This is probably the 3rd time we stayed in a hospital in America – if we count the time we spent in the Mercy for our 2 babies delivery (baby number 1 and number 2). Last week in my blog I talked about our little baby got sick. As she didn’t get better, we end up in the St. Louis Children’s hospital ER on Monday 9/9, and followed by inpatient care between 9/12 and yesterday 9/16. She is better and out of hospital now. The main concern was her fever and pneumonia.
It’s not the 1st time I go to hospital in America. I have been to ER once myself in year 2006 when I broke my chin at Stacy park and I drove myself to the Mercy ER shortly after. Below is something new I noticed this time around.
Rounds
Doctors, nurses and personal care technicians (tech) kept families in the loop most of the time. Also, there are the morning “rounds” in which all the caregivers including the residents (the doctors in training) will have a discussion on the current status, and ask parents if there are any questions. This is somewhat like the “standup” in the agile world. I think it’s good.
Technology
In year 2010 I recall the Mercy hospital room has traditional phone.
Fast forward 14 years, at the children’s I do notice the SamSung tablet in the room, and it can be used both for ordering meals as well as watching TVs (we didn’t watch this time). It also has some games similar to what we saw on Boeing 737 Max and 787 – our two kids played a bit together, and our little one played some alone too. I remember in the old days the meal is ordered from phone.
Customer Service etc.
Concierge (Customer Service Specialist): noticed concierge came to us when we were waiting at the ER waiting area on Monday 9/9, and she offered water, snacks etc. We saw customer service specialist during the hospital stay (inpatient) later as well.
Family Center: it’s at the 3rd floor of children’s hospital. I saw volunteers. They have coffee, drink, snacks and laundry services.
Ronald McDonald House
Education (missing school): the education specialist came on Monday 9/16 asked if we need anything school related.
Therapy Dog: this is probably one of the highlights during our little baby’s stay.
Appointment Helper for PCP (Primary Care Physician, or Pediatrician in this case).
Overall they are trying to make the place nice, welcoming etc. More like a hotel, vs a traditional hospital.
Parking, Meals, and Odds and Ends
Parking is free for the parents. One thing: don’t use the parent badge directly if you go in the 1st time using your car, which is more likely in the case of St. Louis metro area parents. The reason is if you come in using parent badge, you won’t have entry ticket – which is handy when you leave the hospital. Another reason is we need to turn in the parent badge when we leave. Today I had to use #lostTicket feature because I gave my entry ticket to my wife. It’s not a big deal, $16 is the cost of the parking fee. I noticed quite a few people (hospital workers?) parked along the Kingshighway Blvd across the street. Probably to save some parking fees.
Meal is included for the patients and two caregivers: it seems breakfast and dinner at the cafeteria, with some limitations; and lunch is available via a phone call. We didn’t order lunch btw. Our baby ordered her meals via the SamSung tablet.
There are some outdoor areas on the rooftop (8th floor) for kids/families to walk around.
The window view from the 10th floor room is also pretty good: we are facing kings highway blvd and can see forest park and nearby buildings in the area. I will attach couple pictures of the window view shortly. I also walked at the forest park once; and went to the shake shack at Euclid road once (I went there often when I was working at Cortex in year 2019 and 2020 before pandemic).
Bills
I just paid all the urgent care and pediatricians’ bills on myuhc.com via the HSA account (and SSO). Personally, I like this electronic version of dashboard/payments better than the good old paper-based approach. Guess how much I paid so far (note this is before the ER/Inpatient bills from the children’s hospital, which I estimate to be in thousands)? I paid about $900 so far.
One thing I learned from all this, I think, is that choose urgent care place wisely, or try to see pediatrician 1st. On two occasions, Monday Labor Day 9/2 and Sunday 9/8 I took our little one to two urgent care places, and they cost about $300 per trip, and the 1st trip (9/2) didn’t diagnose the pneumonia (or maybe she didn’t have it at the time, but we didn’t do X-ray on 9/2, and she was diagnosed on 9/5 Thursday at Pediatrician office).
Last but not least, if you like to read more, I talked about American Healthcare systems and hospitals in the past (here are post one, two, and three in a series, also this one).
(Update 09-19-2024) It appears that I got a scammer call yesterday (luckily, I didn’t give you much information). The number is 763 656 5847 (I just did a google search). Anyone the caller claims to be UnitedHealthCare (that’s also from the Caller ID on my iPhone). And the topic is around nurse line or nurse manager (the caller knows my kid’s name and my employer’s name; this leads to me think they are not total 100% scammers). I did some google around this topic too, and here is some of the reddit thread I found (one and two). I just blocked the phone number. Better to err on the cautious side 🙂