I have the best story ever! We had a patient we admitted last night. It was a last-minute referral and of course, the patient was ready right then. The team pulled together to figure it out because aside from his primary diagnosis he and his long-time girlfriend are both deaf (he also does not write much) and he needed to be transported to dialysis at 6:15 am. Today, aside from our communication board while we looked into finding an interpreter it was discovered an employee in our therapy department knew how to sign and could help communicate. She helped communicate with him this morning to answer questions and get him settled.
So fast forward through the day and it was discovered that he also had a chemo med that runs about $12,000. He had it at the hospital, but it was not in his belongings today. He thought maybe his girlfriend had it. I called the social worker, but she had left, so I tracked down Nurse Angie. I gave her the information and she thoroughly checked the med room but could not find it. She told me she would check with pharmacy and call me back. She then found a nurse who had the patient during the day yesterday and all she could report was it was in the lock box in his room when she was on duty. She called the pharmacy and they confirmed it was with the patient at the hospital.
I wasn't sure if we were at an impasse, but she assured me she would keep digging. At around 7:30 pm she called me after being able to track down the night shift nurse from yesterday and said the nurse confirmed it had been bagged to go with transport, but from there no one could confirm it left with transport or whether it was left in the room. She said she was determined to fix this and find the medication for the patient. She was going to call their supervisor at home and have them contact the manager of environmental and promised to keep me posted.
It was getting late and I wasn't positive if we could get this resolved, but then just after 8:30 pm she called me. She had tracked it down and had it. She was already supposed to be off and was getting ready to leave. I told her I could come by in the morning and get it. She said no, she didn't want the patient to be without it any longer and felt bad it had not come in the first place. She said she was going to personally deliver it on her way to meet friends after work. This is definitely out of her way and really fantastic and kind of her. I wanted to share this hard work and example of kindness. So happy it worked out for our patient.