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July 11, 2006
Looking for Hospital 2.0: Hospital Waiting Rooms should learn from Car Dealerships
Maybe there are hospitals in the United States that take better care of the people in their waiting rooms than the Long Island hospital at which I recently spent the day (although, as disturbing as this thought might be to me at the moment, I suspect most Long Island hospitals tend to be better than average). As someone who spent the better part of the day waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting (did I mention I waited a long time?), I spent most of the day disconnected -- my Blackberry had no reception on T-Mobile and I struck out trying to get Internet access using my Verizon EvDO subscription. Had my T-Mobile cell phone actually had service, I would not have been able to place any calls due to the hospital's policy of "no cell phones." (I wonder if that would have included a VoIP-enabled PDA?) I bear witness to the fact that this policy was actively enforced while I was there. And while I did discover a few hospital Wi-Fi networks, they were all secure and the hospital didn't offer any Wi-Fi hotspots for their guests. One question: Wouldn't it be kind of good for people to have outside access to friends, family, even professional colleagues while stuck for unknowable lengths of time at the hospital, at least to notify loved ones and concerned friends about progress? Wouldn't that reason alone justify a more permissive and enabling communications environment at hospitals?
I bring up this issue primarily because one welcome trend I have noticed at car dealerships across the US is a growing policy of creating a productive work environment for customers who are having a few hours of work done on their car. Dealerships these days seem to be doing whatever they can to make it conducive for their customers to wait in the waiting rooms for work to get done. Sometimes this means offering free drinks, free food together with the free Wi-Fi, oh, and you are also able to freely use your cell phone without worry that some volunteer enforcer will ask you to turn your phone off. Maybe it is because the car dealerships have a specific, financially-motivated reason to keep people there. I guess hospitals don't have any financial incentive to keep people around (and there is potential for voice disruption or even frequency interference), but shouldn't hospitals be in the business of making the hospital a more accommodating place for patients and loved ones?
One day soon, I do hope a national hospital administrator will spend time at a car dealership servicing their car, and maybe the lightbulb will come on, so that we, the semi-patient waiting public, are better served in the future ... and this way we can be more productive while waiting for our loved ones.
The bottom-line is that I believe that patients, hospitals, loved ones, the US economy, and the public would be better served if we were able to communicate with the outside world during our unfortunate, and often interminable, and unknowable visits to the hospital.
Tags: Hospital 2.0, Jeff Pulver,
(c) 2006 Jeff Pulver. All Rights Reserved.
(This blog posting is copyright protected by Jeff Pulver. Portions of this blog posting may be quoted or abstracted if attributed.)
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Posted by jeff on July 11, 2006 09:54 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Jeff...thanks for the article
Coincidentally, I developed a sotware for dealerships to REDUCE Customer Waiting Time ( www.lobbymanager.com )...it is amazing that dealers have taken the initiative of providing better Waiting environments for customers...will the healthcare industry follow? we hope...I have several doctors using our software a step forward...
www.lobbymanager.com
Posted by: John Braggiotti at July 11, 2008 04:33 PM
Any medical equipment, (with the exception of EKG or EEG machines) made in the last 20 years should be designed to withstand RF from cell phones. Doesn't the FCC regulate interference? (Oh right, FCC)
Posted by: Randy at February 16, 2008 04:07 AM
I read your blurb with a great deal of interest. I had a similar experience earlier this summer when my 16 year old daughter had some surgery. I felt compelled to ask the nurse and an administrator about the availability of a Wi-Fi network so I could check my email for work, as well as the use of my cell phone while we sat waiting for the surgery to be done. I received the same basic responses as you did.
However, they did direct me to a pay phone, where I could contact work using a toll free number, relatives using a calling card, etc. Plus, there was a phone book available so I could use that to order her flowers. Funny how old technology can work so well when new technology is not available...
