Working from Home

It wasn't originally in my plans to spend tonight at home. I'm usually finding one activity or another that enables me to stay out of the house as long as possible.  But I'm working on things here that I would be doing if I were to have my own place, and I don't have to interact with my parents at all.

At work I see more paperwork than I do clients.  It's driving me nuts.  I'm overwhelmed with trying to keep track of all the different diagnoses, what the Social Work department found, what the LCSW diagnosed them with, what PT and OT are working on them with.  A lot of these frustrations would be eliminated if we actually did Multi-Disciplinary Team meetings.  If OT, PT, RN, and SW were to actually quickly discuss and review what they found with the client at the end of the re-assessment period, then we could work together on the same goals over the next 6 months.

So I'm creating a log that compares what the SW department finds as a diagnosis and the reasoning, with that of the LCSW just so there's less confusion.  I had a chart with me this entire week because the pt had a diagnosis of depression from the LCSW, a prescription for Elavil from the primary care physician; but no diagnosis of depression from the doctor, or any other evident symptoms.  So I had to call and fax the doctor to get a straight answer, and then referred out to the LCSW so that we could figure out why the pt has a flat affect displays other symptoms, but certainly not depression.  If there had been such a log in the past, there wouldn't be this confusion - why did SW and LCSW have differing paperwork.

I'm creating a volunteer manual as well with HIPAA regulations, the NASW Code of Ethics, and I plan to be reading and drafting instructionals about what we do at our ADHC.  I want to include information about the most commonly seen issues: depression, dementia, Alzheimer's, medication mismanagement, etc.  Why?  I've put word out to two colleges requesting volunteers who will provide translation for our social work groups.  We are sorely in need of translators, there's only one person on staff to translate Chinese to English, and that does not help matters when it comes to Vietnamese.  It's very difficult to conduct therapy with one Social Worker, one pt, and 2 translators!  So hopefully I'll have a few bilingual volunteers, and it might might make my life a little easier.