# 3336
As any doctor will tell you, a hospital is no place for a sick person.
And that adage is probably even truer when you consider an Emergency Department waiting room, which is basically a confined space where sick people can spend hours in close proximity in order to more efficiently share their germs.
In an experiment to see how viable a drive-thru triage setup would be, one where most patients would be examined while in their cars, Stanford Hospital & Clinics conducted what may be first drill of its kind.
Over the next few days they will be evaluating the information gleaned from this exercise, to see how it can be improved and utilized for real-world applications.
A hat tip to Indigo Girl on Allnurses and to PFI/Spirit in the Wind 2, for posting this article.
Follow the link to read the entire article in the Mercury News.
Drive-through medical experiment conducted at Stanford Hospital & Clinics
By Mark Gomez
Updated: 06/13/2009 07:29:03 AM PDT
The cars, minivans and sport-utility vehicles began lining up and slowly moving forward, just as they would at a busy fast-food drive-through. But there weren't any burgers or fries on the menu. Instead, drivers and passengers were examined by a team of Stanford doctors and nurses, all without getting out of their cars.
In what is believed to be the first training exercise in the country, a team of health care professionals at Stanford Hospital & Clinics turned the first floor of a parking garage into a drive-through emergency room Friday morning in hopes of creating a more efficient way to treat a large number of patients during an influenza pandemic or other emergency.
Dr. Eric Weiss, medical director for disaster planning at Stanford Hospital and Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, believes the drive-through triage can serve as a blueprint for hospitals nationwide and across the globe.
"Everywhere throughout the country, during flu season, emergency rooms are absolutely overwhelmed and bursting at the seams," Weiss said. "With limited health care insurance and people not having primary care physicians, they use emergency departments as their primary care physician. And it's our safety net. We have to have a new mechanism to take care of large numbers of patients during a pandemic, and I think that this is going to be it."
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