Hi all,
Health records in both sites are getting many calls form patients asking for results of tests done in ER.
Patients are consistently telling staff that a doctor or nurse has told them to call in three days or so to get results!
Hospital staff can’t give out results over the phone so patients are getting upset and time is being wasted.
Please if you are doing this please change your practice .
If I am worried about a test or awaiting a culture I call/follow up with the patient myself or I have them call their family doctor/NP even if that person is out of town. Their primary care can help you with this! Yes – I know – many don’t have primary care….
Please don’t put our hospital staff in this predicament though please.
There is actually an MAHC-approved laboratory results release form that you and the patient can sign and allows them to access their test results. At SMMH it’s located in the bottom forms drawer under release of laboratory results, or something like that.
I am trying to make patients responsible for their care as much as reasonably possible, including following up on some lab results (eg. throat cultures for example, I’ll give them a prescription for appropriate antibiotics for strep throat but the rapid strep was negative and they don’t qualify by strep score, and tell them to start if culture ends up positive). Particularly if they don’t have primary care or their GP/NP is away.
I also encourage patients to follow up their eye care concerns through the optometrists in town, rather than the ER (eg. rust rings, irritated eyes, corneal abrasions). There is a request for major eye exam form that we can complete to have this visit covered, or patients can invest a bit into their followup and pay for this reassessment themselves.
Just my two cents…