September 2014
Kim
Parker
,
RN
S.T.A.R. Team
Winter Haven Hospital
Winter Haven
,
FL
United States
I am a S.T.A.R. nurse and one of our roles is to call back patients that have been discharged from Winter Haven Hospital. I would like to share a caring story about a fellow STAR nurse, Kim Parker.
We have a series of questions that we ask patients and/or family members about their discharge process and care at the hospital. During one such call back, Kim was speaking to a patient's husband and he wanted to know how long his wife was supposed to take the Arixtra injection that she was receiving prior to the last admission. After researching the patient's previous admission she didn't find a copy of a script or a discharge med reconciliation. The patient had been receiving the Arixtra since mid-April and had no idea when they were supposed to stop taking the medication and they still had another box that hadn't been opened.
Kim spent over 50 minutes talking to the patient's spouse and their primary doctor's nurse regarding this issue. She asked the doctor's nurse if they could call the patient back and advise her about what to do with the Arixtra. The next day, the patient's spouse called Kim and stated that his doctor didn't want to address the Arixtra and he didn't know if he should still be giving it to his wife. Kim told the husband that she would look further into the problem and call him back.
Kim decided to page the doctor that took care of the patient during that admission. Dr. Z called her back and she explained the situation to him. He took the time to look the patient's previous admission up and reviewed her chart without being disgruntled. After reviewing the information, he gave Kim orders to call the patient back and have her stop taking the Arixtra. The patient's husband was so pleased that they were able to resolve this issue for them.
In this time of adjustment and stress that the entire hospital is feeling, I just thought it was important for someone to know that these two Team Members had worked together to help a family get real answers when it would have been so easy for them to just tell the family to call their primary doctor and be done with it.
We have a series of questions that we ask patients and/or family members about their discharge process and care at the hospital. During one such call back, Kim was speaking to a patient's husband and he wanted to know how long his wife was supposed to take the Arixtra injection that she was receiving prior to the last admission. After researching the patient's previous admission she didn't find a copy of a script or a discharge med reconciliation. The patient had been receiving the Arixtra since mid-April and had no idea when they were supposed to stop taking the medication and they still had another box that hadn't been opened.
Kim spent over 50 minutes talking to the patient's spouse and their primary doctor's nurse regarding this issue. She asked the doctor's nurse if they could call the patient back and advise her about what to do with the Arixtra. The next day, the patient's spouse called Kim and stated that his doctor didn't want to address the Arixtra and he didn't know if he should still be giving it to his wife. Kim told the husband that she would look further into the problem and call him back.
Kim decided to page the doctor that took care of the patient during that admission. Dr. Z called her back and she explained the situation to him. He took the time to look the patient's previous admission up and reviewed her chart without being disgruntled. After reviewing the information, he gave Kim orders to call the patient back and have her stop taking the Arixtra. The patient's husband was so pleased that they were able to resolve this issue for them.
In this time of adjustment and stress that the entire hospital is feeling, I just thought it was important for someone to know that these two Team Members had worked together to help a family get real answers when it would have been so easy for them to just tell the family to call their primary doctor and be done with it.