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InQuickER: See the ER doc in 15 minutes or less, or your ER visit is free

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Re: InQuickER: See the ER doc in 15 minutes or less, or your ER visit is free

#51

Post by cscott »

Talk about contributing to the public health problem in our ERs.

Emergency medicine in the US is in a horrible state. Overcrowding is one of the primary reasons. See: http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/01/19/prsb0119.htm

One of the primary reasons for the large influx of patients is the diversion of primary care visits into the ER for non-urgent matters. A booking system that encourages non-urgent care visits to the ER as opposed to other urgent care options does nothing to help this.

As other commenters have mentioned, the problem with overcrowded ERs from a patient perspective where they have a potentially emergent case is NOT in the middle of the night - it's during the day, where other options (including primary care and urgent care facilities) are available.

Emergency medicine should not be treated in the same convenience form-factor as other consumable goods, and applying this approach is socially irresponsible in the big picture.

Re: InQuickER: See the ER doc in 15 minutes or less, or your ER visit is free

#52

Post by jdminhbg »

delano wrote: post #44

This is a great service but it seems unfortunate that it has to exist at all. The health system in Canada isn't ideal (or the Netherlands where I am now) but having to check emergency room wait times has never even occurred to me.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/05/03/9330606-sun...

'Down a hospital hallway, a row of stretchers line the wall near the nurse's station. On one of them is an elderly woman who's in pain.

She has been waiting for four hours to get into a room with a bed, but there isn't one available.

This is happening nearly every day in hospitals across the province and the GTA," said a nurse with 22 years of on-the-job experience.'

Re: InQuickER: See the ER doc in 15 minutes or less, or your ER visit is free

#53

Post by silencio »

absconditus wrote: post #33
silencio wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you have a valid point, I think you're still missing the main issue: sometimes these clinics aren't open when you need them most. Emergencies big and small happen at any time during the day. Not many clinics and urgent care centers are open and easy to go to 24/7.

Do you honestly believe that I don't realize this? The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the visitors to this site believe that most problems have a technical solution. I happen to believe that this technical solution has the potential to exacerbate an existing problem and that other non-technical solutions are possible. What is needed is a combination of 24 hour clinics/urgent care centers, more fast-t…

My apologies if I was misinterpreting your replies as needless repetition.

I don't disagree with you, and it must be said I question the need for such a service...but given the state of waiting at emergency departments today, I could see how this is useful for those people with small emergencies that for whatever reason can't be dealt with elsewhere. For now. The long term solution would obviously be to do something similar to what you suggest.

Re: InQuickER: See the ER doc in 15 minutes or less, or your ER visit is free

#55

Post by JimmyL »

tkiley wrote: post #26
matt1 wrote: post #20

What an ambitious, innovative idea--nice work. I don't understand (even after looking at the How it Works page) is how it works. Since you can't predict what types of injuries that are going to come in that are more critical than yours, how can you gaurantee an appointment time?

The short answer: we can't. Sometimes, we miss the guaranteed appointment time. However, we do everything we can to ensure that our predictions are accurate, and we do everything we can to ensure that the patient experience is still as smooth as possible if we're wrong. At this point, we have a 99.9% success rate with that guarantee: less than 1 out of every 1,000 patients has requested a write-off of the bill.

Can you expand on this a bit - for example, do you come up with the appointment times based on your own models, or does the hospital update your system to say "well, we're having a light day, so most people can get in two hours after they send us their triage info, regardless of what comes up."

I also wonder if you could talk about the incentives you use to get hospitals to sign on to your program - while you're adding value, you're also costing them staff time. Do you pass on a portion of the $25 to them, or is the idea that they will make up the cost by having more people come to them and thus getting more volume?

Lastly, have you considered partnering with insurance companies to offer this service as part of a premium's offering?

All-in, great idea you have - this is the kind of health care innovation we need.

Re: InQuickER: See the ER doc in 15 minutes or less, or your ER visit is free

#56

Post by tkiley »

JimmyL wrote: post #50

What this service does, if I'm reading this right, is bypass the stage where you talk to a triage nurse - you're triaged based on what you report is wrong with you, as opposed to what a nurse sees is wrong with you. Do you have any mechanisms in place for two-way communication between the hospital and the people booking appointments? Specifically, I'm thinking about situations where a series of individually minor sym…

Yes, we do have the capacity to reprioritize patients based on symptoms. Patients who reserve a treatment time online are responsible for their own health until they arrive at the ED, but we do give the ED caregivers the capacity to communicate with the patient early on if they deem it prudent; this feature is generally used in the sort of situations you describe, where the patient's condition may be more serious than he or she realizes.

Re: InQuickER: See the ER doc in 15 minutes or less, or your ER visit is free

#57

Post by tptacek »

breck wrote: post #49
garndt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how being a parent provides qualification in assessing the practicality of this startup, but if it does, then I would like to weigh in on this issue as I am a parent of 2. These clinics are typically staffed at least by a nurse practitioner, who can treat and prescribe medications (depending on the state) for almost any reasonable non-urgent condition, including antibiotics. If you live in a state where…

My guess is there are a lot fewer of these clinics and the majority don't have access to them. There are 5,700 hospitals in the U.S.(AHA) and ~ 4,500 emergency rooms. Do you know how many of these clinics there are?

As much as I love the InQuickER idea, it's not hard to predict which one of NP clinics and InQuickER is going to make a bigger dent faster. Clinics are going to be everywhere in ten years. It's too good a system not to succeed.

Of course, InQuickER (or something like it) is just going to integrate with the clinics and urgent care centers. I'm going to select "ear infection" and enter my zip code and it's going to give me a selection just like Orbitz.

Re: InQuickER: See the ER doc in 15 minutes or less, or your ER visit is free

#58

Post by prakash »

tkiley wrote: post #2

This is my startup. 100% bootstrapped and ramen profitable. Questions and comments encouraged. Thanks for checking it out!

fantastic idea. The first ER experience I had in the US, I waited for 5 hours -- completely baffled that it was called ER.

Re: InQuickER: See the ER doc in 15 minutes or less, or your ER visit is free

#59

Post by randallsquared »

garndt wrote: post #45
tkiley wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key phrase here is "middle of the night". How many areas have drugstore clinics that are open at 2am?

Better question, what is the likelihood that a hospital near most residents are busy enough at 2am where wait times are extremely excessive that you need to use a service like this to "schedule" your visit? I would imagine that the likelihood decreases considerably during the "middle of the night" especially when taking into consideration that there are probably more hospitals that are not level 1 trauma centers and/…

My last experience with the ER was in the 90s, but there were several times I (or my then wife) had to wait for hours in the evening or middle of the night to see a doctor at the ER, in both Columbus, GA, and Melbourne, FL.

Re: InQuickER: See the ER doc in 15 minutes or less, or your ER visit is free

#60

Post by [deleted] »

jdminhbg wrote: post #52
delano wrote: post #44

This is a great service but it seems unfortunate that it has to exist at all. The health system in Canada isn't ideal (or the Netherlands where I am now) but having to check emergency room wait times has never even occurred to me.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/05/03/9330606-sun... 'Down a hospital hallway, a row of stretchers line the wall near the nurse's station. On one of them is an elderly woman who's in pain. She has been waiting for four hours to get into a room with a bed, but there isn't one available. This is happening nearly every day in hospitals across the province and the GTA," said a nurse with 22 years of on-the-job…

[deleted]
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