BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care

Subject: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 May 07 - 07:32 PM

Took a friend to the ER today, and truly encountered masters of the healthcare profession at every level involved, from check-in, to triage, to history-taking, to diagnostics, to relating to family, to admission, and including almost complete relief of symptoms. Respect? Gold stars. Compassion? Gold stars. Professionalism with relaxed confidence? Gold stars. Skills? Gold stars. Service? Gold stars.

I have been a a LOT of ERs in various capactities, and I have NEVER seen such a wonderful team in operation. It was a shining example of healthcare-- rural in this case-- as it can be done properly and as I am sure is done, day in and day out, even in today's difficult times.

I'll tell more about it when I've gotten a good sleep, but in the meantime-- I just see the faces. Hats off to them all!


Your stories of really excellent healthcare, long-past or more
recently?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 May 07 - 03:35 AM

I'd share my experiences of excellent healthcare but I'm still waiting to have one.

There have been several times where the deeds of the one outweighed the deeds of the many, but on the whole, it's been a chore, a pain (literally) an uphill struggle and in parts, a terrifying experience for me.

LTS

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 May 07 - 10:10 AM

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm hoping this will be a thread to focus on the positives. Can you say more?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Pilgrim
Date: 25 May 07 - 10:24 AM

When a relative of mine was in a hospice, and did not have very long left, he and his partner of some thirty years decided that they wanted to get married. Within thirteen hours the hospice had organised EVERYTHING, from the cleric to the cake that was baked in the kitchens. A very moving ceremony, and way beyond the call of duty.

My sister works on a Paedatric Neuroscience ward, as a Staff Nurse, and the lengths those girls go to are unreal. Especially in what can be very trying circumstances. To even get a job done when they are so busy they are literally lying kids top to toe, two a bed, is brilliant.

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Wesley S
Date: 25 May 07 - 10:27 AM

My sister is an ER nurse near Atlanta. Luckily I've never had to use her services. But knowing what a caring compassionate human being she is I'm sure that anyone who comes in contact with her professionally will be treated well.

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Midchuck
Date: 25 May 07 - 11:05 AM

I got one!

What? No personal brags? Oh, sh...

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: jeffp
Date: 25 May 07 - 11:14 AM

On May 9 of this year, my girlfriend was stabbed by a former coworker who had formed an obsession over her. He stabbed her in the neck and upper chest. Fortunately, she was flown to the Maryland Shock Trauma in Baltimore. Everybody there was absolutely incredible, from the surgeons down to the custodial staff, and even the people at the parking garage. They all had a smile and a nice word for patients, relatives, and each other. I have never seen such a happy, caring place. She went home yesterday and we will honestly miss the people who cared for her.

The *$%^&$*)#@&%^ who stabbed her is in jail without bail awaiting trial on federal charges of attempted murder (it happened on government property).

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 May 07 - 03:51 PM

Cool, Midchuck-- give us a story.....

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 May 07 - 05:05 PM

Three weeks ago my father-in-law, who lives on his own, toppled over while he was picking up a tray he'd been using for his lunch, and he smashed open his forehead on the corner of a stone hearth. Which at 95 is a dangerous thing to happen. For that matter at any age it's a dangerous thing to happen.

He phoned us up, and then pressed the alarm button he wears. By the time I got there 20 minutes later, the ambulance had come and taken him to our local hospital to Accident and Emergency. It was a massive stitching job, so they called in a doctor with expertise in that from the specialist unit - a long careful stitching process, and then he was able to come home with us.

Next day he was pretty poorly still, so we took him into our walk-in centre up the road, where a great nurse called Noreen changed the bandages and cheered him up.

Over the last few weeks we've been in and out of hospital, and the walk-in-centre and had home visits from the district nurse and the GP here, and his own GP. Anytime we've asked for help or advice it's been available immediately. Complications with breathing and worries about the wound's healing have been sorted out, and how he's back home, with various types of help lined up.

I shudder to think what the cost of all the treatment he's needed if it had had to be paid for. And I can't imagine a paid for service being any better. (In fact from my experience with private medicine, I doubt if it'd have been as good.) Thank God for the NHS.

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 May 07 - 06:23 PM

One of the vignettes from yesterday was that after several really excellent nurses tried a blood draw and couldn't nick the rolling veins for a mcuh-needed test, they called in the big guns.

Now, from the advance chat about it, I expected an ego of the first order to stride in. No.... in floated this very elderly, frail lady in a brightly printed smock over her whites, with a little kit over her arm. A different kit from the ones the others had carried.

It was a very small, crowded treatment cubicle, but a path to the bedside opened up as if by magic. She quietly and unassumingly got to work, taking a low seat in the chair which manifested by the bedside where my friend's arm still lay dangling from the last attempt. While he told us all how badly the others had done, and how this try wouldn't work either, she relaxedly slipped in an almost-invisible needle smaller than a mosquito's sucker. With no fanfare at all, she let a couple of bottles fill up via the tiny tube attached to the needle.

My friend wondered when she'd start "trying," because he hadn't even felt her deft aim reach its target.

The surrounding nurses had clustered in as close as they could, to watch and learn, without any fuss from their side either. But you could tell that even though this lady was so unobtrusive and deferential, she was a Real Big Cheese around there. I think she must have been a pediatric nurse, used to the tiniest veins; everything in her kit except her custom tourniquet were tiny, and she had tiny models of that as well.

In relpy to the astounded family members' stunned question, "How did you do that?", she just murmured, "Well, I've been doing this for over 40 years, so I guess I've just had a little practice."

