Layered evaluation

[docorion]

I am so using this concept in future work. In this blog post, an ER doc answers the question of an ICU nurse who asks "Do you always assess everything about all patients who come to the ED

Comments

[mzrowan]

Hm, yes. I've been someone annoyed by repeated questions from different people, but it occurs to me now that you wouldn't actually want the various people in the system playing "telephone" with what they heard from the patient, given that humans are terrible at that game.

[anaisdjuna]

Good point!

[hrafn]

Yeah, I remember when I had (not emergency) surgery, everyone who came in to talk to me asked more or less the same basic questions. Yes, maybe a little annoying, but they clearly all had their own sets of concerns/specialties to address.

(I especially remember one of them asking "Any parts you weren't born with?" but I think that question was not repeated, in any phrasing :)

[anaisdjuna]

Good to know! I wouldn't go to the ED unless I were really mucked up; so anything I can do to help rather than hinder, I'm all ears.

[cindy_lu]

I can imagine there are some other advantages to several people asking some of the same questions in an ER situation. I wouldn't be surprised if some people would give a doctor a different answer than a nurse in some circumstances, or that someone might give more details to a man they wouldn't give a woman or vice versa. Having a layered evaluation may sometimes therefore elicit information that could otherwise get missed.