When you get a call that your husband has been taken to the ER by ambulance, it is hard not to think the worst. I got that call last Wednesday. The good news is that by late Friday night Tom was OK’d for discharge from the hospital. But we still do not have the answers needed. More tests and results should help us better understand what happened and why it happened so together with his PCP and specialists we can develop a go forward plan.

I have worked in healthcare for over 35 years. Our family has dealt with various minor health issues and been able to access the best healthcare available. I have the utmost respect and gratitude for health professionals and all they do.

Through this experience I have seen healthcare through the patient and family lens in a different way. I have several takeaways worth sharing.

Emergency resources – Know when to call your PCP, go to the nearest urgent care center, call 911 or head right to the hospital ER. Minutes can matter.

Friends and family – I can’t say enough here. Tom was visiting a friend when the incident started. She took him to the closest Urgent Care, they called an ambulance fairly quickly and he was taken to the closest ER. The friend reached out to another friend thinking that person might know how to contact me. Fortunately, he did. We are setting up the Emergency Contact feature on our phones for the future. On the first call with the ED physician, I did a 3-way with my daughter who is a nurse practitioner. I wanted her in the loop from the start – to help interpret what I was being told, help educate me, and advocate for Tom.

Clinician in the family – If you are fortunate as we are to have a clinician in your family, let them help you. They are invaluable. Listen to them, loop them in on calls to ask all the right questions, and let them educate you. Our daughter spent ½ hour on the phone with the attending physician before Tom was discharged while I drove to get him. She then explained it all to me and started doing more research on her own.

Accessible and Integrated EHR – Now we are in my domain. While Tom was in the ER on Wednesday and when he was in the ER a month ago (two different local hospitals not in our primary health system), I asked if they could access his medical record which is on Epic. Would they have done that if I had not known it was possible and asked them to do so? I hope so. And how much critical information from these two ER episodes are now part of his primary medical record? I hope all.

Hospital to hospital transfers – Yes, it can be a hassle and there is a lot of overhead and paperwork for them. But by Wednesday night it was clear that it was best, so I reached out to his PCP to support this request. Getting Tom to the academic medical center and health system where we get all our care, where our medical history is, and where there are specialists and subspecialists to engage as part of a multi-disciplinary team made the most sense given the complexity of his case.

Advocacy – Trust the process, but advocate for what you need whether it is a transfer, tests to be scheduled, discharge readiness, or follow-up medications. I could write a separate blog on just the back and forth it took and the time lost between our pharmacy and the hospital to finally get new prescriptions filled post-discharge.

Clinician to patient/family communications – This is one of the challenges of COVID-19. Instead of being in the ER or hospital room with the patient, visits are very limited. Staying informed is difficult. Be clear on when you will get the next update, from whom, and what the next steps are.

Take care of yourself – The patient is getting regularly poked and monitored by a team of clinicians. The loved ones are not there, but they are stressing about what is wrong, keeping other family members informed and answering questions by phone from physicians and nurses as they try to figure out the puzzle. When I finally saw Tom, he said “take a deep breath”. He could see my stress, yet he was the one lying in the hospital bed.

While scary and unsettling to not have all the answers yet, I am confident that with the best medical experts, we will figure it out. And I know this experience was nothing compared to all the people who have lost loved ones to COVID-19 in the past six months and been unable to be with them after they took them to the hospital.

To all those who cared for my husband and to all health professionals everywhere, I am truly grateful for all you do.