The elderly man lived alone in an apartment complex not far from the hospital. A younger neighbor, who\u2019d watched him hobble down the building\u2019s stairwell for nearly a week, insisted on taking him to the emergency room. Doctors there immediately diagnosed an infection in his painful toe and prescribed antibiotics for him to take at home.
\nBut they also advised the man to be sure to take his diabetes medicine, since the infection could elevate his blood sugar to dangerous levels. And as the surgical consultant, I urged him to keep his foot up, check the toe once a day and come to our vascular surgery clinic in a week to make sure the infection was clearing up. He needed close follow-up to prevent serious complications, even the loss of his foot.
\n\u201cOf course, if things get worse before the week\u2019s up,\u201d I said, raising my voice to be heard over the clatter beyond the makeshift curtain walls of the E.R. examining room, \u201ccome back here right away.\u201d
\nUnder the glaring fluorescent lights, there was no mistaking the blank look that passed over the man\u2019s face. He was overwhelmed.
\nBut so was the emergency room.
\nNone of the staff members had been trained in coordinating the complex outpatient care this elderly patient needed. None knew of a way for the emergency department to check on him a day or so after discharge to ensure his care was proceeding as planned. And when a social worker from another department agreed to pitch in with outpatient care, the emergency room doctors and nurses became alarmed rather than relieved, because arranging such follow-up could take several hours. With patients spilling out of the waiting room and into the hallways, they were under pressure to either admit or discharge patients as quickly as possible.
\nAn older nurse finally pulled me aside. \u201cJust admit him,\u201d she whispered. \u201cIt\u2019ll cost more, but it\u2019s the only way you\u2019ll be sure he\u2019s getting the right care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The elderly man lived alone in an apartment complex not far from the hospital. A younger neighbor, who\u2019d watched him hobble down the building\u2019s stairwell for nearly a week, insisted on taking him to the emergency room. Doctors there immediately diagnosed an infection in his painful toe and prescribed antibiotics for him to take at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.exptheme.com\/suarez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}