There have got to me hundreds if not thousands of ways to save money in our healthcare system. We intend to offer a few and if you know of some, pass them on.
As of June 1st, 2007 everyone needing any kind of service at the hospital must go to admitting first. The reason for this: to know statistically how many people are being served by the hospital.
There is no warning of this when you enter. If you need tests or blood work and go to the department they send you packing upstairs to Admitting. Yesterday I saw an old man sent upstairs. Today a very pregnant woman was turned away in Special Services. Go back upstairs.
This will increase parking revenue for the hospital since it adds about 30 minutes to your visit.
It will also add to your inconvenience as you line up in the hallway outside admitting. There were lots of traffic problems as people lined up and blocked the hallway for people coming and going.
Admitting is not setup to handle this yet. Yesterday three wheelchairs were crammed inside and none of the little interview stations was wheelchair accessible. They are sort of bullet proof with thick plexiglass – must be preparing for World War III or the Invasion on PEI. The room is poorly designed with people coming and going through the same small door.
Once inside, they take your cards, fill out two forms, check the computer and keep one of the forms. Each of those forms is probably costing the hospital $200 to $500 to process and store. The form looks important if we get a pandemic in the future which has a less than zero probability attached to it.
When you get to the department, they ignore the admitting form and work on whatever you came for in the first place.
Bureaucracies tend to build larger bureaucracies. The QE is building one bloated system after another that eat up healthcare dollars, waste patient’s time, and serve no purpose other than the bureaucracy.
They only way they can implement this is because the QE is a small hospital in the real world. I have never seen a large hospital try to force its patients through a funnel.
Leave a Reply