The Practically Paperless Office

"There’s no toilet paper in the restroom".

Dr. Johnson mentally shook himself. He was in his daily zone, and wasn’t concentrating clearly as the Mrs. Sally Fernarke listed off her complaints. She was one of his diabetes patients that he was tracking, and her weekly appointments to check her Hemoglobin A1C levels were often filled with long rants about her daily life.

Dr. Johnson didn’t think about this part of medicine when he was in school, but soon learned that it came with the territory. Some patients just were bored and didn’t have anyone to talk to. Others trusted him explicitly with everything in their lives. Others just established rapport so naturally that they couldn’t help themselves. Dr. Johnson usually listened intently and participated in the conversations, but sometimes he couldn’t help but zone it out.

That’s when Mrs. Fernarke said it. "There’s no toilet paper in the restroom". "What?" Dr. Johnson replied? Why had this particular rant shaken him from his trance?

"In your waiting room restrooms, there’s no toilet paper. Do you know that? You wouldn’t believe what I had to do…"

She went into a long conversation involving details that only a medical provider could appreciate without laughing out loud – or vomiting. "Why was there no paper in the restroom?" he thought to himself.

"Oh no!" The answer finally came clear to him."It can’t be", he accidentally spoke his last thought out loud.

"What?" Sally asked.

"Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Fernarke." Dr. Johnson returned to the world of the living. "I’ll get it taken care of. I’m not sure what happened."

Sally’s A1c levels were fine, so he dispensed his usually advice about blood sugar testing, diet and exercise. When he had finished with her visit, he went straight to the office manager’s office.

Betty Anderson was a nice young woman who seemed perfectly suited to manage her boss. She put up with his occasional rants and handled his temper. But most of all, she was pretty good with the two front desk employees, the biller, his physician assistant, and the two medical assistants. However, on occasion she was a little…off.

"Betty, how come there is no toilet paper in the women’s restroom?"

Betty hesitated for just a second. She thought it might come to this. "Well, do you remember when you told me that we can’t order any more paper, no matter what the excuse?"

Dr. Johnson was a little flushed at this point. He was hoping it wasn’t related to his rant about a week ago. His hope had been killed. How could she take this so literally? "Yes", he started. "But…" The words had escaped him. In a couple of years, this would all be so funny, he thought.

Betty took his verbal constipation as an opportunity to defend herself. "I tried to tell you. We can’t get rid of all the paper. You got mad at me after I ordered that extra ream of paper for the fax machine."

"Betty, we haven’t used that ream. It is just sitting there. Everything is electronic, including the faxes."

"But you said that you would fire me if I bought any paper."

There it was. They had purchased an electronic health record system that completely eliminated paper in the office. No faxes, no medical records, and apparently, no toilet paper. Everything was digital. Well, almost everything.

To his dismay, one of the medical assistants was listening to the whole hallway conversation, and was now laughing hysterically. Betty began to stifle a laugh as well, and soon Dr. Johnson realized he was the butt of the joke, quite literally.

Holding back his own laughter, Dr. Johnson told Betty to run downstairs and see if they could borrow some toilet paper from Dr. Lemonjello’s office on the 2nd floor. He then asked her to order toilet paper, but nothing else.

Maybe this would be funny a lot sooner than 2 years from now.

EMR
Electronic Medical Records