Paper clips are so yesterday

Do client notes disappear after you paper clip them to a patient chart? Do your blood work or hospital notes sneak into the wrong file? Maybe it's time to kick the paper clip habit, says Jean Weaver, hospital administrator at Catawba Animal Clinic in Rock Hill, S.C. "Our doctors would use two or three clips on charts to try to keep notes and educational materials together," Weaver says. "These notes would inevitably fall off or become attached to another chart in the discharge box."

The solution: Weaver purchased clear and colored transparent pocket folders. When a patient chart is removed from the file folder for hospitalization or day care, it's placed in a transparent folder. Boarded pets' charts are placed in colored folders, which help team members return the charts to the correct checkout desk. "If a client visits with several pets, we place all of the charts in the same pocket folder," Weaver says. "Since the folders are transparent it's easy to see all the notes, educational materials, and anything else that we've placed in the folder." Some clear benefits: Clients leave with the right materials and you suffer fewer separated or lost notes.