting reimbursed.

By: Nurse K

Nurse K — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:51:47 +0000

They just have to be covered.

By: Derrick

Derrick — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 06:42:02 +0000

My least favorite rule (if it is even a rule) is the one that says no coffee at nurses stations. If I have to be awake for 30 hours working, I want coffee… where I am working… without having to leave the unit and walk over to an approved area off the unit to drink my beverage.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:39:22 +0000

Well in some of our research labs we have equipment (oscilloscopes, weights, microscopes, strain testers, etc etc) that is “due” for calibration every year (less/more depending on sensitivity). So technically some of our stuff would be “expired” if it wasn’t calibrated. After all the “wtf” moments of college labs, now I get warm feelings when I know the crap I’m working with is actually accurate.

@NurseK. Uh no. I’d rather fill out a purchasing form,submit it to one of our purchasers for online ordering and have them bill it directly to the department expense account. It’s way easier than going to radioshack, paying out of pocket, and waiting weeks for a reimbursement.

By: Nurse K

Nurse K — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 03:50:41 +0000

I’m one of the policy Nazis for my ER, and I’ve read policies related to disinfecting things (which requires a timer), and there’s nothing in there about timer expirations.

Here’s a secret. Next time you or someone goes to Wal-Mart, go pick up a timer and get reimbursed for it. Solve the problem, medical director-type guy.

Guess who does that for my dept? That would be me and my boss. Would be nice if medical leadership hauled their butts to Wal-Mart on their day off to buy junk for the ER (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).