Interruption In Health And Social Care Interview Essay
Interviewer: All right, I am going to start the interview questions for participant number four. My first question is what is your interpretation of workplace interruptions? So, what do you think workplace interruptions mean, if you had to describe them?
Interviewee: Any disruption in your flow of patient care. If you are working on a task and someone stops to ask you a question or getting a phone call. Anything that takes your attention away from what you were doing towards your patient care.
Interviewer: Okay, I'm just writing a couple things. All right, that sounds great. Question number two is; tell me about your nursing position and then the types of interruptions you encounter during a typical day.
Interviewee: I am a public …show more content…
health nurse, I go to client's homes every year, every six months and when I am not in their homes, I'm doing paperwork and case management in the office. In the homes, we get animal interruptions, like pet animals, T.V., radio, screaming children, children running around, and other family members. Then we also have personal conversations that you hear over cubicles, phones calls from other clients and intake calls.
Interviewer: So, the intake calls are like new clients or patients that you are going to see, is that what that is?
Interviewee: Intake.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Interviewee: Intake is, you just take a day, like three days a month and anyone that calls into public health, get directed to you. So, they could be a new client or they can be like something about lawn, it can be any sort of question that you get. Then you direct them to the right person or you look them up in our system and answer their question.
Interviewer: Okay, so you said, at work personal conversations, intake calls and then other phone calls too.
Interviewee: Uh-huh. Let's see, then we have different departments. We are not necessarily all nurses, but clerical people or billing people and management coming and asking you questions about when you marked something for billing and did you do it correctly or what you meant by it. Then the social workers upstairs also communicate with us via email or calls about certain clients.
If you have a client in common with them, like a wife, husband or child, we usually communicate back and forth with them, so that's interrupting while you are doing paperwork or whatever for another client. Then we also get alerts from the Mayo clinic if they are in the ER or hospitalized and that always pops up on your screen as well as in your email.
Interviewer: So, if your clients are in the ER.
Interviewee: Uh-huh.
Interviewer: Got ya.
Interviewee: Or admitted to the floor.
Interviewer: Okay.
Interviewee: And then when they get discharged as well.
Interviewer: Okay.
Interviewee: So, those are just the alerts that we get.
Interviewer: The animals, is that just like dogs bark, like dogs and animals out of control or just like they are in the way?
Interviewee: Well, today there was bird that was just chirping the while time and it would get really loud and the client couldn’t hear me when I was asking questions and it's also hard to hear the client back. We have had dogs barking or cats coming and jumping on my computer while I'm trying to type, just all of those kinds of things.
Interviewer: With the children, some of them might be a little rambunctious at times.
Interviewee: Uh-huh, yes. Grandchildren and they are all ages and running around and screaming and touching your stuff.
Interviewer: You are like, no, germs, no.
Interviewee: Yeah, I know. I think that is all I can think of right now.
Interviewer: That sounds great, that sound like a great list. Question number three, can you tell me how you cope with workplace interruptions and give me an example of how you respond to one?
Interviewee: So, if I am in the office, I put my earbuds in to try and drowned out any sort of personal conversations or conversations people are having on the phone. I can put down my charting, where you get your alerts, so I don’t have to see that, or you can just minimize it in your email. I can put my phone on silent, which I do quite a bit if I am trying to get something done, so then it just goes to voicemail. Sometimes in the client's home, we request them to put the animal in a different room so we can hear them well and they are not interrupting.
Usually if we give a look and the children are being loud, they usually put them in a different room as well. Today, I will give you that example, the bird was chirping really loud so the daughter, we were just sitting there and it got really loud and before we had to say anything, she went and got a towel and put it over and the bird was quite the rest of the time. If she wouldn’t have, I would have asked her to move it into a different room or do something to make it quite.
Interviewer: Yeah. That's good that the towel just made it, I didn’t know if that would make it worse, but it must work.
Interviewee: It made it quite, it instantly stopped.
Interviewer: Sounds great. All right, question number four, can you tell me about a time when a workplace interruption had a positive impact on patient care? I am trying to think of one that would be in public health.
Interviewee: Well, I guess like our alerts are positive because if they are getting discharged home from the hospital and they don’t call us. Sometimes we don’t have the proper services set up in homes and Mayo social workers may think that they do, because the clients tell them that they do, but they don’t actually call and talk to us.
So, they could get sent home and not have proper care and then end up being readmitted, but if we are alerted with the discharge then we usually call right away and say, are you home, what happened and are your service adequate.
We can always call the social workers, which we do sometimes, just to see what they set up, has anything changed and we see the discharge instructions.
Interviewer: That's great.
Interviewee: So, I think that improves knowing when they are being discharged, even though it's an interruption, but I think it improves.
Interviewer: Yeah, for the patient safety, really. Question number five is, can you tell me about a time when a workplace interruption has a negative impact on patient care?
