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

inquicker.com

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

#3
Sounds like a neat idea. You obviously have to get hospital permission/buy-in before this idea could really take off. This is a similar idea to OpenTable, the dining reservation system. Perhaps you could do (or already have done) some research to find out how that company has succeeded/failed and apply those lessons to your efforts. Online based reservation systems are a great idea, but seems like a lot of leg work is required to get it really rolling. Classic chicken/egg problem here with early adopters.

1. Add some auto-suggest features to the 'add a hospital' form.

2. Use an IP address/geolocation service to guess where I'm located and pre-populate the state for the form.

3. I tried to add my local hospital, and received a very ugly error message:

====

Internal Error

There was an error processing your request. The system administrator has been notified of the problem, it will be fixed as soon as possible. Please try again later. TELEPHONE SUPPORT

For telephone assistance, call our on-duty support technician at (770)-597-9185.

====

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

#5

Sounds like a neat idea. You obviously have to get hospital permission/buy-in before this idea could really take off. This is a similar idea to OpenTable, the dining reservation system. Perhaps you could do (or already have done) some research to find out how that company has succeeded/failed and apply those lessons to your efforts. Online based reservation systems are a great idea, but seems like a lot of leg work i…

Thanks for reporting this, it's been fixed, and we did receive your hospital suggestion. :)

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

#6

If you can afford to wait do you actually have an emergency? There are many other options, including clinics in drugstores, which don't burden emergency departments.

I'm a father of 3 and this service would have been useful on several occasions. TRUE emergencies are handled VERY quickly at the ER, but there are a lot of times when the regular doctors office is closed (holidays, weekends, after business hours) but you REALLY need to take your sick child to get medicine or whatever. We've had more middle-of-the-night ear infections than I'd care to remember. :)

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

#7

If you can afford to wait do you actually have an emergency? There are many other options, including clinics in drugstores, which don't burden emergency departments.

This is a very good question, and a very complicated one. In many markets, retail clinics and urgent care centers are open 60 hours per week at best; nights and weekends, treatment options are scarce.

Additionally, many hospitals operate onsite "fast-track" clinics which are connected to the ED, so low-acuity conditions are essentially treated in something resembling a retail clinic.

Our goal is to make the emergency medical treatment experience as efficient as possible. Parents don't want to be sitting in the waiting room half the night, potentially exposing their children to contagious diseases in the er. Professionals lose valuable time to ER visits that drag on forever. We're trying to recapture that lost time and give the patients more control of the treatment process.

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

#8

If you can afford to wait do you actually have an emergency? There are many other options, including clinics in drugstores, which don't burden emergency departments.

I'm a father of 3 and this service would have been useful on several occasions. TRUE emergencies are handled VERY quickly at the ER, but there are a lot of times when the regular doctors office is closed (holidays, weekends, after business hours) but you REALLY need to take your sick child to get medicine or whatever. We've had more middle-of-the-night ear infections than I'd care to remember. :)

The drugstore clinics can certainly handle ear infections. There are also urgent care facilities in most areas that can be utilized.

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

#9

If you can afford to wait do you actually have an emergency? There are many other options, including clinics in drugstores, which don't burden emergency departments.

InQuicker specifically notes that they aren't for urgent or emergency conditions (http://www.inquicker.com/when_to_call_911). I don't see any reason why this couldn't be extended to non-hospital clinics, they work pretty similarly.

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

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a father of 3 and this service would have been useful on several occasions. TRUE emergencies are handled VERY quickly at the ER, but there are a lot of times when the regular doctors office is closed (holidays, weekends, after business hours) but you REALLY need to take your sick child to get medicine or whatever. We've had more middle-of-the-night ear infections than I'd care to remember. :)

The drugstore clinics can certainly handle ear infections. There are also urgent care facilities in most areas that can be utilized.

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