2012 conventions 2012 election 2013 session 2013 special election arts arts and culture author ballot measures bomb books budget bullying business charlie hales children clackamas climate change coal courts crime culture culture club democrats drugs economy education environment family film fluoride food gay rights guns handguns health health care health insurance high school history housing immigration international internet kitzhaber law legislature lgbt literary arts living marijuana medicine mental health military minor parties mohamed mohamud movies music native americans news newspaper obama olympics oregon our town parenting pers photography police politcs politics port portland portland business journal portland mayor president prevention public safety religion republicans rnc romney rural salem sam adams sandy hook schools science shooting sports suicide supreme court taxes television terrorism theater third parties timber payments transportation union university of oregon violence washington water wildfire women

Our doctor's office isn't able or willing to see someone after a fall and order an outpatient CAT scan or X ray. I don't know why not, when the patient was an established patient and it was during office hours. Even if there had been an open appointment they said their recommendation would have been to go to the ER. Huh?

In 2007 an elderly woman waited all day to be seen at 3 in the afternoon in a doctor's office at OHSU internal medicine. The doctor's office recommendation was to go the ER because she could get the tests she needed faster (and that day, rather than waiting until the next day) through the ER than they could schedule them. This sounds like an obvious way to save a ton of money, doesn't it? Make it possible to get x rays, cat scans, blood work, you name it, done for outpatients and then Medicare and Blue Cross, her Medicare companion plan, wouldn't have had to pay thousands of dollars for her ER visit. I must be missing something because this solution looks so obvious to me.

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
view in context

Over the last ten years or so I've taken 7 different people, on many different occasions, to ERs at St Vincents and OHSU hospital. The wait times can be terrible, but once seen I don't know anyone who is unhappy with the care they received.

The hard part is being at home not knowing what's wrong, seeing a loved one falling to pieces and not knowing what to do about it. The wonderful part is finally getting to the ER and being treated competently, courteously, compassionately, respectfully, absolutely non judgmentally by the staffs.

Here is the trouble I've seen: I've taken in an elderly woman who had fallen and hit her head, elderly women with shingles, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, a cardiac crisis. I've taken in a 73 year old man with kidney stones and a kidney infection. I've taken in a young man who had cut himself working on a chain saw, a young woman who needed stitches, a middle aged woman with a rash. I've been everywhere, man.

Once out of the no man's land of the waiting room and into a treatment room I've never had the feeling there was a shortage of nurses, or a shortage of anything standing in the way of good care, including personal warmth from the staff.

I've also gone to the Providence Urgent Care facility on Scholls Ferry Road. The waits have sometimes been bad but I've felt good about the care. Once we were sent to the ER anyway because the Urgent Care doctor felt the elderly woman needed inpatient care. The only way to be admitted on a Sunday was through the ER.

I could rant until dark about the many failures of our national health care system and of most things about allopathic medicine, but ER performance in these hospitals in Portland is astonishingly wonderful in my opinion.

I lived in Washington DC for many years and regularly read in the paper that I didn't dare have a car accident near Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, because I could go in with a fairly minor problem and die from their incompetent care. I'm unaware of such scandals in this area.

Thanks for your show. You're doing such a good job.

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
view in context