Patients rarely call and are not as effective as a standard medical hand-off
1,981 articles reviewed on Patient Hesitancy and Pre-hospital Delay
- Chest Pain patients wait an average of 3.5 hours to 7 days before seeking care
- Psychiatric crisis patients rarely call 911 if their threat is real
- Stroke patients wait an average of 1.5 hours to call 911 after symptoms have started and rarely call if they have a Transient Ischemic Attack.
Patient Case
A 74 year old male calls your office because he is having epigastric and chest pains. The after hours answering service gets you on the phone. The patient says he usually has pain when he eats spicy foods, but this time it has lasted longer and feels more like a squeeze. Antacids were not helping. He has a history of CAD. His niece insisted he call his doctor. You ask him to call 911, the patient agrees, and you hang up.
Thirty minutes later you called him back to see how things are going. His niece picked up and said he did not call 911 because he was afraid of getting COVID at the hospital and did not want to go. You talk to the patient again and activate Telemedicine 911. He arrives in the ED and is shown to have an inferior wall MI.
When patients have chest pain, they hesitate to call 911 for an average of 3.5 hours. Even if you tell the patient to call 911 and hang up, they still hesitate. Telemedicine911 allows you to talk directly with 911 dispatchers and direct them to send your patients to cardiac centers with cath labs rather than the closest emergency room which may not be equipped.
Time is heart muscle. Your Telemedicine911 response gets the patient to the right facility without hesitation. If the patient were in your office, you would coordinate 911, not your patient. Take control of the situation
This same doctor has had 3 patients die in 2020 due to reluctance to call 911 and go to the hospital.
