What is it about MWH? Why the distrust?

I’ve had many encounters at MWH and only one time was I not happy. It was in the ER and there was the most pompous-assed doctor I have ever had the displeasure of asking help from. I won’t name him but I want to follow up this comments to name a few names of the most fantastic doctors any person or family in medical durress could ever hope to be seen by- Dr. Walsh and Dr. Pennington. Dr. On the several occasions one of us were admitted, the entire staff of nurses, NA’a, lab techs, support staff, everyone was professional and offered us hope through their care.

Whether you agree or disagree with healthcare reform, the biggest reason that so many people have become fervently for or against the matter is that at its core, it affects one of the most personal things that we entrust to other people. When we find ourselves or a loved one ill or injured, there is a physiological response that makes us on our guard and in some ways, we are at our most vulnerable. As patients, we seek help when we are afraid and are uncertain about the potential repercussions of our present afflictions. It may not always be life or death but it is always a fear of losing the ability to live life the way that we have become accustomed to.

In an ideal world there would be a one-to-one ratio between healthcare providers and patients but with over 120,000 people in Spotsylvania County alone, even with countless options for medical services available, this simply isn’t the case. So, whether it is at our primary care doctor’s or the emergency room, we often find ourselves waiting to be seen. We all know what it feels like to be afraid and forced to wait to receive answers. The minutes can be agonizing and in an emergency department, that feeling is amplified.

Healthcare professionals are placed in the unenviable position of having to categorize and subjectively decide who to see first. Regional providers have tried to make this easier by offering posted wait times or giving pagers out but at the end of the day that waiting often makes people feel like just a “customer”. Having spent a fair amount of time in EMS and working with providers in several facilities and states, I must say that regardless of what group they work for, treating patient’s like a number is never their intent.

Emergency providers are faced with dealing with people on the worst day of their lives every single day and often times, completely uncompensated but yet they show up to work each and every day because they are members of the community, your neighbors, little league coaches and maybe even your friends with a vested interest in your well being. And it is genuinely insulting that articles and comments like these would insinuate anything to the contrary.

It is never newsworthy when someone feels like a “customer” at the DMV or the grocery store but unfortunately, no matter where you are, waiting comes from volume not from apathy. Providers at every local hospital give up Christmas with their children, and Thanksgiving with their families in order to support their community. They are too busy treating any number of the 120,000 people to be intentionally and spitefully making patients wait and skewing sepsis data. Treating those in need is a full time job.

I would like to know just this year how many less or more employs work at each hospital?And also there counting the
MRSA bug They must not be counting. The people that come in with the MRSA bug an still leave with it right?

If you are admitted by a good and recognized doctor then you will get good care. If not, then you wont.

I’ve twice been a patient at MWH. Once for a planned surgery. My doctor was very well known and my care was first class, all the way.

The second time I came in through the ER. I was in so much pain I could barely speak. Once I could find my insurance card they helped me fill out the forms and put me in one of the ER rooms. I couldn’t help but cry out in pain. After about an hour, someone got tired of hearing me and shut the door. Finally a doctor came in and prescribed morphine. (The problem was a kidney stone stuck in the tube between the bladder and the kidney). He said that it would work itself out and that, in the meantime, I would have a morphine shot every hour. Every hour the nurses were late delivering the shot and I suffered in pain. Finally they decided to move me to a regular room and hook me up to a morphine pump so that I could control the medicine myself. I waited three hours in pain after being moved to the room because the nurse there didn’t have the orders and then because she was on break. I considered calling 911 to get myself moved back to the ER.

The bottom line is that most of the workers, nurses, doctors, etc., just don’t care. Why should they? They get paid the same.

Of course, if they think that their jobs are on the line because your were admitted by a well known doctor, then you get the better care.

Health care in this country is a joke. Doctors get their advice from drug pushers. Patients get their advice from TV commercials.

Doctors have become on par with crooked mechanics. The more they can convince you is wrong and the more tests they run, the more money they make.

I have been a patient at MWH and can say sometimes I have gotten wonderful care and other times I feel like just a number. Currently, a family memeber of mine is a patient at the hosptial. She was there to have a baby. The hospital told her they were “out of pacifers” when she asked for one. And during her delivery she was denied pain medication! She has Medicare. I wonder if this is how they always treat medicare patients? Outrageous!! I agree with others…it is the luck of the draw, or your healthcare coverage!

