“Outback” in Anacortes (posted 2/08)
Recently our local hospital did some remodeling.I do believe, after spending some time there yesterday, that they hired the crack team of designers from the Outback Steakhouse to create their new foyer and check-in system. You see, my Dr.’s office called yesterday and the Dr. would like me to have my blood drawn again just to double check some results. The office is located about 1.5 hours away so the easiest thing to do was to go to my local hospital and have my blood drawn there and send the results to my Dr.’s office. Doesn’t that sound simple? I thought so too! So I set off to the newly remodeled hospital. I pulled into the updated and now very distant parking lot and made my way to the door. With a loud swoosh the doors opened to…nothing…kinda like the space where the shopping carts go when you first walk in to Fred Meyer…it was like that…but there was nothing there, no gumball machine, no hot tamales, no plastic rings nothing… So I head down the hallway…a very long hallway… passing a desk for Emergency Check In…thank goodness I wasn’t bleeding or had a full bladder…I mean why isn’t the ER desk in the open area Fred Meyer part? You know, close to the door?
Next to the ER check in was a big sandwich board sign that said “All other check in” with a large arrow and instructions to go to the blue light. I follow the sign and look for the K-mart style blue light…right? It said to go to the blue light. Passing desk after desk I saw no blue light…then around the corner there is another desk with a large , elongated blue glass chandelier suspended from the ceiling dropping low and sexy over the desk. I stop. A small sign approximately 4 feet from the desk read “For the privacy of our patients, please stand behind this sign.” A gentleman stood in front of the sign, presumably in the cone of silence, answering the questions asked him by the woman behind the desk. After overhearing his name, number, insurance carrier, and when he had his last bowel movement, it was my turn. “Hello, and what are we here for?” asked the woman. “I am here to have some blood drawn” I answer. “Do you have your paperwork?” “No, my Dr. just called it in about 30 minutes ago” I replied. “Called it in??????” her face squnched into a confused expression. “Let me check” she said as she turned to a small cardboard box that used to be a large cardboard box containing Scott toilet paper at Costco and had been cut down to hold faxes from Dr.’s offices. She pulled out a piece of paper “Your name?” “Laurie.” “Your birthday?” “September 28.” “Is this it?” she asks, showing me a fax from last February. “Uhhhh, no…this is from last February” I answer. “Well, maybe it’s upstairs. I will call and check.” She dials a sequence of numbers and begins to tap her fingers on the desk beneath the low, sexy, blue chandelier. “Hello?…Is this upstairs or downstairs? Ok” and she sets the receiver down. What? What do you mean is this upstairs or downstairs? Is there only one phone? Or two extensions and if the wrong floor answers you have to hang up and dial again hoping that the person on the desired floor is a little quicker on the draw next time???
Staring at the phone briefly the woman then suggests we call the Dr.’s office and ask them to fax the information to her station. Sounds reasonable to me and I hand her the Dr.’s card. She picks it up and her hand reaches toward the receiver …”OH!” she says with great concern. “This is a long distance number. Do you have a cell phone that we can make this call on?” “Are you kidding?” the voice inside my head responds while my mouth utters “No.” “Well, I am going to have to get permission to call long distance…just a minute” she says as she spins out of her chair and heads off to who knows where. As I watch her head down the long hallway I lean back in my chair under the soft glow of the blue glass chandelier and wait.
After a while she reappears and reaches for the receiver, punches the number in, not sure of whether or not she should have dialed 9 first , and then shakes her head and rolls her eyes like this is somehow putting her out. She instructs the person on the other end of the line to fax the information to her and ,unable to remember the fax number, scrambles for a hospital business card. Placing the receiver back in it’s place she instructs me to sit on the green sofa while she waits for the fax. I glance to the right and arranged living room style are two green sofas, a large leather ottoman and two stripped chairs with built in end tables. The chairs were directly across from the sofa and looked far more comfortable, but I began to wonder what kind of rule I would be breaking if I chose the chair over the green sofa I was instructed to sit in…would she be able to find me? Would I have to go to the end of the line? As I stood in the midst of my dilemma she approached me with a slip of paper and a buzzer…like the ones at Outback Steakhouse. “When the buzzer goes off I will tell you which desk you need to go
to-bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz… Uhhhh desk number 1” ,she says as she points to the chair 3 feet from the chair I was just sitting in. After taking two steps to the left I sit in the next chair and begin the process again, this time with a woman wearing a name tag that read “Check In Specialist”. “Your name?” asked the specialist…”Laurie, has any of your information changed?” “Ok then,” she said handing me the same buzzer, “Please have a seat on the green sofa and when this buzzer goes off someone will come out and get you.” What a relief to be in the hands of a specialist during this difficult time of disclosure I thought to myself. And why did they even buy the comfortable looking chairs if we aren’t allowed to sit in them?
Within microseconds of sitting down the buzzer vibrates, makes a loud noise and 6 or8 little red lights begin to flash at random. So I look around…no one is coming to get me…tapping my foot I look left and right and still there is no one. Blue chandelier woman gets up and heads over to me and with more than a bit of frustration in her voice says, “The woman down there is waiting for you” and she points to a woman on the other side of the building, standing there silently, with a white lab coat and a clipboard, standing next to a few dozen other hospital employees in white lab coats with clipboards… like I was somehow supposed to know without hearing my name…which they can’t say out loud evidently, due to HIPA laws…hence the elaborate Outback Steakhouse buzzer system…that this particular employee , 50 feet away, was waiting for me.
After thanking blue chandelier woman, I walk to lab coat woman. “Please place your buzzer in the bin” she instructs. I look down and see a wire basket full of Outback Steakhouse buzzers and wonder briefly if they have hired someone solely to collect the buzzers and deliver them back to the blue chandelier woman. Hmmmmm.
I take a seat in the lab chair and greet the other lab tech in the room with us. She turns around and informs me that Doris…white lab coat woman…has “mad skills” at drawing blood. Phew!!!!! Good information to have when your sitting in that chair about to have your blood drawn. And sure enough, Doris has mad skills! Doris was also mad that the other lab tech had not shown up to cover her for her break. This she mentions as she pokes the needle deeply into my vein.
“How long will it take for the results?” I ask “mad skills” Doris…“3-5 days” she responds…
Would it speed things up if I had a buzzer?
