Post by valleytech36 on Mar 5, 2005 6:43:15 GMT -5
Got this as a e-mail and I thought I would post it to see if get any feedback from it.
Have you ever noticed how those involved with the fire service -- firefighters, EMTs or their family members -- are reluctant to call 911? I know this is particularly true in volunteer departments, because a number of fire chiefs suffering from assorted symptoms said they were reluctant to call their own department, only to find out that they had had a heart attack.
In our family alone, we have faced the should-we or shouldn't-we ambulance judgment call. Maybe it's because we've grown up hearing about Band-Aid calls or the people who call because they think they will be seen in the emergency department more quickly if they go in by ambulance. So we end up playing the "Let's wait, and maybe we won't have to call" game. Where there is doubt, there is also fate: Call 911.
One Saturday morning a couple weeks ago, I was horsing around with one of my daughters when something in my back went twang and resulted in the need for a backboard and transport by ambulance to a local hospital.
My family quickly overruled my initial protests and called the ambulance. (Lights! Sirens! Ah, the neighbors!) Thankfully, it was the younger crew of paramedics who responded versus the older guys who I knew would never let me hear the end of my foolishness.
After paramedics settled me into the ambulance and took my personal information, the female paramedic handed me a blue brochure about the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act.
Inside the emergency department, the nurse gathered more personal data and gave me another HIPAA notice. As I was admitted, the floor nurse took even more personal medical history and, after I signed the forms, she too gave me HIPAA information.
Around 3 a.m. that first night at the hospital, another patient was moved into my room. Lights on full, I listened as the nurse on duty took the other patient's personal medical history. As I lay there listening to the questions, I realized how very respectful of my privacy everyone else I'd encountered had been. Even though the other patient answered in a whisper, the nurse asking the questions repeated the answers of the other patient. This was routine and the nurse was doing her job, but she was speaking in too loud a voice. I tried to catch her attention, but she was on a roll.
Eventually, the nurse finished and walked past my bed. I called her over and whispered to her that I now knew that "Mary" in the next bed had an operation for polyps on her ovaries and that the secret code word when her family called in was their dog's name, Lucy. Perhaps in the interest of HIPAA, she should lower her voice. She just looked at me and said, "OK."
It was a snotty thing to do, but I was tired, in pain and frustrated that so many people were dealing with the added responsibilities of HIPAA, and yet it could be violated so easily and routinely.
You never know who is watching or listening. Or writing about it.
Janet Wilmoth, Editor of Fire Chief Magazines
Have you ever noticed how those involved with the fire service -- firefighters, EMTs or their family members -- are reluctant to call 911? I know this is particularly true in volunteer departments, because a number of fire chiefs suffering from assorted symptoms said they were reluctant to call their own department, only to find out that they had had a heart attack.
In our family alone, we have faced the should-we or shouldn't-we ambulance judgment call. Maybe it's because we've grown up hearing about Band-Aid calls or the people who call because they think they will be seen in the emergency department more quickly if they go in by ambulance. So we end up playing the "Let's wait, and maybe we won't have to call" game. Where there is doubt, there is also fate: Call 911.
One Saturday morning a couple weeks ago, I was horsing around with one of my daughters when something in my back went twang and resulted in the need for a backboard and transport by ambulance to a local hospital.
My family quickly overruled my initial protests and called the ambulance. (Lights! Sirens! Ah, the neighbors!) Thankfully, it was the younger crew of paramedics who responded versus the older guys who I knew would never let me hear the end of my foolishness.
After paramedics settled me into the ambulance and took my personal information, the female paramedic handed me a blue brochure about the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act.
Inside the emergency department, the nurse gathered more personal data and gave me another HIPAA notice. As I was admitted, the floor nurse took even more personal medical history and, after I signed the forms, she too gave me HIPAA information.
Around 3 a.m. that first night at the hospital, another patient was moved into my room. Lights on full, I listened as the nurse on duty took the other patient's personal medical history. As I lay there listening to the questions, I realized how very respectful of my privacy everyone else I'd encountered had been. Even though the other patient answered in a whisper, the nurse asking the questions repeated the answers of the other patient. This was routine and the nurse was doing her job, but she was speaking in too loud a voice. I tried to catch her attention, but she was on a roll.
Eventually, the nurse finished and walked past my bed. I called her over and whispered to her that I now knew that "Mary" in the next bed had an operation for polyps on her ovaries and that the secret code word when her family called in was their dog's name, Lucy. Perhaps in the interest of HIPAA, she should lower her voice. She just looked at me and said, "OK."
It was a snotty thing to do, but I was tired, in pain and frustrated that so many people were dealing with the added responsibilities of HIPAA, and yet it could be violated so easily and routinely.
You never know who is watching or listening. Or writing about it.
Janet Wilmoth, Editor of Fire Chief Magazines