What was notable about this to me was not only her skill, but the way she was happy and totally unhurried, coming into the ER to do the ER folks a favor, and never letting on that it was a favor. And the way everyone present just had so much quiet respect and love for her, without a word of it being uttered. The rapt attention the somewhatyounger nurses paid, even though they clearly were experienced professionals as well-- to soak up as much from this ancient lady as they could, while they could.

I like to think this nurse just floats through the community doing that, everywhere it's needed-- I am sure that's a fantasy, but it was such a privilege to watch her at the top of her game. She was made back when they made REAL NURSES.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: bobad
Date: 25 May 07 - 07:51 PM

Susan

Is it possible that she was a lab technician, they usually have more experience at drawing blood than do nurses.

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 May 07 - 09:18 PM

Moonglow had her spleen removed (laparoscopy) on Monday, as the treatment for a form of anemia (Spherocytosis). The children's hospital was our first choice because they are simply the best in the region. Though we had one little disagreement over one medication (I asked them not to use the "anti-anxiety" drug Versed, because I have a bad reaction to it, my mother had problems with some of these same medications, and I didn't want to visit that kind of hangover on my child) the rest of the time went very well.

The family waiting room has a receptionist who answers the phone and then calls out the name of the family that is being called by one of the nurses or a doctor in the various operating rooms. At 2:30pm she came around to each group and said that her day was over and now we would have to answer the phone if we heard it because it would be one of the medical teams calling with an update. The room is an echo chamber and the chairs are uncomfortable, so I decided to volunteer for a couple of hours at the desk with the comfortable chiar and answered the phone and called over families. I was impressed with how well they kept each family (ours included) up with what was going on and when to head to the consultation room, etc.

The rest of the stay was uneventful, and we had almost too much help--lots of volunteers make the rounds. Clowns, activities coordinators, folks with carts with toys, amenities (we asked for a hairbrush and one appeared promptly! Three days on a pillow and Moonglow's hair was quite a tangle and she'd forgotten her own brush).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Victor in Mapperton
Date: 23 Apr 09 - 09:36 AM

God help us as we get older. A woman who removed her elderly mother from a care home amid worries over her health was shocked to see police and social workers on her doorstep with a battering ram ready to snatch her back !

The daughter was concerned about the treatment her elderly mother was receiving and took her home to look after her personally.

But social workers in Coventry disagreed with her actions and used a little-known power to take her back.

They obtained an emergency warrant from magistrates under the Mental Health Act on the grounds that a "person believed to be suffering from a mental disorder is being ill treated and neglected".

Two days later they turned up at Mrs Figg's Keresley home with police in tow as back up.

Mrs Figg was forced to hand over her distraught 86-year-old mother Betty who was wheeled to a car with a blanket over her head and returned to Butts Croft House.

A warrant was granted and an enforcer was taken in order to gain access to the property.

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Neil D
Date: 23 Apr 09 - 12:03 PM

Hats off to the oncology unit at Akron City Hospital in Ohio. When Neil is in there, I couldn't ask for better care for him than if I provided it myself!

                                           Christina

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 23 Apr 09 - 12:23 PM

I can't find enough ways to express my gratitude to the staff in emerge at the Saint John Regional (they are way understaffed, they are way overworked) who treated my wife after she was rushed there back on Dec. 31st when she suffered a heart attack .... what a profession team, what a great bunch of people!

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Apr 09 - 12:36 PM

Personally, I'm very impressed with the people who work as Physicians' Assistants here in the US (not that I actually have any access to any of them at this time, but I have in the past). I think they do an excellent job, and I feel much better when I see them than I do most doctors, because they actually know how to listen.

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Apr 09 - 08:39 PM

I had a operation early this year.

I've always been terrified of the idea of being in hospital & the fact that I needed an operation to make sure there weren't any cells left after a surgeon removed a cancerous growth was less scary than being in hospital!

Being in hospital wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be tho the hospital system in my state is stuffed & beds are closed & staff overworked & I decided while I was there that I'd have the operation another specialist was recommending.

Some folks have such bad times in hospital that they decide never to go near a hospital again!

And even better I had the operation in the public system & it didn't cost me a cent, beyond a taxi fare to the hospital & snacks from the cafe when I could walk. Extra food is needed cos the budget for feeding public patients is very low (a thin slice of roast + 2 soup spoons of veggies instead of my normal family-sized serving bowl of veggies each night is not proper food!)

yah to the nurses & staff of Ryde Hospital & the Australian free public health service (under-resourced as it may currently be)

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 03:18 AM

Victor: sources please.

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 05:42 AM

The care our twins recieved in Whipps Cross Hospital East London in February was fantastic, there was nothing we could have picked fault with. From the ambulance team to the A&E team to the childrens ward all were wonderful. Likewise the care the Amelia has been recieving at Great Ormond Street Hospital was been equally good.

Subject: RE: BS: Examples of Excellence in Health Care
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 05:47 AM

I've spent a lot of time in Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, during the past 3 years. The attention I received from nursing and care staff was first class on every occasion - even as understaffed as they were - every one of them is a true Angel. Cleanliness and hygiene was fine (in my opinion as a layman in these things!).

I was under two consultants, one of whom was the top Hepatobiliary guy, and both of whom were superb. I offered to have my treatment and both ops. done by them privately under my medical insurance. Both declined, saying they preferred to do it on the NHS, and my wait each time was four weeks - not emergency ops., so a more than acceptable timescale IMO.

The beds were of the lates type, adjustable in all sorts of ways, and were very, very comfortable. The pain management regime was fantastic and kept my pain, which pre-admission was, and post-op. could have been, considerable, to a very low and easily-tolerable level.

The NHS is alive and well in Nottingham.