It turns out, a whopping 78 percent of patients don’t fully understand the care and discharge instructions they receive in the emergency department — and the vast majority of them are not even aware that they do not understand what doctors have told them, according to a study published this month in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
“The bottom line is that we need better strategies for identifying patients who are having difficulty understanding their care and instructions in the emergency department,” said Kirsten Engel of Northwestern University in Chicago who authored the study. “It is disturbing that so many patients do not understand their post-emergency department care, and that they do not even recognize where the gaps in understanding are. Patients who fail to follow discharge instructions may have a greater likelihood of complications after leaving the emergency department.”
Whose job is it to make sure emergency room patients understand the take-home instructions doctors give them? Should the onus be on the patient or his health care team? Or both?
6 Comments
That’s a tough one. I would guess that the physician should give detailed WRITTEN instructions to both the patient and some sort of ’significant other’ or care-giver. After all, the DR can’t go home with the patient but hopefully he has some sort of companion.
It is the patient’s responsibility. If they are unsure they need to ask (or request a translator).
We cannot idiot-proof society.
Basically, the doctor and patient relationship is broken. Society needs a whole new way of accessing health care.
One step would be if Wichita (and other metro areas) emphacized special training in and after high school for health care workers. Instead Wichita is pandering by training aircraft workers which should be done by the aircraft companies themselves.
Step two is to replace “medical doctors” with “medical applicators.” M.A.’s would be people who work their way up the health applications ladder to reach various designations along the way.
Medical doctors obviously have choked the health pipeline system to the point that very, very few people can obtain adequate medical care in the United States. Amazingly people who belong to special socialized medicine groups such as employees insured by large corporations, university insured groups, and veterans … can obtain better care. Perhaps that points to the future of medical care.
JWInk, I strongly disagree. We do NOT need another government “fix”. If government wants to do something contructive, get rid of the laws that disallow small businesses to pool their resources for better benefit packages. Get some competition out there and let the free market reign.
When government saddles the medical community with medicare, medicade, HMO’s, frivilous law suits and servicing the illegal alien community through emergency room visits this does not equate to “medical doctors obviously choking the health pipeline system”.
The more government jacks it up, the more they think they can fix it.
Just wondering… are there any stats on doctors who aren’t listening to their patients?
I know of at least one… mine.
You should probably change doctors.