4 Departments in Your Health Care Organization That Must Adhere To Universal Precautions

Infectious pathogens in the blood can be transferred from one person to another causing bloodborne diseases. Other body fluids like semen, vaginal discharges, amniotic fluid, saliva, etc. can also cause such infectious diseases. And prior to proper testing, it is impossible to know which blood samples are infected. Therefore, it is best to assume all samples as potentially infected and handle them with the utmost care. And as such, basic precautionary measures that should be taken by your health care employees while handling potentially blood and body fluids are known as universal precautions.

There are four main departments in the hospital that must strictly adhere to the universal precautions, as discussed below.

· Laboratory: It is mainly the hospital laboratory that deals with blood samples on a daily basis. This place is filled with chemicals, sharp instruments and equipment, and uncountable blood samples that are likely to be infected. There is maximum risk of employees contracting bloodborne diseases here. It is mandatory for your health workers to wear protective clothing like gloves, gowns and eye gear at all times. Other personal protective equipment like foot covers and face shields must also be worn depending on the work being done. All these equipments are important as they keep your skin protected from pathogens and also from dangerous chemical splashes.

· Housekeeping: The housekeeping department in your health care organization will not just be responsible for sweeping and swabbing but also for the decontamination of work areas and for proper disposal of fluids and sharp instruments. All housekeeping workers must be given gloves, aprons and gowns to wear while cleaning work stations, floors, walls and furniture. All necessary precautions must be properly followed to prevent spread of infection.

· Laundry and Linen: Special care must be taken by your employees working in the laundry and linen department. They must wear gloves and protective gowns at all times. Dirty linen must be segregated into separate bags with stained clothes folded in such a way that the dirty part in inside. Transfer of dirty linen from wards and operation theatre to laundry must be done through a separate route where patients and others are not present. It is recommended that the worker changes his gloves while dealing with used linen.

· Nursing Department: It is the nurses who majorly deal with the patients. They are involved in drawing blood, giving injections, changing beds and patient gowns, etc. All these activities involve a small chance of infection spread. While using needles and sharp equipments they must be careful to avoid getting pricked accidentally. All needles and sharp instrument must be disposed off in special sharp containers. They must always wear gloves that are in good condition and follow correct practice of hand washing while dealing with patients. Nurses must be alert in cases of fluid spills which are very dangerous.

Understanding the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

When it comes to hospital medical transcription, transcribers do not just translate audio to text; there are also some legal matters that have to be put into consideration when working. As a transcriber, weather you are working at home or at a transcription company, it is important to take note of the HIPAA. The HIPAA act or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is a law that protects all individuals when it comes to the privacy of their medical records. Information that is exchanged during the entire transcribing process is considered private and should be disclosed to anyone else. Sometimes, some information is disclosed by accident without the knowledge of the transcriber.

There are some ways and tips in order that this information is kept private and away from the public eye during a hospital medical translation process.

Keep your work station private

When you are working at home for a surgery medical transcription company or a hospital medical transcription company, a lot of information be shared between you are and your client. Make sure that your computer or workstation is locked away from the prying eyes of your house-mates. It is important that they have no access to your computer or any file or folder that contains all this information. Most home based transcriptions working on a hospital medical transcription would have a separate computer for transcribing purposes alone; if the latter is possible it is probably the best option when it comes to protecting all private date.


Avoid discussing work details with others

It is also important that you avoid talking about patient transactions with others. It is human nature to share thoughts, especially experiences regarding work to others; but as much as possible avoid doing so. Information shared to other people has a high chance to be shared again to others. Never disclose specifics such as names of patients, what they are going through, which hospital they are in, and other specific details concerning a single person or to a specific institution. Aside from verbal communication, avoid posting such details on on-line social medium websites such as twitter and face book as well as forums and public message boards.

Make sure that a HIPAA contract exists between your employer and you

Last but not the least; make sure that there is a contract between you and your employer. A contract will make you understand more the scope and detail of a HIPAA medical transaction and what actions should be avoided so as not to break the law. If there is no such contact between two parties suggest that a contract be made by the employer so that both parties will understand the importance and privacy of all information exchanged during the entire process.

Evasive Action to Overbearing Healthcare Reform

With the June 28, 2012 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States in declaring the Affordable Care Act constitutional, very important personal decisions need to be made by Joe and Jill Citizen as to how they will deal with the changes as it relates to their conscious health decisions. For instance, in order to keep the plan as cost effective as possible steps may be implemented to limit doctors in the types of treatments they can provide their patients. Is this something Joe and Jill Citizen is ready to contend with?

In the likelihood of that type of scenario affecting millions of people, there lies enormous potential for aware and free-thinking individuals to take more responsibility for their own health and well being. Preparing for the worst is, if not should be, a natural-born instinct for every human being. We prepare for bad weather by having candles or flashlights on hand should there be a power outage, going to a cellar in case of a tornado, having road salt and snow shovels on hand before the blizzard of the decade hits. Wouldn't it make sense, in the case of our health, to make preparations as well? In fact, one would say that it makes much more sense to take em>preventative measures to ensure our good health endures for as long as humanly possible.

The looming threat of being denied a critical medication or procedure to provide a work-around for a current ailment is a frightening prospect, even more so if your life depends on it. Scientific study has shown that many of today's sicknesses and diseases could easily be prevented with proper nutrition. Much of these findings were derived from the field of animal husbandry which, these days, is very big business. And as in any business if you have damaged product (diseased animals) your customers will not buy and you go out of business. One can quickly understand why reversing the sickness and disease in livestock would be very important to that particular business. The same applies to human health only with greater consequences if you, the product, is damaged due to nutritional deficiency.

Take, for example, the debilitating disease arthritis. For over 50 years those in the business of animal husbandry have been curing arthritis in their livestock with natural trace minerals found in the mineral blocks scattered in fields all over the world. Does it not make sense that the same concept of supplementing the diet with essential trace minerals would apply to the arthritic joints of human beings? We can readily see, in this example, the great benefits of taking preventative steps to curtailing the painful prospect of degenerative arthritis. It would be hard to believe that a free-thinking individual would prefer to wait and see if the care they may require would be granted or denied based on the cost effectiveness to a health care program. What factors would determine if treatment should be granted or denied? Age? Weight? Tax revenue generation of the patient?

Answering the call to take control of our personal health situations can be an intimidating concept to many people but it could not be more critical than it is at this moment. With certain aspects of the health care changes being put into place, the old proverb "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," couldn't be more true.