Dogs, Hospitals, And Unintended Consequences
Every day I go to the emergency room to admit my adults, I can hear the screaming babies and toddlers. Sometimes, the screams are actually from their parents after realizing how much their visit is going to cost. But most of the time it’s really frightened kids in an unfamiliar environment.
Happy’s hospital used to hand out hospital stickers so kids would associate emergency rooms with a fun place to hang out. It turns out, after intense behind the scenes discussions with administration, that this policy was a covert attempt to increase the volume of our pediatric emergency room volumes.
After looking at the numbers, and understanding how hospitals get paid,I have now come on board and am part of a committee think tank that does nothing more than think of ways to get more people through the doors. We invited the intelligence behind the 50% rise in pediatric ICU volumes after implementing the pediatric ICU art project. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*
