3rdcareerRN

Hurrah! Occ health can vary more than many specialties, depending on what the client needs -- anything from urgent care to OSHA-regulated medical surveillance to wellness programs to safety programs, or a mix of these and more. I really like it -- ...

Try systems analysis, instead of educating: Determine the highest-value person or job role, whether it is by salary or impact on the rest of the clinic. Sometimes fixing reception/check-in -- the lowest paid position -- has the highest effect on the ...

I agree with prior post, that COHN is a must-have and in many positions, the spiro/fit-test/audio training and certificates are a must-have/must-get-upon-hiring. Coming from the ER, I looked at CEN before going into occ health. Iin an occ health jo...

" CCNs- certified cubicle nurses" -- that's great! I agree that doing the onsite chart reviews (such as for HEDIS QI/QA) is a good intro to seeing medical records and the patient encounter in a broader way.

A phlebotomist can successfully use a 23- or even 25-gauge needle. I myself often use a 23-gauge butterfly and have never had lab reject my specimens due to hemolysis. If there is evidence-based guidelines about hemolysis when using small-gauge nee...

Occupational health. Most often 1:1 or sometimes 1:2, with time to actually do teaching and focused care. Although... there was that chemical exposure incident, when it was 1:45. One then learns the true meaning of "field triage". But just try to f...

Ambulatory clinic patient w/ triglycerides of >2500. Blood looked like thick milk.

A key problem I see with a new grad choosing occ health is the lack of preceptorship for learning those common hands-on skills that are needed in all clinical nursing positions. Whatever you learned in school, it is not enough to do it as the sole n...

Gosh, I worked in 2006 at a Midwestern US hospital where we used all these: - Gerichair with locking tray - Posey vests - Gomco suction - Kardexes (in addition to Meditech online charting -and- paper charting...!) - Taping drips for timing because th...

South Midwest: "Call in" / "pop" / "peaCAHn" (pecan) Fond memories of my grandfather asking "Y'all want a sodee pop?"

Let me introduce a little bit of science into the discussion, by quoting a research representative: "...The risk of musculoskeletal disorders resulting from patient handling results from the high internal forces created in the spine when a person lif...

They will not mind...in fact, they are required to provide them to affected employees free of charge by Federal regulation! (OSHA Standard: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=standards&p_id=10051 Personal Protective Eq...

Kudos for thinking! What I like to see nurses here and at work do is recognize what might happen, because then they can plan a better response than whatever their immediate reaction would be. Spending an hour looking at the policy manual exposes ...

I have very similar responses to this other poster, except #8 (I have much worse benefits/security as a nurse, a worse work schedule, less than half the pay as my prior two careers, but am usually satisfied or even happy daily now.)

Whether RNs need special training appears to be an entity-specific or geography-specific policy. However, the Centers for Disease Control offers free training here: http://www.cdcnpin.org/scripts/tb/kit.asp In that training, the CDC states "There ar...

I agree, with additional thoughts: - Every consulting firm has added staff to pursue ARRA/HITECH opportunities; if you are open to being a consultant, there are opportunities now with that combo of credentials, and surely will be more over the next 3...

This person (who happens to run some completely awesome websites on healthcare informatics) gets what hospital nursing is about: "If you are a nurse, happy National Nurses Week, which started Thursday (happy birthday, Florence Nightingale!) I love nu...

My limited insight: - There is definitely a need for health education in the public clinic, but I don't have experience in doing mass presentations there. I got to do 1:1 teaching as a volunteer nurse. -In my occ health job, I'm responsible for all t...

I have a question for those of you in community health clinics, esp. if hospital-affiliated. Do you have a doctor or NP or PA in the clinic all the time? Do they see patients Q15 min. like in a private practice? As a former ER nurse, I had a doctor ...

Sent you some answers in a PM.

I can't answer to various hospitals' policies, but in the U.S.A. there is quite clear Federal policy about who can access charts and when, and updating them. (45 C.F.R. 164.508, 164.524 and 164.526 and the easy-to-read http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privac...

Medicare reimburses based on diagnosis-related group, rather than on individual charge items for a patient (such an IV catheter). ( see http://www.cms.hhs.gov/AcuteInpatientPPS/01_overview.asp ) So I am not sure you are pursuing a question that has ...

I forgot to mention it earlier: You really need to spend time on auntminnie.com if you have not been around imaging/ PACS.

As with any new infosystem, find out: - Who wants it, and who is sponsoring it at an executive level - What problem are they trying to solve - What they absolutely require (versus what they want) - Who is funding it - What the sponsor's vision is for...

Thank you for acting as a community health advocate! This link has over 5000 results: http://www.cdc.gov/search.do?queryText=brochure&action=search Entering "brochure" in this site's search box gives over 9000 results: http://www.nih.gov/ I've us...