Posts
A little out of sequence, but I heard a great quote on the news tonight during the Joaquin Rivera hearings in Philadelphia. For those of you unfamiliar with this case, Joaquin Rivera was an elderly man who was tragically robbed and then passed away while waiting to see a doctor in a Philadelphia ER.
The attorney for the Rivera family said “We need to put the Emergency back in Emergency Room”.
I couldn’t agree more. However, I don’t think that the Rivera family attorney is speaking about the same thing that I am.
The way I interpreted his sound byte is that we need to use Emergency Rooms for their intended purpose – treating patients with Emergent Conditions. Until we can find a place where non-emergent, sub-acute patients can be safely and legally triaged to outside of the ER, we’re likely to see more sad stories like this one coming out of overloaded Emergency Rooms all across the nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment