ER doc to angry patient

The more patients complain, the longer they’ll wait:

Yes, we know you have (and are) a pain in the butt. Coming out to the nurse’s station every five minutes to yell at the staff does not encourage me to see you any sooner. In fact, the opposite is true. When I noticed that you were able to walk and talk (loudly), I was then able to put you lower on the acuity scale and move you farther toward the bottom of the stack of charts. Thanks for the help.

Paradoxically, if you would have stayed in your room and kept quiet I would have seen you much sooner. I worry more about patients that I haven’t yet seen than those whom I can easily tell at a glance are not severely injured or dangerously ill. Consider that as a helpful hint for your next visit.

Related posts:

1. HIPAA nightmare: A vacant hospital has patient files exposed
2. How eliminating waste and taking fewer steps can improve patient care
3. The Angry Pharmacist is uh, angry
4. The fallacy of patient satisfaction scores
5. How to reduce the risk of medical errors from patient hand-offs
6. Patient hand-offs are a source of serious patient harm
7. Patient satisfaction and physician compensation

  Follow on Twitter   Subscribe

Tagged as: patient