Pearson Comprehensive Medical Assisting Questions

these are the notes for this unit. once i pick someone i will send the questions. must know about medical office management. i will read your reviews before i pick you.

Text Readings

Pearson’s Comprehensive Medical Assisting, Chapters 44, 45, 46, 47 and 48

Additional Readings

Supplemental Readings

• OSHA Bloodborne Pathogen Training
• Laboratory
• Hospital PPE—Standard Precautions: Donning
• Seven Wonders of the Microbe World
• What Is Bacteria?
• Flu Attack! How a Virus Invades Your Body
• Fungi: Death Becomes Them
• The Most Horrifying Parasites!
• Old & Odd: Archaea, Bacteria & Protists
• How to Collect Sputum
• Urine Formation and Renal Function
• Urine Color and What It Means
• The Role of Red Blood Cells in Anemia
• Phlebotomy—Medical Assistant Skills

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Lecture Notes

The kind of healthcare environment you work in will dictate how and when you will deal with the clinical laboratory. A clinical laboratory is a place where patient specimens are reviewed to help diagnose and treat a patient. In most cases, physician offices send their specimens to an outside laboratory. In other offices, there may be an in-house lab that reviews the specimens. In any case, the job of the medical assistant is usually to get the specimen from the patient so it can be reviewed by the lab.

It sounds simple enough, right? Get a specimen, like a urine sample, from a patient and send it to the lab. Easy! However, your role in handling patient specimens is an important one. Medical assistants need to ensure that the specimen is collected correctly, placed in the proper container for the specimen type, and labeled correctly. At any of those stages, even a small error can affect how a patient is diagnosed and treated. So don’t underestimate the importance of your role in the laboratory process! Also, you’ll need to follow safety regulations, rules, and guidelines for handling human specimens to avoid endangering yourself and others in the office.

When working with specimens, it’s important to understand microbiology. Microbiology is the study of microscopic organisms. Some of the microscopic organisms in our bodies can cause in illness and disease. Understanding bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms will help you better understand the issues that they cause for patients.

The Clinical Laboratory

A clinical laboratory is a lab area where patient specimens and samples are reviewed for diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease and illness. In some physician offices, the clinical lab is part of the office practice. In other physician offices, the specimens and samples are sent to an offsite clinical lab for review.

Healthcare providers use clinical labs to

• Screen for diseases
• Confirm suspected conditions
• Rule out conditions
• Monitor the effectiveness of treatment
• Assess the progress of disease

Laboratories are regulated by federal, state, and local regulations. Because of the hazards of working with human tissue and fluids, it’s important that the highest standards are in place to protect healthcare workers.

One of the major federal agencies tasked with enforcing safety and health legislation is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA. The agency was created under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.

OSHA requires clinical laboratories to

• Provide and maintain safety equipment
• Control the risk of exposure to chemical and biological materials
• Provide sanitary lab testing
• Undergo annual inspections
• Provide a waste management program
• Implement procedures for infectious material exposure, ventilation failure, first aid, fires, and other emergencies
• Document all exposure incidents, including spills

The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, or CLIA, are federal standards that apply to clinical laboratory testing to ensure quality in laboratory testing. The CLIA program was established in 1988. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, or CMS, oversees the CLIA program. Labs receive certifications from CLIA based on the type of testing they perform on specimens.

Three federal agencies have ultimate responsibility for the CLIA program:

• Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS)

Laboratory Hazards

Working in a laboratory can be dangerous because of all the hazards present. To remain safe in the laboratory, the lab workers should be informed on the potential hazards. The three types of hazards in the laboratory are

• Chemical
• Biological
• Radioactive

Additionally, there are also hazards related to musculoskeletal injuries and other physical issues that result from poor work practices and behaviors.

Handling Specimens

Handling specimens may be part of the daily duties of a medical assistant, even if the assistant doesn’t work in a laboratory. At all times, precautions should be taken to maintain safety as well as the integrity of the specimen.

Standard precautions should always be used when handling specimens. These are standards that will protect healthcare workers and patients from being exposed to infectious disease. These standards require that those performing lab work assume that all specimens are potentially infections.

