Behind the scenes

While the patients are busy with their treatment plan assignments, we are busy with support behind the scenes.

Sometimes a lot of activity takes place in a patient's management between visits. When we work with a patient, we are involved in the entirety of their care for their neurological problems. In this type of relationship, we are sometimes called by other physicians to discuss aspects of their care, with permission. Sometimes abnormal tests arrive and the patient is not due back for a while and we need to deal with them. Sometimes, a patient will have a problem that cannot wait until they return for a visit. These are some of the "behind the scenes" activities that can take place.

One function is handling patient phone calls and another large function is the assimilation of tests . These are part of the overall effort to provice excellent support service.

Patient Calls

Although we prefer face-to face conversations for patient evaluation and teaching, there are circumstances that require telephone contact. When a patient calls with a problem, an RN will take the call and the issue is discussed with the neurologist. The patient is called back and the recommendations are communicated to the patient. This is a strong point of our practice and many problems are averted through this efficient system, many people are reassured and helped to cope with their illness or medication effects.

Tests

Much behind-the-scene activity takes place in a practice such as ours. We are processing a constant flow of incoming test results and each one is carefully reviewed by the nursing staff. Questionable results as well as abnormal values are discussed with the physician, using a unique in-house e-mail system. We are constantly evaluating this information and it is not unusual for us to contact the patient between visits to order additional testing or to adjust medications. We also have developed an internal test auditing system to spot delinquent results before they pose a problem. Many of our test results are sent to us electronically to further reduce the chance of errors.