What A PITA For QA

Recently, my quality assurance has handed down a new policy.

Policy: “Employees are not to use any abbreviations in call notes whatsoever. Shorthand is not permitted.”

I work in a call center taking information for admissions of new medical clients, so the people reading my charts/notes will be medical professionals. The only abbreviations used are those commonly known in the practice, such as IOP (intensive outpatient), ASAP (who doesn’t know this?), and etc. (come on now).

I adopted their rule to the letter. I wrote out every single thing that would typically be abbreviated. Sometimes, the notes required that times be recorded. For example: “I set the callback expectation for ‘by 10:00 am’.”

In my most recent scoring, I was marked off for “spelling errors in notes”.

Me: “Can we review my scores, please?”

Supervisor: “Writing ‘ante meridiem’ is what caused you to lose points.”

I kindly cited the new rule that required no abbreviations to be used.

Supervisor: “I’ve never heard that term before.”

Me: “It’s the long form of the term ‘am’ in times. It’s Latin, and it means ‘before midday’.”

My score was amended to reflect no error was made.