Medical Records

It occurred to me recently that I haven’t talked much about the work I’ve been doing at the clinic. For those who have been curious (thanks for the reminder grams) here’s the 411:
The last, oh, three or four weeks, I’ve adopted a project of sorts in medical records. To understand what I’ve been doing you’ll need to know a little bit about the place and how it works. Every patient that comes through Faith Alive, either receiving ARV’s (Anti-Retro-Viral’s) for HIV or those coming for treatment of the common cold (malaria, typhoid, etc.) has is file with their name and hospital number. Every morning when patients line up outside the clinic, their name goes on a list (first come first serve) to be seen by the doctors. If they’ve been here before they have a hand card that has their name and corresponding hospital number for the medical record staff to locate retrieve their file.
Now, if a patient loses their hand card medical records has essentially lost their ability to locate their file. Or have they?
There was/is a system in place to curtail such a predicament, however it hasn’t exactly been maintained. With each file there is supposed to be a small index card with the patient name and hospital number. These cards are to be filed in drawers alphabetically, so that, in the event a hand card is lost, medical records staff can easily look up their name and thereby locate their hospital number. Sounds logical, right?
Well here’s the thing, these cards that are supposed to be neatly alphabetized and organized in their little card catalog like drawers have, to date, been living in one of two places: a box on the floor or in rubber banded stacks inside the drawers. The work, no doubt, of volunteers before me.
And just so ya know, there’s about 8,000 files in medical records. Which means if staff have been following due process and creating a little blue card for every file, there should be something like 8,000 cards to alphabetize and organize. And it doesn’t stop there. Turns out the cards are too big to fit into drawers, so after I’m finished with the alphabetizing, I’ll be cutting, 8,000 little cards. How jealous are you? Seriously…
Right, so with that said, here’s where I’m at in the process:
Step one: Gather up all blue cards and start sorting by first letter. Check.
Step two: Alphabetize by letter. Nineteen down, seven to go.
Step three: Cut cards to size. Pending completion of step two.
Step four: Pray someone maintains the system after I’m done.
When I’m not working on step two, I’m usually in medical records either pulling files for the morning clinic or helping the staff post files back in the afternoon. So that’s work in a nutshell. Any questions?