Greys Anatomy Season 14 Episode 8: Out of Nowhere

Since Greys Anatomy is my favorite show, and is very relevant to my major as well as my future career path, I knew I needed to blog about it at one point.  In watching last weeks episode, the first thing I thought of was our management class.

There was a crisis in the hospital where a cyber attack took place.  All of a sudden, there was a mass failure throughout the hospital on all of the heart monitors.  It sounded as if everybody was coding (or flat lining) which definitely does not happen every day.  They soon realize that this was a hospital-wide issue.  A message popped up on every piece of technology asking for a specific sum of money, with a message stating that the hackers "controlled their system now".  This meant that complete strangers now had access to every patient in Seattle Grace Hospital's medical records. This is when the Chief of Surgery had to step in to assess the situation.  The Chief's first goal was to remind all of the doctors that they need to continue to do their jobs, but the old fashion way.  Check, double check, and check again every test you do on the patients and write EVERYTHING down. Next, she had to assure the patients and their families that everyone was going to be okay. Then, she had to deal with the FBI.  The Chief thought everybody was calm, and dealing with the situation until the FBI showed up, and this sparked controversy again.  They went into a separate room with the Chief, and the old Chief and discussed the next steps quietly.  The hackers were asking for a large sum of money (Bit coins) in order to give back control to the hospital.  The Chief wanted to give the money, because patient care comes first, however, the situation was torn because the FBI said this was an ongoing investigation.  If the hospital gave the hackers the money, it would help Seattle Grace out of this hack, but allow the hackers to realize they won, and will probably strike somewhere else again.    
You will need to watch the episode to see how it turned out, but I felt as if this was the most relevant episode to what we learn about in Management. 

This episode goes hand-in-hand to the idea of Crisis Management that Susanna Fier spoke about in our class on November 27th. I was able to relate the stories Fier spoke about in class to this episode, and it was able to give me a visual representation of what a person in charge during a crisis has to undergo.  Although Greys Anatomy is a television show, with a lot of crazy, unimaginable things that happen in it, it can be very informative.  I definitely have learned a lot of interesting facts, and seen cool cases over the 14 seasons of the show!

A Young CNA During the Holidays

As the holiday seasons are fast approaching, I start to think about the people who cannot spend time with their families, have great food, and be in the comfort of their own home.  It is sad to see people who are alone on the holidays, but you know what is worse than that? Being alone and in the hospital as well.  One of my best friends is a Certified Nurses Assistant (CNA) at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. She is an aspiring future Nurse, and is gaining a lot of knowledge and experience through this job at Mount Auburn.  She works long hours at the hospital, and has to travel over an hour away from school to home every weekend to donate her time to these sick patients.  She experiences a lot for a young college student working in a hospital.  As we know, this past week was Thanksgiving.  She explained to me that every day is a tough day for the patients, but holiday's are amongst the hardest.  She said the hospital does get busy with visitors during this time, however, there are still a good amount of people who do not get any visitors at all.  This is extremely saddening.  Not only do some people get no visitors, but there are many patients who are admitted into the hospital during the holidays with excessive alcohol consumption.  This goes to show you another example of how many people suffer with loneliness on the holidays.  It is a difficult job to do what my friend does at such a young age, but she is experiencing a lot of real-world situations that will help her better prepare to become a successful nurse one day.

One specific area in which she said is emotional, especially during the holidays, is when she has to take care of a suicidal patient.  This is a tough job, because as a CNA, you have to be aware and attentive at all times.  "If a patient is suicidal, they cannot have phones with cords, knives, forks, razors, anything sharp, or anything they could put around their neck", says my friend.  Her daily tasks in supervising a suicidal patient would be to just sit with the patients, watch them, and take them to the bathroom.  Although it is not the busiest of work, it is a very important job.  She did say, depending upon the case, some patients need more than one supervisor at once.  For example, if they are violent or a threat, there usually would need to be more than one supervisor.  Overall, my friend has a very important, yet tough job.  She explains it is very hard to see what she sees at such a young age, but she is grateful that she gets to help people every day, while doing what she loves.  I think she is going to make a great Nurse one day!

     

Hospitals Carry Infections Too

Although people may think that hospitals are the safest, cleanest place to be when your sick, those people are wrong.  Hospitals are "breeding grounds" for infections.  You can get an infection from any of the equipment, supplies, and other sicknesses that are traveling through the hospital.  Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is the most common infection to travel around a hospital. It is resistant to all antibiotics, and you can receive it from dirty equipment.  It is an infection in your skin and can be very dangerous. It is spread by contact, and can also be called a staph infection.  This is the most common disease that spreads, but how is it controlled?

There are many precautions when it comes to controlling the spread of MRSA.  Six standard precautions hospitals have to follow are hand washing, gloving, mouth, nose, eye protection, gowning, important device handling of patient care equipment, and appropriate handle of laundry.  The same procedures, and then some, go for contact precautions as well.  It seems as if the reoccurring theme is to protect anything used in the hospital that could potentially spread this disease.  This is difficult because staff, nurses, and doctors need to make sure they do not skip the step of putting on gloves or wiping down a machine after it is used. If something were to go wrong, there would be a huge liability on their hands.

Therefore, be cautious when your in the hospital, and make sure you are receiving sterilized supplies and any one who is working on you has gloves on! You can never be to careful.   

https://www.sharecare.com/health/infectious-disease/what-kinds-infections-get-hospital
https://www.cdc.gov/mrsa/

Finally, Maine's Medicaid Expansion

It is official as of yesterday, November 7, 2017 Maine, the last state in New England who had yet to expand Medicaid, did it! This vote makes Maine the 32nd state to expand Medicaid under Obamacare.  This will now benefit all of the low-income adults who qualify for coverage in Maine.  This also represents a set back for the Republican party, who continues to try and veto the expansion of Medicaid.  This ballot was known as "Question 2".  Over $1.5 million dollars was invested into the expansion in Maine.  "Some 80,000 adults will qualify under the expansion, according to independent estimates from a Maine legislative fiscal office, adding to the nearly 12 million people in the 31 states and District of Columbia who have already obtained coverage through the program" (Politico-Maine Voters Approve Medicaid).  We actually just had a question on our Health Policy exam last week that asked, 'what is the only state in New England who has yet to expand Medicaid?'. The timing is pretty ironic.  Until this Policy class, I had no idea all of New England expanded, except for Maine. 

It will now remain difficult for Medicaid to expand in many of the other states because they are mostly predominately "red states".  This means that Republicans control the governors "mansion or state legislature".  However, if people continue to push as they did for Maine, it will eventually become easier to expand Medicaid in those states if that is what people wanted.  There are now 18 states that have not expanded Medicaid under Obamacare.  All are led by Democrats, except for Virginia and North Carolina, who are led by Republicans.  Those might be the more difficult ones to budge. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/07/maine-voters-medicaid-obamacare-244675