Honestly, I am conscious about writing too frequently about personal matters, but I have awarded myself a waiver in order to explore this matter because it has interest to the citizens in our geographic reading area.
The subject is medical care above that capable of being provided by so-called Urgent Care Centers, many of which I consider to be excellent. But when you require the facilities of a general hospital, the direction in the past has always been to go to Fort Lauderdale or Boca Raton. They certainly have fine options, but much of the time when we need medical attention it would be preferable if we had one of the better facilities closer to home. Fortunately, we have one in our community, Broward Health North.
When I recently experienced a tender shin upon awakening one morning in July, my family and I considered rushing to an urgent care center but chose instead to select a hospital that would have all possible ways of treating the problem once its origin was determined.
In my case, the need changed dramatically around midnight the day I checked in. That came in the form of shortness of breath followed by losing consciousness as I was reaching for the nurses’ call button. As I returned to reality, I felt like the bottom apple in a basket of just-picked fellow apples, each one searching with eyes wide open for the reason I checked out for a short time.
Minutes later I found my bed with me on board dashing through dark hallways to the CT Scan x-ray room, followed by an equally mad dash to a patient room on an upper floor where I spent the next four days being tested for whatever caused my interrupted work week. First was an inspection of the original cause of my presence, my inflamed leg, followed by an examination of the heart, lungs, possible impacts on breathing, blood condition, etc. None was identified as the culprit, though they all remained on the list of possibilities.
My first point is that Broward Health North had every piece of equipment, and the personnel to interpret that information, during the exploratory and examination stages. Once a possible culprit was identified, facilities were available within minutes to interpret and make a determination as to the likelihood of that being the primary area of concern.
Every nurse, medical assistant and administrative person assigned to that floor and its occupants were readably available, knowledgeable, dedicated and at the same time pleasant in trying to make sense of all the pieces. I never felt that I should be somewhere else.
Best of all, or at least important to all, was the proximity of the facilities to my family and friends who wanted to find out first-hand what I was experiencing.
And my connection with that provider did not end with my discharge. The discharge documents contained recommended follow-up appointments with my cardiologist and possible follow-up appointments with other specialists, such as pulmonary specialists and others.
The bottom line is that the medical attention and treatments required by my condition were all available within ten minutes from home, which is amazingly helpful when you need to continue to run your house and business while laying on your back wondering why all this is happening.
Of course, with all good things you find there are always a few negatives. That leads me to considering arranging a meeting for those in charge of patient coffee. I’m certain that an analysis of that preparation center will ultimately read to a product that will compete well with the coffee shop in the building lobby.
Other than that, I will conclude by saying that I am a customer for life and for whatever attempts to interrupt that state from time to time.