Every now and then it strikes me that although medical science is advancing at a rapid pace, and these advancements are often being provided in hospitals fairly soon after their development (and approval for use), the same just can’t be said of advances in administration.
Not in my area, at any rate. I was – finally! – diagnosed with a rare disease on May 27th, and had the first of many day-surgery procedures that same day. In each of these procedures, a neuro-anesthesiologist used an ultrasound machine to find a specific cluster of nerves, and then injected medications directly into the nerve cluster.
I’ll write soon, and in detail, about these stellate ganglion blocks. In the meantime, you can read about my 10 days & 6 day-surgery procedures.
The goal of the series of six nerve blocks, within two weeks, was to try to stop the spread of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). This kind of treatment would, I think, have seemed like science-fiction just a decade or so ago. But now, in 2016, I underwent my first stellate ganglion block within an hour of my diagnosis!
But technological advances seem to have come to a standstill in many areas of hospital administration. Yesterday I encountered a perfect excellent example of what I mean.
I received a referral from my local community hospital, for a consultation at a large university hospital centre in the downtown, or city centre, area. This university has several large hospitals in the Montreal area; a healthcare network.
The referral document from the community hospital was a carbonless paper form; a 3-sheet form on NCR paper.(1) You might remember these tear-away forms from the 1970s; the top page is white, then there are couple of other pages underneath – usually in different colours.
Whatever’s written, in ballpoint pen, on the top form is transferred onto the underlying pages; like old-style carbon paper. My referral form had a white first page, then yellow and pink pages, followed by a green partial page. The green page was only the top half of the form.
The time warp doesn’t end there, though! Guess how I had to send my NCR paper referral form to a large, world-class, university hospital? To send it to the healthcare network to which my case was being referred? By… fax. In 2016!
This isn’t a negative reflection on our hospitals, which generally try their best to care for patients, but rather on how healthcare administration is set up in Quebec – and in much of Canada.
We have world-class clinicians and researchers, often with world-class diagnostic and treatment facilities and tools, working within a larger system that’s reliant on technology from the 1970s and 1980s.
References:
(1) PC Mag, Definition of: NCR paper. PCMag Digital Group, Ziff Davis, LLC. Online. Accessed 18 Aug 2016: https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/47696/ncr-paper