Covid + 911 abuse....

[EMEDPA]

Starting to see this..." I'm not vaccinated and I have a cough and fever and I might have covid so I called 911. If I am positive I need a work note".

Pt nontoxic with stable VS. ED tx: covid test (+), tylenol, ibuprofen,  tessalon perles. discharge. 100% of them don't want to schedule a vaccine for when they are a bit better. 

That's probably $2500 between the ambulance and ER bill for an otherwise free test (if done in an appropriate setting) and otc meds. No wonder health care workers are getting burned out. If you don't want to get the vaccine and you get minimally sick, please stay home. The ER is no place for the walking well covid + patients. They are just putting others at risk for no reason to satisfy their own curiosity.  I am happy to intubate folks who are really sick, but these low acuity folks are filling up the EDs. We also have a local UC sending all the potentials to the ED "because we don't have negative airflow rooms". 

[True Anomaly]

The burnout is real.  The biggest frustration right now is not only these well-appearing COVID patients, but also the usual patients who use the ER for routine primary care.  It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it, and there’s no doubt there are plenty of these people who leave pissed off either by eloping or getting furious with ER staff who “aren’t doing anything”.  And no doubt some of those patients have actual emergencies that they don’t get fully evaluated- leaving other nonemergent patients who are clogging up our flow.

The only temporary approach is to immediately discharge these people who truly have no business being in the ER and not worrying about some stupid patient satisfaction survey.  My employer threw out these surveys for a few months last year, and I’m sure they’ll take another sabbatical from the surveys for now.

This is the first time in my 12 years I’ve given real thought to getting out of the ER.  I’m not going to do that because I know this is temporary, but you still can’t ignore feelings like that

And before you respond with a solution E- I already know what you’re going to say - “Get a rural job!” 

[CAAdmission]

1 hour ago, True Anomaly said:

The only temporary approach is to immediately discharge these people who truly have no business being in the ER and not worrying about some stupid patient satisfaction survey.

You have my vote for hospital CEO. When can you start?

[ohiovolffemtp]

11 hours ago, True Anomaly said:

And before you respond with a solution E- I already know what you’re going to say - “Get a rural job!” 

In my part of rural America, all the minor complaints have returned.  Typical summer trauma has combined with all of the highly transmissible upper respiratory and GI viral illnesses that didn't get transmitted during times of maximum isolation and disinfection that now are catching up has us at higher volumes than we've seen in 2-3 years.