A tale of two hospital systems
To the Editor:
An elderly person very dear to me that I’ve known my whole life recently fell in her home, breaking her arm and acquiring another more serious complication. Because of the serious complication, the local hospital sent her to the bigger regional hospital.
The bigger regional hospital is new and shiny with computer stations in all the big new rooms with additional computer stations in hallways for each nurse. It is run like a well-oiled machine with each nurse spending quite a bit of time entering data into some server farm somewhere with the latest AI or whatever overseeing the most efficient storing of all the data entered. The rooms are large with plenty of room for visitors, day beds, and tastefully lit. The nurses and medical staff are very caring people (I think you have to be a caring person to choose that profession), and they are handicapped by their employers’ systems and procedures.
My dearest was moved many times to different rooms and floors, and had constantly changing caregivers even when she got to stay in the same room for a while. With all the data inputting nobody had time for data extracting, and no one knew why she was there. I and other loved ones had to constantly repeat to her caregivers that she was walking and talking before her fall, and that her current condition was not her norm. They were often unaware of her broken arm and wanted to use it to check her blood pressure. The only doctor I physically saw was the admitting doctor. All the other ones I talked to by phone since they were on the other side of the hospital, and they were not coming back to that part of the hospital that day. The staff was very caring, but their employers’ systems and procedures just wouldn’t let them shine. Nonetheless she got better and left there.
Unfortunately, an infection required another trip to our local hospital about a week later. If you haven’t been to our local hospital, it is an older facility with small rooms that feel cramped with more than one visitor. There is no day bed, the lighting is either too bright for nighttime or too dim for a visitor to read by, and the walls will need fresh paint soon. There are no computer stations in each room with several more in the hallways. The nurses have to push a computer cart around as they go about caring for their patients, and often I saw their assistants go about caring for my dearest without inputting any data at all. Instead, they relayed information to her other caregivers by talking with them. What a messy way of doing things! And what a way to let these very caring people shine.
That is the real motivation behind this letter. I don’t want to complain about the bigger newer regional hospital so much as praise the staff of our smaller older hospital. All the staff, not just the caregivers, have been exceptional with my dearest, and also with us who care about her. I wiould like to thank the staff of our local hospital especially the staff on floor 5. You all are incredible.
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Jon Nowakowski
Waynesville