Excellent …astute comments that I benefited personally from reading. thank you.

After reading the comments and thinking about my own experience – i don’t think it’s a “training” issue for employees as much as it is an institutional culture problem – as evidenced by less than wonderful treatment by the medical people at times and what comes across as an attitude that the jobs is hard and that the patients make it harder or some such.

I don’t mean to sound that harsh but it would take me some time to properly calibrate so I just spit out my gut feeling.

You can’t run a hospital where the same person experiences wonderful treatment one time and not so good at other times … without suffering a credibility problem and a reputation problem..

I can imagine the management lecturing their employees to “do better” with patients but the change has to come from the top and it has to be embraced also by the health care providers themselves including the doctors and nurses.

Yes.. we are “patients” but we are also “customers”.

just one more pet peeve – I do NOT like being talked to like I am an idiot when it comes to health care. We’re told over and over to be proactive in our own care – to be our own advocate – and I seem to always run into health care providers these days who basically think I’m a widget that does not think.

I’ve run into some good folks at MWC and I suppose it’s unfair to let one or two bad experience outweigh the good but dog gone it… it just leaves a bad taste that doesn’t go away and the next time you show up – you (at least I do) DREAD the possibility of a repeat experience.

I think MWC would benefit tremendously if they made arrangements to have their folks trained at that Warrenton Hospital that got such high marks.

My wife and I have had nothing but bad expieriences at mwh with the exception of our childrens birth. Everyone that goes in with an unknown illness comes out with a UTI. Last year she was having irregular bleeding and severe abdominal pain so she went in to the er. Good news we were pregnant but the bleeding was profuse and the er doctor, after doing many tests, said your not far enough to see anything on an ultrasound and sent her home. When we got home she slept for a couple hours and woke up with even worse pain and more bleeding. We immidiatlly went back and once again had to wait. This time we got a diffrent doctor who decided maybe we should do an ultrasound. Turns out she had miscarried, torn a tube, and was bleeding both internally and externally. The docter then said it was a good thing we came back in. Had we not come back my wife would have died at home from bleeding internally and losing so much blood, and to make it better my wife’s tube was taken out along with our unborn child. Thanx MWH for taking our child and almost killing my wife. From now on we’re going to SRMC

MWH ER has saved my life two times…so nothing but good things to say here.

EI’s attitude is part of what’s wrong with MWH. I could have gone on to cite at least 3 more terrible experiences, but didn’t, and cited everything good I’ve experienced. I come from a health care family (no doctors, but LOTS of x-ray techs, nurses, and phlebotomists) and spent 5 years working in a hospital myself.

I think the average person does know the difference between the noise caused by a medical emergency and the noise caused by uproarious laughter and loud music. I’m glad EI treats each patient as a family member. It is an unfortunate reality that many, many staff with whom I have interacted at MWH do not share EI’s philosophy.

I was a former employee of MWH for 8 years. I took pride in my professionalism and kindness towards people. Yes, there were absolutely days when I wanted to yell and scream and storm out of there because a patient or co-worker had me at my wits end but I found ways to deal with it and treated my patients the way I would want my family to be treated. So, first of all there is absolutely no excuse for rude behavior towards a patient. You are correct in saying that there are more good experiences that we will not hear about than bad but the bad is still there. Second, you should never assume that patients are so ignorant to not be able to seperate work related noise from the noise of employees goofing off. Most people know there are delays in healthcare, especially the ER but the if the employees would communicate more effectively with the patients it would probably cut down on some of the negative feedback. By the way, when employee’s posts sound so professional like above (sarcasm of course), it makes you wonder if that is part of the problem? Do employees think they are doing such a great job but are really just subpar? Then again, their supervisors should recognize this and make changes. At any rate, Im sure MWH will be proud of their employee ranting and raving about their ignorant patients.

Although I tend to be a disbeliever of advertising and self-laudatory press releases unless the words of promise and praise are corroborated by examples of deeds independently by disinterested persons, I have some observations and probing questions in one dose for Mary Washington Hospital that could illuminate the way to recovery. MWH apologists will have to sit this one out.

Among the principal reasons that MWH has an unpleasing reputation in our community is weak top to bottom management; poor public relations; deliberate lack of responsiveness to community concerns; institutional arrogance; general malaise; absence of caring about the community concerns; self-centeredness incubated in the selfish cocoon of monopoly; and unhappy employees. MWH has a host of damaging bad habits that will take herculean effort and discipline to correct.

