the suckage has to do with VITAS
I rant about US's crappy health care system fairly often and so do a lot of people, so I'll keep this one short and you can fill in my feelings of annoyances because I'm sure you, dear readers, can relate in some way shape or form.
VITAS (at least the branch in SW Houston), is not an automated health unit. Almost all of their paper work is done by hand and certainly, nurses notes are hand written (about 5-7 forms each vist. I still have them and they're kinda cool to read when the carbon paper doesn't smudge up the writitng). Scheduling is done by hand as well. Pharmeceuticals are handled the old fashioned way--phoned into a lab with a human on the other end. Then, everything is hand entered into some sort of medical database at night.
The funeral home can't creamate his body yet because....drumroll please....VITAS lost all his medical information when their database crashed last Friday (Dad's funeral was Saturday) and the doctor can't sign the death certificate until all the information has been reviewed. For God's sake, He's lying in a coffin right now. I doubt he's just sleeping.
Was there a proper backup plan? Sort of. They are all currently hand entering people's medical records right now. Granted, they only cater to about 15 patients at a time, but still, this is not cool. We're (as in the Funeral Home and my family) are waiting for the okay before we can creamate Daddy,
I'm sure my dad is rolling his eyes up in Heaven right now shaking his head. I should point out, Daddy, that I did clean the fish tank and totally redecorate it for Ma! It's purty.... :)
VITAS (at least the branch in SW Houston), is not an automated health unit. Almost all of their paper work is done by hand and certainly, nurses notes are hand written (about 5-7 forms each vist. I still have them and they're kinda cool to read when the carbon paper doesn't smudge up the writitng). Scheduling is done by hand as well. Pharmeceuticals are handled the old fashioned way--phoned into a lab with a human on the other end. Then, everything is hand entered into some sort of medical database at night.
The funeral home can't creamate his body yet because....drumroll please....VITAS lost all his medical information when their database crashed last Friday (Dad's funeral was Saturday) and the doctor can't sign the death certificate until all the information has been reviewed. For God's sake, He's lying in a coffin right now. I doubt he's just sleeping.
Was there a proper backup plan? Sort of. They are all currently hand entering people's medical records right now. Granted, they only cater to about 15 patients at a time, but still, this is not cool. We're (as in the Funeral Home and my family) are waiting for the okay before we can creamate Daddy,
I'm sure my dad is rolling his eyes up in Heaven right now shaking his head. I should point out, Daddy, that I did clean the fish tank and totally redecorate it for Ma! It's purty.... :)
posted by cchang at 9:25 AM
2 Comments:
DOH! Not his girlfriends funeral, his girlfriends MOTHER'S funeral. BIG DIFFERENCE >.>
Yeah, apparently human remains need a permit for transport as well. Some weird WEIRD stuff I would have never thought of. I also learned it's illegal to spread a loved one's ashes into the sea due to pollution. I guess that makes sense, but yikes, you certainly hear about it frequently enough to make on think it's an okay thing to do
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