BY LAWRENCE A. DANTO, MD
I’ve been a patient of Drs. Lombard, Camp, Dodd, Condon, Kitts, and Tahoe Forest Hospital for years. (And I’ve cared for a few patients at Tahoe Forest Hospital and Incline Village Community Hospital as well). So I go to see Dr. Bob Chase to have a stuffy ear checked, and I’m handed sheets of basic clinical background questions to fill out as if I was a totally new patient, in a new primary care office, in a new town, in a new system. “Why all this first-time primary care record keeping stuff for a quickie ear check?” I ask the front desk. Well, as explained, it seems that after all these years and clinical activity, my basic health history information still “…has not been entered into the system.” You’re kidding me, right? Nope!
You’ve got some great docs, nurses, and support personnel in the Tahoe Forest Health System, and, in the end, deliver some pretty fine-quality health care. However, administrative basics at Tahoe Forest are still lagging behind the desired and accepted industry norm, and this deficit is a far more important concern to proper healthcare delivery than your excessive administrative minions, expensive showy clinical and architectural fluff, profit centers, fundraisers, and pretentious awards and affiliations. Time to get back to basics.
