Open letter to Allegheny General Hospital
(Names, other than mine, are removed for patient privacy)
Gwendolyn R. Schmidt
Granddaughter-in-law to *********
To Allegheny General Hospital,
****** was admitted to Allegheny General Hospital ER sometime between 10pm and 11pm on October 13, 2010. She was sent there with a broken neck. She is a 94 year old woman. She was followed by her family (daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren), the ******.
What followed is a series of unfortunate circumstances that are troubling. In particular, attention should be given to the following events:
• For three hours, she was frantic and asking for her family, and in particular her daughter, to join her. The ***** family was not allowed back to see her during this time.
• By 7:30am on October 14, 2010, she was still not assigned a room and a bed. It was stated that she would be unlikely to have a bed before 11am.
• At 7am, a phone call was placed to “Patient Information”, who insisted that the patient, ******, was not admitted. When asked what that meant for the 94 year old woman with a broken neck, the caller was hung up on. Immediate subsequent calls resulted in indefinite holds. After a space, the caller could only get information on the patient by insisting that the call be sent to the ER. The call was not immediately transferred to the ER, but after about 5 transfers, finally located a nurse in the ER with information. The nurse did inform the caller that the patient was in the system as admitted. This meant that for half an hour, it appeared to the caller that the 94 year old woman had been lost in the hospital.
These are concerning actions from a hospital. It is understood that the hospital is over capacity, so the bed issue might be forgiven, but this is no excuse for not letting a troubled old woman not see her family for hours, nor is this an excuse for bad record keeping and a rude front operator.
Please look into these concerns and improve your customer relations and patient handling,
Gwendolyn R. Schmidt.
Gwendolyn R. Schmidt
Granddaughter-in-law to *********
To Allegheny General Hospital,
****** was admitted to Allegheny General Hospital ER sometime between 10pm and 11pm on October 13, 2010. She was sent there with a broken neck. She is a 94 year old woman. She was followed by her family (daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren), the ******.
What followed is a series of unfortunate circumstances that are troubling. In particular, attention should be given to the following events:
• For three hours, she was frantic and asking for her family, and in particular her daughter, to join her. The ***** family was not allowed back to see her during this time.
• By 7:30am on October 14, 2010, she was still not assigned a room and a bed. It was stated that she would be unlikely to have a bed before 11am.
• At 7am, a phone call was placed to “Patient Information”, who insisted that the patient, ******, was not admitted. When asked what that meant for the 94 year old woman with a broken neck, the caller was hung up on. Immediate subsequent calls resulted in indefinite holds. After a space, the caller could only get information on the patient by insisting that the call be sent to the ER. The call was not immediately transferred to the ER, but after about 5 transfers, finally located a nurse in the ER with information. The nurse did inform the caller that the patient was in the system as admitted. This meant that for half an hour, it appeared to the caller that the 94 year old woman had been lost in the hospital.
These are concerning actions from a hospital. It is understood that the hospital is over capacity, so the bed issue might be forgiven, but this is no excuse for not letting a troubled old woman not see her family for hours, nor is this an excuse for bad record keeping and a rude front operator.
Please look into these concerns and improve your customer relations and patient handling,
Gwendolyn R. Schmidt.