HEAVERNER, OK – Luck of the Draw Medical Center (LDMC) has been featured on GomerBlog before because of porcelain bedpan incantations proven to ward off bad luck on full moon Friday the 13ths. However, these extreme superstitions are simply not cost effective.
LDMC saved money with efficient policy changes and by emptying the nurse float pool, but nothing attracts patients with insurance more than trendy phrases like “robot surgery” and “preventative care.” In fact, it was right after a robotic surgery case that this new type of preventative care emerged.
The stitches were all closed, but the multiple laparoscopic sites still looked like the patient had guest starred on Duck Dynasty as a clay pigeon. Nurse anesthetist Shannon Androgin fidgeted with a vial of Narcan. The patient still had pinpoint pupils and wasn’t breathing. Even the robot seemed to be staring at Shannon with critical, blinking LEDs, silently asking why the patient wasn’t extubated yet.
Shannon rolled the vial on the patient’s slumbering forehead, back and forth, forth and back – she was awake! “Get this tube out of my mouth!” she lip-synced with more accuracy than Britney Spears. Shannon’s jaw dropped as he stared at the bottle of Narcan, so the robot extubated his patient. It can do that; it’s a newer model.
Upstairs on step down unit 4 South Southwest, RN Johnny Male cares for his sick patient. The PVCs are blipping across the monitor screen with increasing frequency, the heart rhythm threatening to become an even uglier acronym also containing the letter “V.”
“It’s just a routine part of your care here at LDMC,” Johnny lies as he carefully places defibrillation pads on the patient’s chest. The monitor immediately stops blaring out its custom cardiac alarm “Hold On, We’re Going Home” by Drake as beautiful P waves appear on the screen, each one followed by a textbook QRS complex and T wave at appropriate intervals.
Strangely, LDMC is also able to bill for preventative care when GomerBlog writes anecdotal articles in present tense. Gentle readers, there is no time like the present to prevent future expensive health complications. Please have your prostate or ovaries checked immediately before reading the rest of this article. You may want to finish these words of wisdom standing up, but be aware that LDMC needs your help in finding more billable, preventative, superstitious rituals to drive costs and profits in opposite directions.
As he meandered through LDMC’s dark hallways looking for an exit, this intrepid reporter couldn’t help but hear ICU intensivist Dr. Ashume giving orders.
“Just prepare the epinephrine drip, but don’t start it,” she said. “Also, hang a bottle of nitro from the IV pole and tap it twice, but don’t prime the IV line yet. If that doesn’t work, change the harsh red color of the arterial waveform to a soft lavender and lower the bed by two inches.”
