California man learns he's dying from doctor on robot video

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

By JANIE HAR
March 9, 2019

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Ernest Quintana’s family knew he was dying of chronic lung disease when he was taken by ambulance to a hospital, unable to breathe.

But they were devastated when a robot machine rolled into his room in the intensive care unit that night and a doctor told the 78-year-old patient by video call he would likely die within days.

“If you’re coming to tell us normal news, that’s fine, but if you’re coming to tell us there’s no lung left and we want to put you on a morphine drip until you die, it should be done by a human being and not a machine,” his daughter Catherine Quintana said Friday.

. . .

Michelle Gaskill-Hames, senior vice president of Kaiser Permanente Greater Southern Alameda County, called the situation highly unusual and said officials “regret falling short” of the patient’s expectations.

Read more: https://apnews.com/a13a6811157b412fb79909b36146d646

[SunSeeker]

1. Sheesh. What a heartless way to treat a patient and his family. nt

[TheBlackAdder]

58. To the hospital's defense, they only sent in the bestest of celebrity robot.

.



Marvin the depressed and paranoid robot from A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

.

[SunSeeker]

59. LOL

[lilactime]

2. Not surprised it was Kaiser.

[Tikki]

3. Yep, not surprised at all.

Tikki

[Haggis for Breakfast]

6. That was the first thing that came to me.

Effing Kaiser.

[C Moon]

11. Holy shit. I was going to say it was probably Kaiser (without reading the article)...

and saw your comment. I posted something negative about Kaiser a few years ago, and was harangued by some DU'rs who were defending Kaiser.
When I see my Kaiser doctor, he never even looks at me: he has his head down typing the whole time.
I'm lucky if he checks my lungs and heart.
It's usually a 10 minute visit max; his conclusions seem to be based on what the computer tells him.
And god help you if your doctor is out of the office, the sit in doctors are HORRIBLE. They seem like they just want to give a quick diagnosis, get their money, and shoo you out of there.

We're with Kaiser for another 10 months, then leaving for good.

[MBS]

14. Me either. n/t

[2naSalit]

22. +1

[customerserviceguy]

30. Same here

When I lived in the NW, I realized that either Kaiser or Group Death would have a janitor treat me if they could have gotten away with it.

[CountAllVotes]

49. +1,000 !!

Me either and wow do they ever suck!!

& recommend!!

[iluvtennis]

4. Wow. Kaiser, your bedside nabber sucks.

[PatrickforO]

5. Fucking Kaiser...no surprise there. I've had Kaiser for 35 years now, because

it is my employer provided plan and every year the premiums go up, up, up. The copays go up, up, up until my yearly deductible is financially crippling.

In the meantime, the quality of service, which has NEVER been particularly good, has gone down.

And now this. A fucking robot delivering the news to an old man who is going to die in days. By VIDEO using a fucking robot.

Medicare for all Americans.
Medicare for all Americans.
Medicare for all Americans.
Medicare for all Americans.

NOW.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Now will do just fine. It's so desperately needed. n/t

[Honeycombe8]

18. They're all like that.

To be fair, this was my experience for the five years I had ACA individual policies. The deductibles crippling and unaffordable, the premiums unaffordable, and I wish I had had copays. I didn't, so that meant I had to pay the full bill because of the high deductible. I even had to pay for the so-called "free" preventive exam. I was paying for free birth control, maternity care, inpatient drug rehab coverage, etc., even though those coverages did not apply to me.

The irony was that although I was paying for free birth control, which I didn't need, I couldn't afford to buy my hormones, which I did need. Birth control pills ARE hormones for a different purpose. Irony of ironies.

[LogicFirst]

28. To be fair

I had the same experience as you, but it was long before the ACA. I could afford only a $10,000 deductible plan, and I had to pay everything out of pocket. Of course, my pre-existing conditions were not covered, but that made no difference. I lived with this insurance for 10 years before I was medicare eligible. Hang in there!

[Honeycombe8]

50. Oh, I made it to Medicare.

Yay! Only because I was healthy. I went to the doctor only twice in those five barren years. Once to urgent care for a dog bite (cost $75). One preventive exam, which is supposed to be free but cost me about $100. I paid more than the ins. co. for that exam. The ins. co. got almost $1,000/mo. premium for that worthless "insurance." I could have it only because of the subsidy.

Medicare works because it is a defined "group." And the insureds can choose the types of coverage they get through supplemental plans. The defined "group" has the power of the group behind it, where things are standardized. Whereas for the ACA, it was just millions of individuals who couldn't alter the types of coverage, and didn't have the protection of a "group." It was also too confusing for both insureds and providers, esp with the billing.

