Phones Never Answered
In the old days, we had rotary dial phones attached to a wall or maybe sitting on a desk with cords. When it rang, you answered unless you weren’t home.
Then, came answering machines. People listened to their messages and almost everyone responded.
Now, we have a mess.
Lots of us still have landlines which are usually attached with a portable handset that is often lost. The phone unit usually also has an answering machine, which is not to be confused with the answering system put in place by the phone company (which is usually unknown to the household). That means every landline has multiple message systems. Most of the time, the household has long ago forgotten how to retrieve the messages and the mailbox remains full and useless.
People are now eliminating their landlines, but they forget they eliminated them. They still give you that disconnected landline number as their primary contact.
Fortunately, people now all carry cell phones, but they don’t answer them because the calls all deal with vehicle warranties. They can’t check their messages because they long ago forgot their phone password. That assumes they even knew how to check them in the first place.
Half the time, their phones are not even charged.
So, what do you do if a patient’s lab work shows a potassium of 6.8?
You call. You keep calling. You keep leaving messages that will never be heard. You learn the voice mailbox is full. You can try to text, but good luck hearing back.
You try to call their relatives and points of contact, only to learn those landlines have also been disconnected or their cell phones are also never answered and the mailbox is full and cannot accept messages.
Next, you mail them a letter certified and uncertified. In a week or two, it might arrive, though mail service remains very unreliable. Hopefully, the patient is still alive at that point.
You could try your EMR portal. Good luck with that.Email? You can try, but most people have multiple email accounts and only check one or two of them, if they even do that!
Bottom line: We are drowning in technology that often does not work and is not intuitive. We have so many contact options which are impossible to manage. We can’t possibly remember to check them all or even learn how to use them. We’ve long ago forgotten our passwords because…well…we’re getting old.
This sounds like a bad standup routine, but it is deadly serious when time is a big element. We have literally sent staff to patients’ homes to bang on the door, make sure they are still alive and to make sure they are appropriately managed.
We need a better solution! Wait! I’ve forgotten about passenger pigeons!!! Better yet… DRONES!!! That just might work!
Very good point Dr. Mussey and another good reason to be retired. If the patient has caller I.D. on the their line, they can see it’s the medical clinic trying to contact them and they are more likely to answer. Just depends how sophisticated one’s patients are.