I have time, so let me tell you a little about the past two hours...
Now, don't get me wrong. LACUSC nurses are wonderful, the facilities that opened in November 2008 are splendid, and some of the doctors are keen. If there's one thing I'd love to fix about this place is their systems.
For example, our next chemo appointment is at 8 a.m., but we need to have her blood drawn and labs done before then. Unfortunately, our appointment for her chemo and blood draw is on the same day at the same time, then we have an appointment with the colorectal department at 10 a.m. on the same day, except one treatment of chemo runs 2 hours. I think our day will be just as confusing and ugly and exhausting as the previous sentence.
Another case to demonstrate the heinous system at LACUSC is our attempt to drop off her prescription before we leave. One of them is for a Fentanyl patch at 37.5 mg. Except the pharmacy doesn't have a 37.5 mg patch. So after waiting in line for 40 minutes, I'm told to go back across the campus to get another prescription. But I don't have to wait says the lady. I can cut to the front once everything is squared away. I return, the doctor writes another prescription (one 25 mg patch and one 12.5 mg patch). Take the elevator down. Walk across the campus. Remove belt and objects with metal to go through the metal detector. Down a flight of stairs. Go to the pharmacy drop-off counter, where I no longer see the lady who had told me to cut to the front once everything was squared away because she has probably left for the day. I wait again for 40 minutes. The pharmacist looks at me like I'm a deranged marsupial and says the pharmacy doesn't carry a 12.5 mg patch for Fentanyl. I'm told to return and get another prescription. I do and I return whereupon I realize the doctor rewrote the prescription without any changes. You know, everyone knows a new sheet of paper with the same words means it's a different prescription. I'm confused, and this place makes my head hurt.
I think every place of this size and complexity has a number of issues, but I can't fathom why steps haven't been taken to streamline the process and avoid all the rigmarole. LACUSC has done so much to provide a new facility that gives the workers a better work place and hence an improved attitude simply because they're not working in a wreck of a building (it's the very same building that one sees at the opening of General Hospital). Couldn't they work on improving processes as well? Mind you, the two instances above happened only today in the past couple of hours. It's constantly like this at this place. And we, like so many others, have no where else to go.
