Browsing the archives for the Uncategorized category
A few weeks ago I got a call from Frank Wilson (not his real name). He told me he and his wife were looking for a new doctor and a new hospital. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson had been with the same doctor for nearly 20 years. The relationship had been warm, and, he explained, “We [...]
One last post on the ER….for awhile. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the ER is the portal of entry to our hospitals now, for better and for worse. On the plus side, this means that most patients being admitted to general medical and surgical services (the big exception here is elective surgery–patients having [...]
And waits, and waits, and waits…… The ER is the portal of admission to the hospital for what we might call undifferentiated illness. Shortness of breath. Chest pain. Fevers with localizing symptoms (like pneumonia, appendicitis, or gall bladder infections). ”Changes in mental status”–confusion, delirium, or dementia, caused by Alzheimer’s, strokes, and many other diagnoses. Of [...]
Everyone knows about the crowding problem in Emergency Rooms (ERs). Too many people show up to be seen by medical professionals at similar times. This creates bottleneck: more customers than gurneys on which to park them; many more patients than doctors and nurses (and PAs–physician assistants–a growing cadre of medical professionals in the U.S.) ERs [...]