Interviewee: Just the side conversation around our cubicles, because that is what we do if we are talking about personal conversation or you have another client in your trying to work on a client, you could mess up the paperwork, which just happened sending it to our secretary person to file. We have certain number assigned to everyone in our charting system and I have made mistakes where it wasn’t the right person with the right number. So, just with that added distraction, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Interviewee: So, then you have to go back and recheck it and email that clerical person and say, this was meant for this and not this, delete it.
Interviewer:
Yeah.
Interviewee: Or faxing it to the wrong number and all of those things happen when you are distracted or if there is a lot of noise going on around you, it's hard to focus.
Interviewer: Yeah, do you have to do a lot of faxes or it just depends?
Interviewee: I fax a lot, but what we do it just put it in an email and then fax it to the clerical person and she does the cover page and everything like that.
Interviewer: Got ya.
Interviewee: Yeah, we fax service agreements and assessments and all of those kinds of things.
Interviewer: That’s great examples. All right, question number 6 is, how were you prepared to handle workplace interruptions through your schooling or your employer? So, in your schooling, did they ever talk to you about interruptions or at your job? Or, is it something that you just feel that you kind of learn as you go and you are thrown into?
Interviewee: I think, in school they did a little bit, but I remember it in reference more to floor nursing. You know, make sure that you are paying attention when you are double-checking everything. Before giving meds, be sure that it’s the right patient and all of those things. In public health, we just talk about trying to keep the noise to a minimum if you are talking on the phone, don’t be yelling.
Sometimes it's hard with clients because they are hard of hearing, but you try to be really cognizant of people around you. So, just talking low volume and if you need to take personal calls, we have several different rooms that you can go to make those calls, so you are not causing extra noise about your personal stuff in the work environment.
Interviewer: Yeah, that's great.
Interviewee: We can always go outside, if it's too loud in the office, if we are able to do that, just doing paperwork out there. Sometimes, if you just want to finish at home, we are able to do that too. It helps us to get out of that noisy environment.
Interviewer: Sounds good. All right, question number seven is, tell me about how workplace interruptions effect your stress level and job satisfaction?
Interviewee: It hasn’t been too stressful on me, just because I can put my ear buds in and drowned out most people, but when you are trying to really focus and the deadlines are coming and people are being loud and knocking on your cubical and asking you questions, that can be a little stressful. Because everything is due at a certain time and if people keep interrupting you then you have to stay later or chart why you were late and things like that. What was the other part of that question?
Interviewer: If interruptions have an effect on your job satisfaction?
Interviewee: Not so far, but eventually it might, but at this point and time, not yet.
Interviewer: All right. Question number eight is, what recommendations would you have for new nursing graduates to manage workplace interruptions during their first nursing position?
Interviewee: Any disruption in your flow of patient care. If you are working on a task and someone stops to ask you a question or getting a phone call. Anything that takes your attention away from what you were doing towards your patient care.
Interviewer: Okay, I'm just writing a couple things. All right, that sounds great. Question number two is; tell me about your nursing position and then the types of interruptions you encounter during a typical day.
Interviewee: I am a public …show more content…
health nurse, I go to client's homes every year, every six months and when I am not in their homes, I'm doing paperwork and case management in the office. In the homes, we get animal interruptions, like pet animals, T.V., radio, screaming children, children running around, and other family members. Then we also have personal conversations that you hear over cubicles, phones calls from other clients and intake calls.
Interviewer: So, the intake calls are like new clients or patients that you are going to see, is that what that is?
Interviewee: Intake.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Interviewee: Intake is, you just take a day, like three days a month and anyone that calls into public health, get directed to you. So, they could be a new client or they can be like something about lawn, it can be any sort of question that you get. Then you direct them to the right person or you look them up in our system and answer their question.
Interviewer: Okay, so you said, at work personal conversations, intake calls and then other phone calls too.
Interviewee: Uh-huh. Let's see, then we have different departments. We are not necessarily all nurses, but clerical people or billing people and management coming and asking you questions about when you marked something for billing and did you do it correctly or what you meant by it. Then the social workers upstairs also communicate with us via email or calls about certain clients.
If you have a client in common with them, like a wife, husband or child, we usually communicate back and forth with them, so that's interrupting while you are doing paperwork or whatever for another client. Then we also get alerts from the Mayo clinic if they are in the ER or hospitalized and that always pops up on your screen as well as in your email.
Interviewer: So, if your clients are in the ER.
Interviewee: Uh-huh.
Interviewer: Got ya.
Interviewee: Or admitted to the floor.
Interviewer: Okay.
Interviewee: And then when they get discharged as well.
Interviewer: Okay.
Interviewee: So, those are just the alerts that we get.
Interviewer: The animals, is that just like dogs bark, like dogs and animals out of control or just like they are in the way?
Interviewee: Well, today there was bird that was just chirping the while time and it would get really loud and the client couldn’t hear me when I was asking questions and it's also hard to hear the client back. We have had dogs barking or cats coming and jumping on my computer while I'm trying to type, just all of those kinds of things.
Interviewer: With the children, some of them might be a little rambunctious at times.
