Guest Author- A Patient's Perspective

Due to many health ailments, inpatient care is something that I am all too familiar with as a patient. Generally, my experiences while an inpatient at the local hospital have been pleasant in terms of the quality of care. My most recent experience in the hospital, which occurred at the end of January, was quite the opposite. I was an inpatient for 7 days and throughout the majority of my stay, I was frustrated by the quality of care that I was receiving.
In my opinion, the economy was the main cause of my lack of satisfaction with my recent stay in the hospital. The poor quality that was provided was due to the lack of staff that was working at all times. It was evident that these nurses and CNA’s were overworked because they were constantly on the go. They were so busy that my wife needed to apply an ointment to my back because the nurses never came to do it. Additionally, the hospital room was not cleaned daily as it had been in the past. It is the responsibility of the hospital to ensure that their hospital is well staffed and they clearly didn’t consider this factor when making budget cuts. Had there been enough health care workers to provide adequate care, I believe my experience in the hospital would have been much more bearable.
Staffing was not the only issue that contributed to the lower quality of the inpatient care that was provided during my recent hospital stay. The lack of supplies and cost-saving techniques such as hiring hospitalists were also factors contributing to the poor quality of care. In terms of the lacking supplies, my wife had to go home and get some of my medications that the hospital pharmacy didn’t have for some reason. One of these medications being as simple as Nasonex®, a nasal spray that is quite common and every health care establishment should have access to. During my past inpatient stays, the hospital has never had a problem with being able to provide me my medications and I found it absurd that my wife had to retrieve my medications for me. What would have happened if I wasn’t married and wouldn’t have had anyone to retrieve my medications for me?
The other factor that contributed to poor inpatient care quality was the particular health care professionals that I saw. When admitted to the hospital, I was put under the care of a hospitalist. This hospitalist was not very familiar with my past medical history and therefore the proper care took longer to receive. It was only after my wife insisted that something was wrong that the hospitalist decided to look further into the issue. Additionally, there was one instance where the hospitalist actually spoke quite harshly to me because I confused two things she told me. This hospitalist demonstrated poor customer service skills and instead of reacting in a harsh manner, she should have calmly re-explained the issue to me.
Personally, I think there may be a solution to the quality issues that I experienced during my stay in the hospital. First, I think there needs to be some type of policy that mandates a certain level of staffing per patient at any given time. Had a policy existed during my hospital stay, I would suspect that I would have received a higher level of care. I do not think that health care workers should be standing around waiting for patients, but I feel that the hospital staff during my stay was quite overworked and an additional person or two would not have resulted in large amounts of wasted time.
Additionally, I feel that all hospitals should be responsible for obtaining all medications that a patient should need. I would hope that they would keep a stock of the most common medications that are dispensed, and Nasonex® should be one of them. If a hospital does not have a medication on hand, it should be the job the of hospital pharmacy, not the patient to ensure this medication is obtained. No patient should suffer due to a hospital’s lack of supplies.
Lastly, I feel that hospitals should not be switching to the mindset of utilizing more hospitalists. While some patients may have positive encounters with these medical staff, it’s a way of cutting corners and the patient’s own doctor may be more efficient. I’m not saying it’s essential to eliminate all hospitalists, we just need to limit the number we employ.