:-)
Craig Swanson
Yellow Book USA
Posted by: Craig Swanson at September 20, 2006 06:16 PM
Posted by: Jaanus at July 13, 2006 04:35 AM
I work in an intensive care unit. Many of my patients are ventilated. Many of the new ventilators are unfortunately designed without adequate RF shielding. This has caused one ventilator to seize on one of my patients. A quite life threatening to have the machine that was breathing for you suddenly stop. There has also been one journal article to my knowledge that reported catastrophic failures with cell phone radiation and hospital equipment. This is a real problem that is only starting to be addressed.
.
Our hospital goes to great lengths to provide a comfortable environment for their patients & guests including: redesigning units to have individual rooms, working phones and TV in each room (I remember the days when they charged for both), internet access in most of the waiting rooms, and family centered care (allowing family presence as much as possible). Patient safety comes first prior to all other priorities. I agree we are not there yet, but the hospitals have gotten better.
Posted by: Roger Brunwald at July 12, 2006 02:39 PM
I work in an intensive care unit. Many of my patients are ventilated. Many of the new ventilators are unfortunately designed without adequate RF shielding. This has caused one ventilator to seize on one of my patients. A quite life threatening to have the machine that was breathing for you suddenly stop. There has also been one journal article to my knowledge that reported catastrophic failures with cell phone radiation and hospital equipment. This is a real problem that is only starting to be addressed.
Our hospital goes to great lengths to provide a comfortable environment for their patients & guests including: redesigning units to have individual rooms, working phones and TV in each room (I remember the days when they charged for both), internet access in most of the waiting rooms, and family centered care (allowing family presence as much as possible). Patient safety comes first prior to all other priorities. I agree we are not there yet, but the hospitals have gotten better.
Posted by: Roger Brunwald at July 12, 2006 02:13 PM
There is nothing worse than having to leave the hospital just to make calls or get online. Especially when your child is the one hospitalized. We've had 9 years of surgeries under hospital "media blackouts", and all it does is add to the trauma.
Even after surgery, when you get a room, the phones available are blocked for long distance dialing (would they just switch to voip already?). It's incredibly difficult to keep the rest of the family updated when you have to KEEP LEAVING the hospital to do so.
And what about telecommuters? Surgeries are expensive enough without also having to miss two weeks of work while the apple of your eye is recovering from an emergency tracheotomy or neurosurgery. A little Wi-Fi could go a long way toward minimizing the impact surgery has on a family's bottom line.
So yes, take it from someone who isn't yet out of the trenches: hospital internet phones and Wi-Fi definitely fall on the side of must-have.
Hope your hospital experience turned out ok!
Posted by: T. Willie at July 12, 2006 11:02 AM
You just need to get sick in California, Jeff!
In the Bay Area there are now a number of medical offices with free WiFi access. HMO giant Kaiser Permanente is promoting free WiFi as a selling point for its new medical center in Santa Clara, which opened at the end of last year.
Posted by: Carolyn Schuk at July 11, 2006 05:44 PM
Why not start a trend? Offer to sponsor free wifi in the emergency room waiting area, the cafeteria and patients lounge.
These were among the places that ny company was going to offer advertiser supported free wifi, but
due to the anouncement of what came to be what I call the "worlds worst municipal wifi network", the company never got off the ground.
With some savy accounting, you could write it off as a charitable deduction.
BTW, you never said, is everyone ok?
Geoff.
Posted by: Geoff Mendelson at July 11, 2006 01:47 PM
I was having an IM session with a friend the other day, while he was at Jiffy Lube waiting form them to change the oil in car. Free wifi at Jiffy Lube these days ...
Posted by: Steve Smith at July 11, 2006 10:38 AM
Coincidentally, I had to spend several hours at the Newton-Wellesley Hospital on Saturday. I also found myself searching for Wi-Fi only to find countless secured networks. On top of this, in my two hours in the lobby I saw two other people (out of ten) also try to connect to the net. It seems that it would only be logical to allow people to access the outside world, especially from the emergency room. by default, you were not expecting to be there and probably need to settle some things that you are missing. While maybe access to the net falls under a hospital's *strict* cell phone policy, I think it only would help.
Posted by: Matt Lauzon at July 11, 2006 10:26 AM