It has never seemed likely that every student at Choate who gets sick will hear, within minutes of arriving at the Pratt Health Center, “How can we help you today?”, yet over the past several weeks wait times for patients have grown to lengths that most consider unreasonable. Some students, with complaints ranging from a mild cold to severe headaches, have reported waiting up to 30 minutes to an hour. As cold and flu season approaches, the Choate community has begun to wonder why.
Cammi Chester ’17 described a recent experience at the Health Center: “I went in because I had a fever, and I felt like I was going to faint. I was there waiting for an hour and a half before just leaving, since I had already missed a class and a half.”
Kate Moore ’17, who recently had scheduled a walk-in appointment, told The Choate News, “It took them twenty minutes to get to me, and there was no one else in the Health Center.”
Many students who arranged appointments in advance experienced similar delays. “I was told I had an appointment with Karen Klein at 12:00 p.m., and they took me at 1:00 p.m.,” recounted Lucas Ferrer ’17.
Dr. Christopher Diamond, who began as Choate’s new Director of the Health Center this fall, pointed out that Choate’s schedule inherently causes congestion in the Health Center. “We have seven blocks in a day. When are students allowed or encouraged to come to the Health Center when they are feeling ill? At the beginning of a free block or beginning of a block. So most students will show up at the beginning of the block.”
He added, “Every person is on the same schedule. The times they can call and the times they can come are going to be the same. Automatically, with the way we set things up, there is going to be a bottle-neck. Depending how long it takes to take care of the people in the infirmary, the waiting times can get longer and longer.”
Moreover, stressed students also go to the Health Center, which adds to the list of patients waiting to see a doctor. “Every single person in this community has similar stressors. Everyone has midterms at the same time, seniors take the SATs at the same time. We may have subgroups of people, such as orchestra, who are under huge amounts of stress at the same time.”
Another possible cause of the waiting room traffic jam is the recent spike in sickness. Ms. Ann Polleta, a registered nurse, remarked, “Just recently in September, several students were sick on campus with a variety of things. We were seeing so many children that we couldn’t catch our breath.”
Dr. Diamond agreed, “We’ve been very busy. My first day here, I think there were at least eighty student visits, which was an incredibly busy day.” He continued, “There’s been no doubt that for the first three weeks, it has been very busy. Until then, we had been missing one medical provider. I think Karen and I have been very busy with appointment slots as well.”
As Dr. Diamond arrived at Choate only four weeks ago, he still has to acclimate, “As I am more comfortable here and get to know the process better, you will automatically see wait times get better,” he said.
He continued, “No matter what solution we have, there will be situations in which demand overwhelms capacity, and wait times will occur. But we can do a better job always of communicating, of trying to help students find more convenient and useful times for themselves, and to do all of that without compromising the type of care we provide.”
The majority of students who go to the Health Center sign up for walk-in appointments. These students are seen in the order of their arrival, unless a student is in critical condition. Dr. Diamond said, “Most students that are coming in are walking in to be initially seen by the nurse to determine whether they need to be seen by Karen or me.” The Health Center tries to accurately access the severity of a students’ illness. “We try to do our best to triage quickly, and we take a child that is bleeding or a child that can’t breathe first,” explains Ms. Polleta.
He continued, “What we do in the Health Center is so effective in so many ways. Until I know that certain changes to the system won’t affect our ultimate goal of providing the best possible care to students, I don’t want to make radical changes before I know how things work. That could throw everything off.”
For some Choate students, wait times at the Health Center hasn’t been an issue. Ranjan Guniganti ’16 recalled spending a long time in the waiting room during his visit to the Health Center, but he pointed out, “I felt it was pretty reasonable considering the line ahead of me, which consisted of a dozen people.”
However, Dr. Diamond hopes to find ways to make visits to the Health Center more efficient. For the future, he wishes to create an online Health Center updating system. “Students might not check in and sit down, but we might be able to provide them with the opportunity to select an open appointment slot later in the day, or at the very least start to post something about what our wait time is now. If you’re not so sick, you can go and come back.”
Dr. Diamond added, “Our goal is that a person should never have to wait more than 30 minutes before being seen, and ideally shorter.”
