Medical Assistant Prep / Unit 8 MAS 195 review, 2 to 3 minutes
A Rash and a Fever at the Front Desk
The idea
This case is constructed for this course. It shows how airborne precautions can begin at the front desk, well before anyone knows the diagnosis.
In practice
A mother arrives with a child who has a high fever and a spreading rash, and she mentions that a child at daycare had measles. The medical assistant at the front desk recognizes that this could be an airborne infection. She does not decide what it is, but she does act. She gives the child and the mother face masks and asks them to wait outside the busy waiting room while she alerts the clinical team. The provider confirms that the child should go straight to an airborne infection isolation room if the practice has one, or to a private room with the door closed if it does not. Only staff who are immune and fitted for respirators go in, wearing them. The medical assistant also notes who else was in the waiting room and when, in case the provider needs that information later. Throughout, she follows the practice's policy for suspected airborne infections instead of improvising.
Where people slip
Masking and separating the child took a few moments and needed no diagnosis. Letting the child sit in the waiting room until the provider was free would have exposed everyone there, including other children and any adults who were not immune. Suspicion was enough, so she acted on it and left the diagnosis to the provider. Her list of who had been in the room was also a small act of protection, because it lets the provider follow up with anyone who may have been exposed before the precautions began.
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