Health Information Management

Case Study: The Health Information Management Department

In this case, a lawyer came in to the Health Information Management Department of a large teaching hospital looking to pick up their records on their client. When the lawyer entered the Health Information Department, there were some difficulties in not only getting the receptionist to provide assistance, because she was on the phone, but also once the lawyer had articulated his request, there appeared to have been additional difficulties in locating the records that were being picked up. The clear indication was that the receptionist did not know whether the records were available on the premises or not. Eventually, after a frantic search in the front reception area and desks of the

The manager remained calm and immediately went to the window to greet the annoyed lawyer. He produced his documents which indeed did highlight that he faxed his request over the previous day, and it was even addressed to the receptionist who ultimately failed to act on his urgent request. After the manager took over, she finally located the missing paperwork that he was referring to. When an employee filled in for the receptionist the day before during her lunch break, the employee failed to mention her correspondence with the lawyer and erroneously placed the paperwork into the wrong folder - the folder that indicates that there is an issue with a request and it needs to be returned to the requester, not the folder that indicates the request is compliant and ready to be processed - because they did not understand that with a court order you do not need authorization from the patient. He then requested that an effort be made to produce the records immediately, since he was visiting his client (the patient) in the hospital in 30 minutes. The issue with this timeframe was that the records needed were psychiatric records that must be

The manager assessed who was available to assist and pulled that employee off her current task to produce the records expediently. In the meantime, the manager circled back to the lawyer waiting patiently, sympathized with his situation again, and thanked him for being patient. The employee that was assisting the receptionist earlier, came by to thank her for handling that situation that escalated quickly. She told the employee calmly that they were are all a team, regardless if she wasn't their direct manager and reminded him that sometimes situations may arise that puts us under a lot of pressure, but if we all work together towards our common goal, we’ll be fine.

In this case, there may have been some measure of management but, given the outcome or result of the transaction, a case can be made that there was certainly no leadership because the goal of releasing information in a timely matter was never accomplished. The evidence, to support this claim, is provided in the analyses