RN Theresa Brown’s latest The New York Times’ Tara Parker Pope’s On Health,Well blog:

“In the hospital, people who aren’t employees fit into one of two categories: patient or visitor. But when visiting family members or friends become ill on a hospital floor, it’s not easy to care for them…We can’t offer standard inpatient care because they aren’t registered in the system…Illness can be a bureaucratic crisis… Even inside a hospital, a sick person is not a patient if she doesn’t have an admitting physician, a diagnosis and a numbered plastic wristband.”

[READ MORE of the article, When Hospital Visitors Get Sick, posted on The New York Times web site, March 7, 2012, 2:37 PM]

Have you ever found yourself in this situation? How did the person’s status as a patient/non-patient alter the care you were able to provide? Read more…