Standard Precautions

Standard precautions include

• Risk assessment, or evaluating the risk involved to complete the task
• Hand hygiene, such as proper hand-washing techniques
• Use of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves, gowns, lab coats, or goggles
• Environmental controls, such as proper disposal of waste
• Administrative controls, such as training and policies and procedures

Understanding Microbiology

Microbiology is the study of microscopic organisms, or very small organisms that are too small to be seen with the naked eye and must be viewed with a microscope. Some microscopic organisms are harmful to humans and cause disease, whereas many others pose no harm to us at all.

Microorganisms include

• Bacteria
• Viruses
• Fungi
• Protozoa
• Algae
• Archaea

Bacteria

Bacteria are single-celled organisms; that is, they’re made up of one cell. Many people think that all bacteria cause disease. However, in reality, only a very small percentage of bacteria make us sick. Many bacteria serve important roles in the body, including

• Helping us digest food
• Destroying disease
• Providing vitamins

Infectious bacteria can make people sick. Infectious bacteria include

• Streptococcus
• Staphylococcus
• E. coli

Infectious bacteria are generally treated with antibiotics.

When you look at bacteria under a microscope, they may be shaped like spheres, rods, or spirals. In fact, bacteria are often named for their shape:

• Cocci means “spherical”
• Bacilli means “rod shaped”
• Spirilla means “spiral shaped”

The following are just a few of the diseases and infections caused by bacteria:

• Toxic shock syndrome
• Strep throat
• Gonorrhea
• Meningitis
• Salmonella
• Lyme disease
• Cellulitis

Everyone carries Staphylococcus, or staph, on their body. Many of us carry it without it ever developing into an infection. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is one strain of the staph bacteria that usually starts out as a skin infection. It’s dangerous because this strain has become resistant to commonly used antibiotics, which makes it difficult to treat.

Experts believe that this strain of bacteria developed due to overuse of antibiotics. Some of this came from physicians overprescribing antibiotics and using them as broad-spectrum treatment, but it also resulted from patients

• Not completing their full course of antibiotics
• Skipping doses
• Saving the antibiotics for later

Although MRSA started out affecting patients and people mainly in healthcare settings, we’re now seeing an increase in MRSA in healthy people who’ve never been hospitalized or who don’t work in health care.

Viruses

Viruses are the smallest of all microbes. They differ from other microbes because they have to be inside of living organisms to survive and replicate. Viruses work by attaching to a host and then growing from there. The cells then multiply in the body with the virus. Eventually, the virus will kill those cells and the person will get sick.

Different viruses spread in different ways. Viruses can be spread through the following mechanisms:

• Exchange of saliva
• Coughing
• Sneezing
• Sexual contact
• Contaminated food or water
• Transmitters such as mosquitoes

The following diseases are caused by viruses:

• Cold (rhinovirus)
• Measles
• Cold sores
• Chickenpox
• Influenza (“flu”)
• Shingles
• Herpes
• HPV
• Rabies
• Hepatitis
• HIV

Viruses are difficult to treat because they live inside the body’s cells, which are designed to protect what’s inside of them. This means that medications that are sent into the bloodstream generally don’t make it to the virus inside the cell.

A number of antiviral medications are available that can be used to treat certain kinds of viral infections. However, for most non-life-threatening viral infections, the physician may tell the patient to get rest and fluids and just let the virus “run its course.”

Fungi

Fungi are classified in their own kingdom; they’re not plants or animals. Examples of fungi include

• Mushrooms
• Yeasts
• Molds

Many fungi are beneficial to humans and to the environment. In nature, they break down dead and decaying materials and return nutrients to the soil. In the healthcare setting, fungi produce substances such as the antibiotic penicillin and some chemotherapy drugs. Fungi also give flavor to some soft cheeses and blue cheese. Yeast are often used in bread making.

Despite their important beneficial roles, fungi can also cause a number of diseases in humans, including

• Ringworm
• Thrush (oral candidiasis)
• Athlete’s foot

Protozoa

Protozoa are single-celled organisms that are found mainly in water and soil. Some protozoa are parasitic, which means they can only live on or in other things or people—the host—and cause disease. In humans, they can multiply, which can lead to serious infection. Protozoa can be transmitted by

• Contaminated food or water
• Transmitters such as mosquitoes or flies