Medical Assistant Prep / Unit 7 MAS 172 review, 2 to 3 minutes
A Cough in the Waiting Room
The idea
This scene is constructed for this course. It follows one coughing patient through a busy morning, from the front desk to the exam room, to show how standard precautions break the chain of infection at several links.
In practice
A man arrives coughing hard and sits near an older woman holding a baby. At the front desk, the medical assistant sees the cough and acts before checking his insurance. She offers him a tissue and a face mask, points him to the alcohol rub, and asks him to take a seat at the far end of the room, well away from the others. She then cleans her own hands, because she handled the clipboard he touched. When a clinical medical assistant brings him back, she wears a face mask for the exam, because he has signs of a respiratory infection. She cleans her hands before touching him, and again after taking his vital signs. After the visit, she wipes down the exam table, the arm of the chair and the blood pressure cuff before the next patient enters. Then she wipes the clipboard as well. Each action targeted a link. The mask on the patient covered a portal of exit. Distance and hand hygiene interrupted transmission. Cleaning removed the reservoirs he left on surfaces. And protecting the older woman and the baby shielded two susceptible hosts.
Where people slip
None of these steps required knowing what the man had. Standard precautions work because they do not wait for a diagnosis. Waiting for the provider to say "it was contagious" would have been too late for everyone he passed in the waiting room, including the baby, who could not protect herself.
Your place on the trail
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