Great PR campaign.

If no patient is ever seen within 30 minutes it won’t matter one iota to the hospital’s bottom line. Indeed, satisfaction might be greater if the average wait is 35 minutes with tickets and an appology, rather than 25 minutes without. It’s like when the Dominoes pizza guy just makes the delivery on time and you don’t get your pizza free.

It does make one wonder how the phrase “seen by a physician” is to be interpreted. If the doc sticks his head in the door, and says “Hi, I’m Dr. Payne, I’ll be back to speak with you more in a bit” does it count as having been seen?

Damn! Let me suffer with my cold for one more minute so I can get my tickets!

9:39 – Nah. St. Francis is a suburban hostpital. They are competing for the decently-heeled patient dollar….and the competition is fierce in the area. Wino’s are across the river, and, et al would have to walk too far to get there. There is no public transportation, or even taxi service, unless you want to go to the airport.

Should have the movie theatre adjacent to the ER and give you a pager that lights up when your bed is ready.

Seriously, it would save our hospital tons of money if the hospital offered a meal voucher and bottle of thunderbird to the homeless as an alternative to an ER visit. It would solve the problem of workups for bogus shest pain, belly pain, headache etc.

I have access to my (inner city) hospital’s triage list from my home computer. Right now on the “walk-in” non acute side, there are 21 patients being seen, and 37 patients in the waiting room. All by one Doc and a PA. We’d need 2 movie theatres.

anon 615pm: I wrote that at 1:27 pm. I worked at 3 pm. Nice ER to come into.