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By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
(Editor’s note: If you sent me an email late Thursday, April 11, or early on Friday, April 12, please re-send. After I read a few emails, suddenly my screen went blank and I lost all those emails, and need to reply to some of you. —EEB)
APRIL 16, 2024 | During the past few years, our family has had people in the hospital. There was one element of the hospital stays that totally surprised us.
It just hit us that today it is so much quieter in hospitals than it has been in the past.
We remember visiting people in hospitals when there was this constant interruption of your thoughts by those loud announcements ringing throughout all hallways over the intercom.
“Will Dr. Rogers please report to the Emergency Room?”
“Paging Lucille Jones. Paging Lucille Jones.”
“A wheelchair is needed in room 237.”
“Dr. Wilson, please call extension 14.”
“If you have a missing child, please go to the Third Floor nurse’s stand.”
Or similar announcements. It’s been several years since we have heard this type of constant interrupting chatter over the hospital intercom.
But today, it is so very, very quiet when you are in, or are visiting someone, in the hospital. While nurses and aides seem to wander often into your room, they can sometimes be quiet. And not every time they take your temperature or blood pressures, or poke you, though it may seem like that when you are trying to sleep at night.
What caused this sudden quiet along hospital corridors?
Modern technology. Now the staff can either quietly page a doctor or nurse, send them a text or even quietly call them on a cell phone. That element alone has given the stay in a hospital a change that is more like taking it easy and really resting in a spa.
That newfound quiet is wonderful, both to patients and visitors.
There is also a vast difference in hospital food than there was in the past. Today they even give hospital patients a choice of several different entrees on that day’s menu. You simply order the next meal near when you are consuming the current one.
And here is an even more surprising element to the food. It’s tasty, usually delivered hot, and not only good, but good for you.
Of course, today with all the innovations in medical technology with the new gadgets, patients are experiencing better service than ever before. While it’s never any fun to be hospitalized, at least the medical field is thinking more about the patient experience, and producing many times a more enjoyable stay.
Chalk up one for technology and more professionalism in hospital administration!
At an elevator in a hotel recently: loud music coming from a band in the hotel lobby was drowning out most conversation. “They call that music,” said one guy getting on the elevator. Another guy: “I thought I was the only one who thought that way.”
Recognize that you are not always wrong, and that, indeed, others think like you.
Early one recent morning, a bachelor pulled out of his driveway leaving home with his dog in the car. There was no one else at his house. However, you would not know it, for he left both his hallway, living room and kitchen with the lights on.
He’s costing himself a higher utility bill, but also wasting valuable power.
Some individuals!
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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