I am extremely interested in the care that everyone receives in a hospital emergency room. I went to our local emergency room two weeks ago because I thought I was having a stroke. I had severe pain in my neck, back of head. arms and hands. When I got to the emergency room a paramedic was called out to "triage" me. He looked at me, and said "you're not having a stroke" then told the registration clerk to put me in room seven. I sat in that treatment room for 20 minutes before a nurse came in to take my vitals. The nurse had several patients. Two were being admitted and one small child was screaming.(So much for HIPPA) I understood that the nurse was busy. However, I could see 2 paramedics sitting at a desk, flipping through magazines, talking about what to order for dinner and so on. Now I don't believe there is a reasonable excuse for not taking my vitals. I could have had a stroke, a heart attack, or whatever. But no one checked.
I felt as though I was a "bother" to the staff. When the nurse was finally able to get to me she was terrific but I don't understand why there is not a team effort in patient care.
Emergency Room Care
By rynocub510 - Posted on January 19th, 2009
Tagged: Emergency Room Care
• healthcare
To be honest I stopped read about half way though. I can see that you are new and do not understand how to blog here. You had a well written blog and I thank you for that.
Here are a few pointers. One the big block of text hurts our eyes please put space in between paragraphs.
Second we do not like survey type blogs we are not going to do your research for you. You could have incorporated your own experience into your blog that would have connected you to your audience. We love stories.
Third if you just wanted to ask questions then you need to put outrage into it. For example, I read an article about how a person waited three hour to be seen by a doctor. She had a cut on her forehead and was losing a lot of blood. She died while waiting. I think that this is a very poor way to do triage. Who could have been in front of this person in the line of priority? You see how this could make a connection to those of us that are reading this. This would also make those, on this site, that are in the medical field say something like there was a big car accident that filled the ER and her wound did not look that bad. (side note if there is an article please link to it so we all can read it)
These are just a few helpful hints that may get you more responses. I hope that you have a good day my new blogger friend.
"Something given has no value"~Robert Heinlein
"Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is." Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richards Almanack, 1749
Yes exactly. Many of us old timers will skip right over the just questions blog. Instead of just asking a series of questions, pose them in the midst of personal experience to clarify, explain why you are even asking in the first place. This will also give us reason to care and respond.
I think I have a couple of links to explain what I am talking about...
Okay some of these are by me because I like to self promote sometimes and the others are well written. Seriously...Check them out to learn and commenting on blogs will help gain a readership for if you around for the next contest. Read the blogs to see how the points were made and the comments to see the information that was elicited without all the questions.
http://www.progressiveu.org/141742-tornado-watch
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/50624-living-epilepsy-part-1-diagnosis
http://www.progressiveu.org/225544-corruption-innocence-saudi-experience
http://www.progressiveu.org/215822-my-cursed-body-confidence-issues
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/50498-greatest-blessing-my-husband-smok...
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/50761-severe-mental-illness-202
http://www.progressiveu.org/141742-tornado-watch
I also want to point out Fallon's blog because in my eyes she is expert at this (http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fallon)
The point is to always have a point.
Also (keep having more and more ideas and tips to share) there is the 'forums' area, that has a link at the top, were you can introduce yourself and it also has discussion areas for if you do not have a blog per se but want to bring something up or ask questions/need more info.
For you ease:
Introduce here: http://www.progressiveu.org/forums/general-discussion/hello-my-name-0
A place for tips from faculty and members who have survived more then one contest and or have otherwise proven themselves:
http://www.progressiveu.org/forums/groups/coalition-good-blogging/how-bl...
http://www.progressiveu.org/forums/groups/coalition-good-blogging
Good Luck and if you have any questions feel free to Private Messege (PM) anybody with a badge similar to mine.
There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.~- Anais Nin
Thank you for your advice. I am very new to blogging so I'm sorry if I got carried away with my questions.
Would you recommend I just start over?
I do have personal ER experience and I also worked in healthcare for 21 years. I think I might be helpful to bloggers that have questions about medical billing, registration, Medicare, Medicaid, insurance, etc.
I was the Business office supervisor before I retired and part of my responsibility was Emergency room registration. I know about Emtala regulations, medical necessity, and where to go if you have concerns.
I would appreciate any and all advice.
Thanking you in advance
I do not think you should start over entirely. We love to see growth in a person, its when there is refusal to change or get better that causes us to get irritated and judgmental.
One thing you could do (you do not have to) but you could edit this to add that these thing are important to you and the things you will be addressing in a series. A lot of people do series (turtlesuds has a few going now) you could address the things in your questions such as the information one should recieve in the ER, what standards of care should or are, even offer solutions to the problems you see or how to advace the good aspects that are already there.
Does that makes sense? I have seen some of the comments you have made here and you seem to have a bacground for this. Approach the blogging as giving us info or bring a topic to mind. If you take a stance that can be agreed with or debated then you will most likely get a response. Most here do not like doing you work for you, but I do see some
Have you seen the links I suggested?
Am I making sense?
There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.~- Anais Nin
I have edited my blog. Hope its okay. I do appreciate your suggestions.
There should have been a team effort. If the paramedics had nothing better to do then to worry about dinner they could have helped out and at least taken vitals. That would not have been to much to ask.
Also there should have been more then one nurse for that many people. I think it is a little annoying to except the nurse to do that much work by herself. If I get hurt where I am at I would need to be taken to the next town over because my town does not have a ER. Mind you the next town over is only 30 miles.
"Something given has no value"~Robert Heinlein
"Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is." Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richards Almanack, 1749
I think a lot of the time there are hospital employees that feel and say "its not my job". I think these employees need to get out of healthcare! I live in a town of less than 5000. Most everyone knows or knows of everyone else. I tried to excuse the behavior of the paramedics because I thought that they thought "I should know the drill" because I worked there for over 20 years. But that should not have mattered!
Our hospital has a lot of problems with their emergency room and I've been told that their patient satisfaction scores are very low. But nothing ever changes!
Our hospital has recently changed their entire management team. But they haven't changed the supervisor of the emergency room. If people complain she makes rude comments and thinks they are ignorant!
A lot of us are ashamed of our emergency room.
I think one of the reasons people say things like 'It's not my job' is because of the liability involved. I mean, I think if I'm capable of doing something, I should be able to do it, but in the medical setting, there are specific job descriptions for a reason. A person may be capable of doing the same job a CNA does, while they aren't a CNA, but if something happened to the patient, the patient could sue the hospital for malpractice, and if something happened to the person, workmen's comp may not apply because they were doing something that wasn't part of their job. There's a reason that volunteers in a hospital get very limited patient interaction.
Also, if there are so many complaints against the supervisor, she should be fired, plain and simple. That's gotta affect her job performance in some way.
~C
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