Most people get dizzy when they arrive at the hospital and balk at the “medical journey” they are about to embark on because everywhere is overcrowded. This article combines the actual situation in my own workplace to try to give you some affordable advice that will save you some time and effort. The first point to declare is that this article is only for less urgent outpatient chronic diseases, if it is a life-threatening aortic coarctation, acute myocardial infarction or acute heart failure, can not be so slow to go through the process, it is necessary to quickly enter the emergency room.
How do I register?
How can I get a specialist number in a popular department of a popular hospital is the most important concern for many patients seeking medical care, as most public hospitals in China are not yet able to do a real referral and appointment system, and no matter how big or small the disease everyone likes to go to the best local or adjacent metropolis tertiary hospitals, which will inevitably lead to tertiary hospitals are full all year round, one is difficult to find. How to break this problem? In fact, you can start from a number of ways, you will find that registration is not particularly difficult, there are several tricks to solve the following.
First, see special needs
Many famous experts have limited time and limited numbers, so for cases where the family is financially well off and the clinical situation is complicated or very tangled up in the problem of not knowing how to make a decision, instead of using all kinds of relationships to find people to add numbers and huddle together and wait anxiously for hours, but also can not say a few words, in fact, it is really better to go to the special needs clinic to communicate with experts in a practical way. Every hospital has a special needs clinic where you can make an appointment on site, by phone or by 114.
Internet Appointment
At present, the Internet is developing rapidly, and there are many online registration websites, APPs or WeChat public numbers, which can make full use of the doctor’s time to help patients. For patients or family members familiar with the Internet, they can “rub” more capital “oil and water”. At present, some online platforms are still open for free for booking additional numbers. It is important to note that the Internet medical system is not yet perfectly connected with all medical insurance systems and hospital officials, so you should read the notes and cautions carefully in the process of using it.
Appointment between clinics
What should I do if I want to see the specialist I met in the clinic next time I see him? Do you have to get up early and rush to the hospital? You can ask the doctor to make an appointment for you at a suitable time for your next visit. This service not only allows doctors to coordinate their work in advance, but also greatly reduces the cost of time for patients to see the doctor, so they can come to the clinic with ease.
Patients who do not have detailed test results for the first time can register for a general number, make an appointment for all the relevant tests, and then go to the specialist’s clinic with the perfect results; foreign patients do not have to blindly go to the big city to see a doctor, but can use the online platform to select the target hospital target doctor, send the medical history information for consultation, and then complete the appointment to add a number.
What do I need to do in advance?
First, prepare to see the doctor afterwards. First-time patients may need to be simpler with less information, but repeated visits are more complicated especially if they have been to multiple hospitals and hospitalized. Patients can write down the process of their hospitalization in chronological order (for example, they were hospitalized in 2002 for angina pectoris, had an anterior myocardial infarction in 2005, had a stent in the anterior descending branch, were hospitalized again in 2006 for angina pectoris, had the stent occluded on review, had the stent implanted for the second time, had the stent occluded again on review in 2007, and were transferred to the cardiac surgery department for bypass surgery, etc.); also You can provide the complete medical records of each hospitalization or a detailed summary of the medical records.
Next, prepare test results. When we ask patients for previous test results in the outpatient clinic, we often encounter patients who do not have them, for reasons such as “I thought they were useless, so I threw them away”, “I don’t know where I left them at home, I can’t find them”, “Our local small hospital’s results are not accurate. I didn’t bring the results from our small local hospital, so I’ll recheck them here”, and so on. In fact, some results, especially ECG, blood pressure and heart rate records, including laboratory tests, may be of great value when there are symptoms of discomfort. Cardiology arrhythmias, a large group of diseases, are mainly diagnosed by ECG, and supraventricular tachycardia, atrial fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia, etc. are often paroxysmal, not persistent, so the ECG during the attack is more valuable (a friendly reminder, ECG paper is thermal paper, after a long time, it will slowly fade to see clearly, so, for particularly important ECG, it is recommended to keep (For particularly important ECGs, it is recommended to keep copies). It is best to arrange the test results in chronological order so that the doctor can easily view them for comparison.
