This is too the doctors and to the people on this site.
I really believe that there needs to be a show done about emergency departments and education on when you should go to the ED or when it is okay to wait and see your Family Physcian (FMD). As an ancillary staff member of an ED it gets frustrating for me to see a stack of 7 charts on the desk of people waiting just to be brought back to the deparment. We are a small ER so we can only handle a certain amount of flow and for the most part the people that come in, come in for issues that can be dealth with in a practitioners office. A lot of times I will see a chart that states the patient saw physcian earlier in the day and was prescribed antibiotics but they aren't helping so they come to us. Also because I'm an ancillary staff member I go and answer the questions and concerns of patients and many times they complain because it has been too long (when it's only been less than an hour) and usually they are the least critical.
People should be educated on the average ER stay and waiting times, when they should seek emergency medical attention or when their condition can wait for a few hours until the can see their FMD. They shoud also be taught about how an emergency department works in general. I think if people were properly educated there might be a little less congestion in the ED.
As a side note my suggestion to solve some of this is to open up clinics during the evening hours when most FMD offices are closed, run by the hospital and staffed by FMD from the area on a rotation (generally there are quite a few so it could be a monthly rotation) that would allow people that have just a runny nose, cough or flu like symptoms to go to those clinics and in turn free up the ED for true emergencies.
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On a Saturday night I acidentally scratched a cornea on my right eye. My eye doctor was not available. I waited until Sunday morning, and lost most of my vision. I normally see well enough to drive, but this time I couldn't see enough to follow a person if that person got too far away from me. The ER doctor,discovered it was infected and prescribed an antibiotic for the eye. A few days later I saw the eye doctor and it was almost healed. I think that was an emergency.
I agree horsecrazy that is an emergency and it's probably really good that you went if they found an infection. Thankfully hospitals now days are adding a quick care element to their ER's that allow a seperate doc and place for things that aren't as critical such as an eye injury, small lacerations and minor broken bones and sprains, at least the hospitals in my area do, but it still isn't always enough to take the load off of the ED.
You should check out our emergency room. Everybody and their mother goes there for colds and piddley stuff. If your lucky once you wait out the 2-3 hours it takes to somtimes get into the ER itself, about 3-5 hours for the Doctor to examine you and then by the time you get released you have been there a total of 10-12 hours somtimes. And you get seen in the order you come in. So unless your dying, somebody with a cold will get seen before the person with the bone sticking out the skin etc.. the problem with our area is that the clinics we have here are so booked that in order to see your primary care physician you have to make an appointment 4-6 months in advance. Can you say ready for a change?
Good idea. Maybe the head nurse could be of assistance when doing triage until then.
You are absolutely correct. Much of wasted spending in health care is done by people going to the ER when they do not need to.
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