Interviewee: Uh-huh, yes. Grandchildren and they are all ages and running around and screaming and touching your stuff.
Interviewer: You are like, no, germs, no.
Interviewee: Yeah, I know. I think that is all I can think of right now.
Interviewer: That sounds great, that sound like a great list. Question number three, can you tell me how you cope with workplace interruptions and give me an example of how you respond to one?
Interviewee: So, if I am in the office, I put my earbuds in to try and drowned out any sort of personal conversations or conversations people are having on the phone. I can put down my charting, where you get your alerts, so I don’t have to see that, or you can just minimize it in your email. I can put my phone on silent, which I do quite a bit if I am trying to get something done, so then it just goes to voicemail. Sometimes in the client's home, we request them to put the animal in a different room so we can hear them well and they are not interrupting.
Usually if we give a look and the children are being loud, they usually put them in a different room as well. Today, I will give you that example, the bird was chirping really loud so the daughter, we were just sitting there and it got really loud and before we had to say anything, she went and got a towel and put it over and the bird was quite the rest of the time. If she wouldn’t have, I would have asked her to move it into a different room or do something to make it quite.
Interviewer: Yeah. That's good that the towel just made it, I didn’t know if that would make it worse, but it must work.
Interviewee: It made it quite, it instantly stopped.
Interviewer: Sounds great. All right, question number four, can you tell me about a time when a workplace interruption had a positive impact on patient care? I am trying to think of one that would be in public health.
Interviewee: Well, I guess like our alerts are positive because if they are getting discharged home from the hospital and they don’t call us. Sometimes we don’t have the proper services set up in homes and Mayo social workers may think that they do, because the clients tell them that they do, but they don’t actually call and talk to us.
So, they could get sent home and not have proper care and then end up being readmitted, but if we are alerted with the discharge then we usually call right away and say, are you home, what happened and are your service adequate.
We can always call the social workers, which we do sometimes, just to see what they set up, has anything changed and we see the discharge instructions.
Interviewer: That's great.
Interviewee: So, I think that improves knowing when they are being discharged, even though it's an interruption, but I think it improves.
Interviewer: Yeah, for the patient safety, really. Question number five is, can you tell me about a time when a workplace interruption has a negative impact on patient care?
Interviewee: Just the side conversation around our cubicles, because that is what we do if we are talking about personal conversation or you have another client in your trying to work on a client, you could mess up the paperwork, which just happened sending it to our secretary person to file. We have certain number assigned to everyone in our charting system and I have made mistakes where it wasn’t the right person with the right number. So, just with that added distraction, you know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Interviewee: So, then you have to go back and recheck it and email that clerical person and say, this was meant for this and not this, delete it.
Interviewer:
Yeah.
Interviewee: Or faxing it to the wrong number and all of those things happen when you are distracted or if there is a lot of noise going on around you, it's hard to focus.
Interviewer: Yeah, do you have to do a lot of faxes or it just depends?
Interviewee: I fax a lot, but what we do it just put it in an email and then fax it to the clerical person and she does the cover page and everything like that.
Interviewer: Got ya.
Interviewee: Yeah, we fax service agreements and assessments and all of those kinds of things.
Interviewer: That’s great examples. All right, question number 6 is, how were you prepared to handle workplace interruptions through your schooling or your employer? So, in your schooling, did they ever talk to you about interruptions or at your job? Or, is it something that you just feel that you kind of learn as you go and you are thrown into?
Interviewee: I think, in school they did a little bit, but I remember it in reference more to floor nursing. You know, make sure that you are paying attention when you are double-checking everything. Before giving meds, be sure that it’s the right patient and all of those things. In public health, we just talk about trying to keep the noise to a minimum if you are talking on the phone, don’t be yelling.
Sometimes it's hard with clients because they are hard of hearing, but you try to be really cognizant of people around you. So, just talking low volume and if you need to take personal calls, we have several different rooms that you can go to make those calls, so you are not causing extra noise about your personal stuff in the work environment.
Interviewer: Yeah, that's great.
Interviewee: We can always go outside, if it's too loud in the office, if we are able to do that, just doing paperwork out there. Sometimes, if you just want to finish at home, we are able to do that too. It helps us to get out of that noisy environment.
Interviewer: Sounds good. All right, question number seven is, tell me about how workplace interruptions effect your stress level and job satisfaction?
Interviewee: It hasn’t been too stressful on me, just because I can put my ear buds in and drowned out most people, but when you are trying to really focus and the deadlines are coming and people are being loud and knocking on your cubical and asking you questions, that can be a little stressful. Because everything is due at a certain time and if people keep interrupting you then you have to stay later or chart why you were late and things like that. What was the other part of that question?
Interviewer: If interruptions have an effect on your job satisfaction?
Interviewee: Not so far, but eventually it might, but at this point and time, not yet.
Interviewer: All right. Question number eight is, what recommendations would you have for new nursing graduates to manage workplace interruptions during their first nursing position?