Also, be prepared with commonly used medications. In the outpatient clinic visit will also encounter a situation, is to ask the patient what drugs have been used for treatment, the patient does not know, some say that the family prepared their own do not care; some can not remember the name of the drug just describe the size, color, shape of drugs (a friendly reminder, this information is actually not very useful, many drugs do not have significant appearance characteristics); others can only remember individual words, the doctor will have to guess one by one In this way, it reduces the efficiency of seeing a doctor and wastes the time of both doctors and patients. It doesn’t matter if you can’t remember the name of the medicine, the patient just needs to take the medicine or the medicine box every day. Many patients also often say, “Doctor, you do not need to ask, re-prescribe the medication, I do not take the previous medication. In fact, asking about previous medications is also the key to knowing the patient’s response to treatment, whether certain symptoms are an adverse effect of the medication, and whether certain tests need to be reviewed. Some of the more careful patients will compile a list of their own, detailing the medications taken at different times, so that the doctor looks very clear and also speeds up the visit. One word of caution, if you are allergic to certain medications or have had serious adverse reactions during previous treatment, be sure to report them to your doctor in a timely manner so that you can develop an individual treatment strategy. Of course, sometimes some adverse reactions may be related to the patient’s usage, dosage, combined use of other medications and different disease states, and it is not always true that they should not be used.
What kind of tests do I need?
Some of these tests require fasting, some require appointments, some must be done during specific times, and some must be done separately and not on the same day. It is important to ask for this information and write it down so that you do not lose too much time in the examination process if you are not clear. It is also important to make an appointment with your doctor to come in for a follow-up appointment so that you can evaluate the test results and develop a treatment plan. In fact, some relatively simple cases can be completed through the regular authoritative Internet platform, not necessarily need to come to the hospital for a face-to-face consultation, but also can greatly save the patient’s travel time.
Do not ask the doctor about the appointment time, the doctor does not have the authority or the energy to solve it, this is still to ask and discuss at the place where the examination is scheduled. When you make an appointment, you can make an arrangement and try to put together the items that can be done on the same day to reduce the number of visits to the hospital. Even doctors who have worked in hospitals for many years sometimes do not know much about things outside their scope of practice, so you should go to the place where you are in charge of the affairs, such as the location of examinations and tests. For example, you can ask about the location of tests and labs at the service desk in the clinic lobby; you can ask about when the results will be available at the place where you made an appointment for the test. This information is usually indicated on the examination or appointment form, so be sure to read it carefully.
How do I need to cooperate with the treatment?
Once the treatment plan is determined, the patient can take the medication as required. During the treatment process, patients should not “stick to the same rules” or “listen to hearsay”.
What does this mean? The treatment plan is actually very individualized and changes with the individual and the environment, especially in the elderly. Some patients may find that their blood pressure is not as good as before after a period of stable treatment, or that their heart rate has suddenly slowed down, and in such cases it is necessary to find a doctor in time to adjust the medication and do some tests accordingly. This is why treatment should not be “unchanging and rigid”, because the patient’s situation actually changes every day, age, climate changes, mood swings, sleep disorders, dietary changes, the combination of other diseases, the addition of other drugs, etc., all these will affect the outcome of treatment. Therefore, as a chronic disease management, patients should record their blood pressure and heart rate every day, regularly measure their weight and review their laboratory tests to have a relatively clear and accurate understanding of their own parameters, which is the best way to cooperate with treatment. This long-term treatment “fine-tuning” also does not necessarily have to go to a tertiary care hospital to see a doctor, through the formal authority of the Internet platform for consultation is also completely possible.
There is also an opposite situation, that is, some patients are too fond of change, after taking drugs for a period of time, feel no discomfort, the state is still relatively good, they began to take the initiative to reduce the drug dose, and also do not observe their blood pressure heart rate, until a sharp rise in blood pressure or more serious problems, only to go to the hospital. As I said earlier, the long-term medication of patients is dynamically adjusted according to the situation, not set in stone, but this “change” is a controlled “change” under the guidance of professionals, rather than a random “change This “change” is a controlled “change” under professional guidance, not a random “change. Some patients hear friends, colleagues, neighbors and even exercise together with people who attend counseling classes say that a certain health care products or a certain drug is good, but also run to the hospital to open to eat, know that the clinical situation of different people is different, others appropriate may not be suitable for you, do not blindly apply, must be more than consult a doctor. I once met a patient with coronary heart disease who came to the clinic to prescribe warfarin instead of aspirin, saying that he had watched the program “Health Hall”, in which the experts said that warfarin was more effective than aspirin in preventing strokes. I said that it was better in patients with atrial fibrillation, but not in your case. Appropriate for the wrong population, and a good thing can turn out to be a bad thing.
These are the things I always want to say to my outpatients, and I would be very happy if people read this and can benefit from it in their actual visits.