Where are the stout defenders of MWH in our community? They do not seem to speak up as often as those who receive inconsiderate or injurious care at MWH. Why does MWH not respond to patient criticism publicly? Will MWH break the habit of ducking behind the privacy of patient and personnel and continue to ignore complaints? MWH could readily respond without violating either privacy concern if they wanted to do so. Where is the all court press to respond to patient care criticism? Where is the MWH effort similar to their trying to prevent HCA from cracking the MWH monopoly? Why does MWH refuse to tell the community specifically what it is doing to prevent future recurrences of the problems noted? If they did, it might begin to change the course of its reputation in the direction of its advertised words. Mere lip service without specifically informing the community of what it is doing to correct problems and prevent future recurrences appears at odds with their core values . . . we are accountable for what we do. Sadly, it appears that no one is accountable for anything at MWH. MWH will not succeed in resurrecting its public reputation as long as it refuses to respond publicly and specifically how it resolved each problem the community raises publicly and specifically.

Does management at MWH, starting with Fred Rankin, take ownership of any of the problems that concern the community? If they don’t, the problems will never be corrected. Are they more concerned about finding fault and casting blame on others rather than rolling up their sleeves to solve the problem? Do they manage by walking around? Are they out of their offices instructing, correcting and otherwise setting the example at the point of the problem? After corrections are made, is there effective and consistent follow up to ensure the problem does not recur? Or are the managers under the influence of the opiates of new age business management exemplified by customer service surveys to the exclusion of accomplishing what the community wants to occur? I suspect the answer to this one is managers are deluded by the surveys and believe good surveys means no problems exist. Otherwise they would be out of their offices walking around talking with subordinates, patients and superiors tends to uncover small problems before they become big problems that lead to solutions sooner than later. Determination and consistency of oversight are keys to turnaround and success. Perhaps the lack of accountability is evidence of lack of concern for the community and patients.

Does MWH pay more attention to deflecting questions and preventing probing inquiry than it does to delivering caring and high quality patient care one would expect from a magnet nursing hospital?

Employee fear is likely incubated within the culture of MWH (if you break the rules you will be fired). It serves to prevent disclosure of information potentially harmful to patients. Although this may be a case of perception becoming reality, MWH management does not appear to be interested in dispelling the perception. What happens when employee suggestions to improve and correct is viewed by managers as dissent, perhaps even insubordination? The employee/messenger of unpleasant information is often treated harshly with the full support of all levels of management. What impact does this cultural habit have on initiative? It stifles it.

MWH seems to reinforce the perception further by holding the club of dismissal over the heads of employees who could cause damage or harm to MWH’s reputation or loss of trust with its patients even if such disclosures could result in preventing patients from potential or known harm or injury through treatment or care. This fearful reluctance to speak where attribution may remotely occur suggests the internal MWH culture is at odds with the MWH external culture that all is well and the community is mistaken. Is MWH at odds with its mission to improve the health status of all people within the community? Is MWH at odds with its core values . . . we are honest, trustworthy and ethical; we are accountable for what we do?

Despite MWH’s PR efforts to create a reputation for high quality patient care, Henry Ford nailed it when he observed that you can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do. HCA appears to be quietly building a reputation for competence and good patient care though they too have stumbled a few times. The difference between MWH and HCA is that the former trumpets what it seems unable to deliver while the latter is likely busy correcting their problems.

Fred Rankin, his executives and MWH managers should benefit from a couple observations from one of our nation’s preeminent promoters, P.T. Barnum who observed that:

1. Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly.

2. Men who drive sharp bargains with their customers, acting as if they never expected to
see them again, will not be mistaken. They will never see them again as customers. People don’t like to pay and get kicked also.

The Free Lance-Star is vulnerable to MWH using it to provide MWH with additional competitive advantage. I have a great deal of respect for the FL-S’s integrity and would not like to see the FL-S become the monkey to MWH’s organ grinder.

Perhaps the community would be as pleased as me to see independently corroborated information that my suppositions about Fred Rankin, MWH senior executives and the MWH employer-employee culture are simply wrong. I do not anticipate we will have that opportunity while Rankin remains the CEO. The executive suite culture simply has to change to deliver loudly and publicly on their core values . . . we are honest, trustworthy and ethical; we are accountable for what we do. That starts with new management throughout the executive suite.