Relevance, I've learned, looks pretty different from a hospital bed. I'm lying in one now in room 619 at Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, GA, where I've spent the past four days being tested up the wazoo. I came in through the emergency room on Sunday, which is my preferred method (you get serviced faster that way and who doesn't like a little drama?).
A number of issues had me here, the most serious being the rapid increase of my creatine, which measures kidney function. My transplanted kidney was starting to poop out on me.
I certainly couldn't afford a lose a second transplant. I've run out of sisters. Lucky for me, Dr. Robert Jansen from Georgia Kidney Associates, has been on the case. First the good news... I'll be fine.
Meanwhile, I've noticed some interesting changes since my last extended visit here five years ago. The lovely hospital gown I was offered first thing wasn't the solid institutional blue of years past. Instead, it has "Hospital Property" stamped all over it. Is this to ensure I don't get it confused with my personal identical gown brought from home? Or is it a reminder of who's really the boss here? For the record, I never thought it was me. I've always assumed it was the insurance company.
For instance, yesterday I was taken to a mysterious cavernous part of the building for a colonoscopy and endoscopy (and from the way I felt later, apparently another oscopy they failed to mention). The doctor asked me if I wanted to be put to sleep for the procedure. I told him anyone who was getting ready to put a tube up my butt better have drugs or some very strong chardonnay. Then I probed (before he did), "Why would you ask?" He said, "Because it will cost your insurance company more if I do it that way. Some people prefer to just put up with the temporary discomfort."
Not this somebody. I didn't care what the insurance company thought about any of this. But it was a real "ah ha" moment for me. Insurance companies, for better or worse, are becoming more and more relevant to our everyday lives, requiring decisions that previously didn't even merit consideration.
Another thing that has struck me is how technology drives so much of the healthcare system now. Everything here beeps, rings or hums. Every person, from the surgeons to the cleaning crew, have cell phones attached as closely as vital organs and they ring constantly (the phones, not the organs). Information flies around wirelessly and yet, as far as I can tell, most of these systems don't talk to one another very well. I still had to answer the same questions 10 times. Maybe they're really just trying to determine my memory skills.
There are several channels on the internal TV system showing educational shows about various medical procedures. That's fine, but what would be even better - and more relevant - would be if I could go to the web site and just download these episodes into my iPod. Few things are more comforting than having an articulate doctor right there in the palm of your hand gently explain something (on demand, no less).
And while they're at it, a few links to blogs and web sites about specific procedures would be good too. Right now, WellStar (Kennestone's parent) has some great information on its web site that's strictly text based, but they need to take things up a notch.
Hey, we impatient patients are sitting here with laptops picking up the wifi connection. Why not send us to pre-selected links? It might keep us busy enough to lay off the "call nurse" button for a while.
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