Can we fix Emergency Rooms?

So as I promised I did much thinking and much observing while in the ER on Monday night. {I'm a little high on hydrocodone right now so excuse and nonsensical statements}. The thing that got my attention the most was the complete lack of attention I received while in the emergency room. From start to finish I probably only had about 40 minutes of patient to hospital employee contact...That's in 10.5 hours! So being the aspiring manager that I am I thought how could this be better? What could I do as a hospital manager to make the experience better? Can it be made better? And here's what I came up with...

This first thing I would like to do is ask who ever is reading this to try to think of an industry that provides a service to its customers yet thrives without any attention to customer service.

Well I've thought about that for the last 48 hours and the only answer I can come up with is a hospital. As an economist, I am very interested in the fact that the demand remains high for hospitals that provide little to no customer service. It has become the norm for a hospital to sit you in a waiting room for hours on end, upset patients at the ridiculously high prices ($20 for an aspirin), and yet their waiting rooms are always full. So have they just found the greatest industry to be a part of? One which requires no focus on your end consumer. Or is it that we can't give ourselves the medical attention we require so we must sit through their maze of paperwork and then ask for more?

I truly believe that we as consumers have the ability to change things we don't like...Even in the medical sector. So why haven't we done so? I will never go back to Baylor Medical Center of Irving. I know I won't individually change their balance sheet but if everyone who was dissatisfied changed the hospital they would go to...It would change.

So you ask "alright Ricky enough complaining already what do you think you could possibly do to make the situation in emergency rooms better?" Here's what I'd do, in a dream world if I ran a hospital.

The first thing I would do is make the waiting room a more welcoming place. Since it seems this is were most of my anger grew (and I'm sure most everyone else's), I would attempt to make it a place you wouldn't mind waiting. I would take out all those boring rows of uncomfortable chairs and replace them with a lounge or cafe atmosphere. I would begin with putting tables, ranging in seating capacity from 2-8 people, in the waiting room. These tables would be attended by nurses/waiters. I was told I couldn't have anything for my pain until I saw a doctor...What if a doctor saw you in the waiting room (all I wanted was some tylenol or something)? They could also bring you something to eat if it was feasible for your ailment/situation. Throw in some couches, better selection of reading materials, coffee on the house, and some soft music and the experience would be much better.

Unfortunately I don't have enough medicinal knowledge to explain how to fix the rest of the process, but it seems as if there was way too much waiting. For being highly educated, doctors seem to be highly disorganized and unconcerned with their patients needs. At one point I went up to the nurses desk and 8 of them noticed me but did nothing. I just stood there until someone asked me how they could help me...It took 5 minutes. One was having coffee, one was eating, and the 6 others didn't seem to be doing much of anything.

Maybe I'm just frustrated with my recent experience but I truly feel that we as end consumers of emergency room care can fix their problems for them with a reduction in demand at slow ER's. What do you think?