Hi kids! Clicky here. Today we are going to learn the most exciting thing in all of records: filing. Hold on to your feathers. (I have feathers.)
You probably think the best way to put folders in a drawer is ABC order. Abernathy goes in front, Zhang goes in back. Easy! But a records office with a hundred thousand folders tried that, and something terrible happened: the S drawer was full every single day, the X drawer had one folder in it, and everybody who worked in the S aisle had to eat lunch standing up.
So records people invented something cleverer called terminal-digit filing. Every chart gets a number, like 44-71-90. Instead of reading it from the front, you read it from the back. The last two digits (90) tell you which section. The middle two (71) tell you which shelf. The first two (44) tell you where on the shelf. Because the last two digits of new numbers come out evenly, every section fills up at the same speed, and nobody has to eat lunch standing up.
You might ask, “Why not just read the number from the front, like a normal person?” Because the front digits go up slowly, one new patient at a time, so all the new folders would pile up in the last drawer. Reading from the back spreads them out. It is a little like how birds spread out on a wire. (I am a bird. I know about wires.)
Activity: Write the numbers 12-34-56, 98-76-56 and 11-11-01 on three pieces of paper and put them in terminal-digit order. Answer: 11-11-01 comes first, because 01 is smaller than 56. Then 12-34-56 before 98-76-56, because when the last two digits tie, you look at the middle ones. If you got it right, you are ready for an exciting career in health information management! If you got it wrong, so did the first three temps we hired.
Clicky’s fun fact: A misfiled chart is called a “lost chart” even though it is not lost. It is right there. It is just in the wrong place, which, as any grown-up will tell you, is worse.