Patients

I haven't gone on a healthcare rant lately and instead of the annual April Fools' joke I play on you, I'll rant instead!

I had the "opportunity" to be a patient in our healthcare system on Friday. I had a physician office visit and then small, outpatient procedure. My appointment was first thing in the morning and, since it was storming outside, I arrived rain-soaked. I was presented with no less than six forms on which I had to repeat almost the exact same information. Several forms were carbon copy, too! It made no sense to me since they "pre-registered" me over the phone three weeks ago.

Then I was asked to self-address my own envelopes for my test results and reminder for my follow-up appointment. I thought to myself, "Man, this is a great process...for the office!"

What about the patient, though?

Does any of this add value for the patient?

Despite the fact that the office staff did everything they could to shift their mundane work to the patient, the physician was wonderful. However, in the entire visit, the *only* thing that added value to the patient (me) was the actual physician visit. All of the other waiting, duplicate forms, assuming of office staff's work (thank goodness that wasn't one of my practices- holy cow, I would have HAD a cow) did not add value. And they were on their best behavior, knowing I'm on the leadership team at the hospital. What sort of treatment do the "average joes" get from them?

Even though I was the first patient of the morning, I counted my wait time (because I'm cool like that) and calculated 18 minutes. 18 minutes where I was in the waiting room or the exam room. Technically, in the world of medical specialists, 18 minutes is nothing.

But it got me thinking...what would life be like if we put the patient first? What if all the paperwork was completed ahead of time or, even better, the office quickly detailed patient information in an electronic medical record? What if we had a continuous record of the patients' information so as not to make them repeat everything 49 times?

What if (gasp) there were no waiting rooms? What if we scheduled our patients for THEIR convenience (not the physician's or office staff's?) and patients flowed in and out of clinic so we didn't even need a waiting room?

It's a utopia. But I'm taking my own patient experience back to the practices I manage...Even though we will not be able to get all the non-value-add's out of the system, I wonder how much of what we're doing is actually of value to the patient.

And do we ever put the patient first?

Along this same vein, I leave you with the following video. It's hysterical only because it's so very true. If you work in the healthcare field, you will laugh and then cringe.