What I’ve found is that Kevin has had a disconnect in the continuity of his care. Starting on 3 October, he was at the ER in Upper Chesapeake, then on 15 October, went to Good Samaritan for Rehab and, at some time, was transferred to their Cardiac unit. Then, in early November, he was transferred to Genesis PowerBack, another rehab clinic which is where I linked up with Kevin. On 14 November, he was told he needed immediate cardiac care and, instead of an expensive, non-emergent ambulance ride closer into Baltimore, he rode with Shelly back to Upper Chesapeake and where his Cardiologist is. After spending the night in the ER, he got into a room in the Cardiac unit and was discharged Friday night. Kevin was able to sleep in his own bed, take a nice, hot shower and enjoy being home.
Until Sunday morning, that is.
His life vest went into alarm mode, so Shelly and I took him back to the ER. He spent very little time there as they got him back to his old room but in the other bed. Now we’re hoping he’ll be discharged tomorrow.
The point to all of this is that across the 6 different transfers, his medical records are not complete nor accurate. And that’s a bad thing, especially when it comes to diabetes and heart treatments. Coming back onto the ward, we discovered that they were unaware of his medication requirements for either; fortunately, neither of which killed him. I blame this on the lack of data sharing/availability between facilities.
After having to almost grab the doctor to keep their attention, I was able to get them to understand his insulin requirements, and after almost five days of pestering the Cardio docs, we just might have sorted the heart meds that had knocked him down so hard yesterday.
My point in all this is the responsibility for data assurance is purely the responsibility of the patient and their care-giver/advocate. Now, that’s gonna be a real ball buster to do in moments of crisis, however, if Shelly and I hadn’t really been on top of all this, Kevin wouldn’t be doing well, if at all.