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| - Title for Review:
Caring Staff--but there are Patient Experience Shortfalls
I've held off writing this review, but after first trying other avenues (including Eastover/Novant's own patient feedback form) to see if patient experience improves, I feel compelled to leave feedback in a public forum.
I've been a patient with Eastover for the past decade or more. I've enjoyed aspects of the group (the staff there is a caring one, but clearly overwhelmed by the amount of work), but am now trying to gauge if I should move on to another practice.
To be clear, I'm writing this review as a gyn patient...having had my children right before becoming a patient with Eastover.
My concerns:
Phone calls not returned when promised by nursing staff. The phone call was a query about a pressing issue creating a good deal of discomfort. I was promised a call back by the end of the business day (it was mid-morning when I called.) I did not receive a callback until over 24 hours later. When the callback finally did occur, I was in the restroom and couldn't grab the phone...and the nurse left no name for a return call.
Appointment availability. Although there are quite a few doctors on staff at the practice, I was told that the first available for *any* doctor (and I'm an established patent for over a decade) was four days out...and this wasn't for an annual exam, this was to address a pressing medical issue that I was experiencing.
Disregard for patient modesty or comfort...a patient assembly line mentality. At my age (in my early 40s), I've lived in several states and have had a variety of different gyn office experiences to measure this one up against. I will state for the record that I'm not fond of sitting with a sheet over me for 45 minutes on a table while waiting for a doctor to come into the exam room. At other practices, I first met with the physician in his/her office, fully clothed, and related any concerns I was facing. Then I'd be ushered to the exam room, change, and would be seen. Presumably, the physician would be still making full use of his/her time with this approach (perhaps seeing other patients in his/her office while I was getting changed.) At Eastover, you're talking about your health concerns at a clear disadvantage....and, honestly, it's difficult to remember all your concerns when you're feeling uncomfortable because you're in a sheet talking to a fully clothed person. And there's no pockets for a handy cheat sheet of your questions for the doctor.
Additional discomfort. On a related note, if you're on an exam table in a sheet for nearly an hour, you're uncomfortable. You're either lying all the way back with your feet dangling off, you're propping up on one or the other arm.
Long exam room waits. Although the *waiting room* wait time tends to be very short (I never have time to fill out the Patient Update sheet that they always hand out), the exam room experience has been extremely long for the past 5 or 6 years. I am left to wonder why, if the nursing staff knows that the doctor will be very delayed, why they don't ask us to undress 30 minutes into our time in the exam room.
Small ways that the patient experience hasn't been clearly thought through. There are also small quibbles...the practice provides magazines for the exam room wait...but the magazine racks are across the room. I always have the feeling that if I finally venture up with my sheet to get them, the door will immediately swing open. But somehow I'm always so optimistic when I get to the exam room (perhaps there won't even seem to be many other patients there), that I either grab not enough magazines to take to the exam table, or else I don't think to grab any at all. Clearly a mistake when dealing with this office. I do have a good deal of work to do, but I'd feel ridiculous sitting on the exam table in a sheet with my laptop....really.
With a few minor tweaks in approach and some additional staffing (if understaffing is the reason for long exam room waits), then this could be a good practice for women's health care.
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