In the following letter, New York Methodist Hospital responds to a discussion on
Park Slope Parents about the quality of care in their emergency room,
as well as the attitude of some staff members. The Park Slope Advisory
Board shared these posts with a representative from Methodist and invited a response.
In the following letter, Methodist Hospital responds to a discussion on Park Slope Parents about the quality of care in their emergency room, as well as the attitude of some staff members. The Park Slope Advisory Board shared these posts with Methodist and invited their response.
December 1, 2008
Dear Park Slope Parents:
We at New York Methodist Hospital understand that there has been a recent discussion
about the service in the Emergency Department at NYM on the PSP listserv and that
several people have posted messages that express significant concern about the care they
have received and/or the attitude of the staff.
The Hospital has been invited to respond by the PSP Advisory Board and we are grateful
for the opportunity. We take community comments very seriously and were especially
disturbed that, in many cases, there was a sense that the staff of the Emergency
Department did not seem to care about the feelings of the patients or their family
members. That is inexcusable and, to the extent that it is the case, we will make every
effort to address it.
In the past few years, partially in response to a flurry of postings on the PSP listserv in
2005, we have made many changes in our ED. Chief among these was the renovation
and expansion of the entire facility, which opened last year. The new ED has a dedicated
Pediatric Emergency Room and a private suite for women with obstetric or gynecological
problems and is 50 percent larger than the previous ED.
We also added ED physicians and ED staff in our Patient Relations Department and
implemented an ED patient survey, administered and analyzed by an independent market
research organization. This has allowed us to focus on specific complaints and to
monitor our progress. When letters of complaint come in to me or to the director of
patient relations, the chairman of emergency medicine or the senior vice president for
nursing, they are shared with all involved and thoroughly discussed before a response
(both in the form of an answer to the letter-writer and a possible change in policy,
procedures and/or counseling of an individual staff member) is determined.
That said, the readers of this listserv need to be aware that emergency rooms, especially
those in a city like New York, do best when the care needed is for a condition that is truly
emergent—life threatening. We have had some wonderful letters of thanks from
individuals whose lives were saved in our ED. Often, those lives are saved because
doctors and nurses divert their attention from other patients, some of who may be
extremely uncomfortable, but who are not in life-threatening situations.
This kind of
decision is often necessary and appropriate in an emergency room. Judging an
emergency room by the amount of time that you wait on any particular visit may do it a
great injustice.
Sometimes we don’t know whether our symptoms are life threatening. Or, we know that
an acutely painful condition is not life threatening, but still go to the ER because no other
medical care is available. The ER is there for cases like this as well, but anyone not in an
emergent condition needs to understand that, while we try to avoid long waits, they do
sometimes occur.
It may also be helpful for you to know that alternative help may be available and
accessible—for example, it may be much more expeditious to take a child with a need for
stitches on the chin or forehead to a neighborhood plastic surgeon or to take one who may
have a broken foot directly to an orthopedic surgeon. However, because of liability
issues, once you come to an ED, neither the triage nurse, nor any other staff member can
direct you out of that ED to a private doctor.
A physician referral service (accessible by area of specialty) is available at 718 499-
CARE or at www.nym.org. In addition, we have a pediatric urgent care center, staffed by
a pediatrician, that is available weekday evenings between 6 and 11 p.m., at 263 Seventh
Avenue (between Fifth and Sixth Streets).
In the fall of 2005, the Hospital hosted a session for interested parents at which members
of the ED staff (in particular, our chief of pediatric emergency medicine) spoke about the NYM Emergency Department, and at which parents had the opportunity to ask questions,
voice concerns and tour the ED. Clearly it is time for us to schedule another meeting at
which the Hospital and interested community members can come together to listen to
each other. We will schedule our “listening session” shortly after the holidays.
In the meantime, I hope that you will feel free to contact me (lhill@nym.org) if there is
any way in which I can assist you or if you have any questions you would like to ask.
You may also want to contact Joanne Lagnese, Director of Patient Relations, at
jor9006@nyp.org.
Sincerely,
Lyn S. Hill
Vice President of Communication and External Affairs
and Mother of two children who grew up in Park Slope (one born at NYM!)