[appalachiablue]

8. Look for more of this, it'll be normalized like other breaches

[Dem2theMax]

9. Kaiser

Where doctors go when no one else will hire them.

[2naSalit]

23. UNless they want to live in Idaho...

seriously.

[Curtis]

10. Wow. No surprise from Kaiser. But, wow.

Can't say anything about my wife's medical nightmare with Kaiser 20 plus years ago, except that she has free medical through them for life as part of a settlement. Hasn't used it once after what she went through

[TomVilmer]

12. I learnt it from the doctors computers..

... while I was left alone at the hospital. They were starting to evade real answers, so I peeked at the screens - where it said I had lung cancer. It took them a week more, before they directly told me that. Happily I survived it .

[lostnfound]

15. Yay! Glad you're still here

I knew a marine veteran who had a lung removed around 1976. He survived three wars, lung cancer, a couple strokes from which he recovered, and was tooling around town for another 29 years. Enjoyed his life with vigor and curiosity throughout.
Good luck to you,

[TomVilmer]

19. Thanx!

- and I am alive without any diagnosis now.

[lostnfound]

44. That's wonderful...

I meant to add that my friend did not ever have recurrence. He passed away at a ripe old age, during a short hospital stay, when they gave him penicillin, to which he was allergic. It was a shame but he survived a lot of other stuff and overcame much.

So..live long, and prosper.

[marble falls]

13. "regret falling short" of the patient's expectations. Says it all. Regret.

[Turbineguy]

16. It seems like the future we were

warned about.

[Honeycombe8]

17. Wow. Words escape me. Talk about being just a number and not a person. nt

[irisblue]

20. From tbe article...Michelle Gaskill-Hames, senior vice president of Kaiser Permanente Greater Southe

snip..."Michelle Gaskill-Hames, senior vice president of Kaiser Permanente Greater Southern Alameda County, called the situation highly unusual and said officials “regret falling short” ( no good press ganey rating there & therefore hospital good ratings report&quot

snip... "“The evening video tele-visit was a follow-up to earlier physician visits,” Gaskill-Hames said in a written response. “It did not replace previous conversations with patient and family members and was not used in the delivery of the initial diagnosis.”

snip..."Steve Pantilat, chief of the palliative medicine division at University of California, San Francisco, said he doesn’t know the details in the case but that the robot technology has done wonders for patients and their families, some of whom are too far away for in-person visits"
On this last point, the patient was in tbe freaking hospital bed, why didn't someone human haul their butt into the room?

[Iggo]

37. "tele-visit" ?????

They try that on me and someone's getting punched.

Don't even say it. "Tele-visit." Goddam motherfucking corporate gobbledygook.

[irisblue]

38. a sub unit of tele-medicine

The radiologist group I worked for, before retiring, read Computerized Radiographs, X Ray Films for a very rural hospitals in Kansas & Iowa. Pathologists read & report on tissue slides & samples over computer lines.

We, as techs, used a TV monitor system to translate for & to non English speaking patients. This is very common.
Some court systems are using these type of monitors for legal translations.

Talking to a human, in a freaking hospital, using a TV monitor unit is an error, a serious error by that hospital in just public relation terms.

[Recursion]

60. Easy to say if you live within driving distance of a hospital

For people who live out in BFE, though, telemedicine is their only real access to medical services.

[moriah]

62. And I thought getting told by phone "Uh, we see a gigantic lung and liver tumor"....

... while in holding for a bronchoscopy for a terrible case of pneumonia was bad enough. I was 18 and like, started making a will on the notepad I had -- was all alone, no family or friends with me. (Was just a very congested lung and a benign birth-control-pill caused liver tumor.)

Second time they said the c-word I was 22, and again, the gigantic scarred lymph node was benign.

When I was scanned in the hospital a few years ago and they again caught part of my liver on the CT, and the doctors got All Serious... I think I scared them by my reaction. I burst out laughing.

[yaesu]

21. tRumpsters are always crying about death panels, I guess their rightwing for profit healthcare

system decided to skip the panels & go right to a death robot.

[2naSalit]

24. +1

[OregonBlue]

34. If it was a rich white patient you can bet they wouldn't have used a robot.

[yaesu]

35. That is true, just like our justice system, there is a special tier for those who have big bucks. nt

[mjvpi]

25. Obamacare is the free market's last chance to take care of the US. They have two years.

Then WE start telling them how to do it.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

26. "Regret falling short".... 'of the patient's expectations'.......... regrettable apology.

[UpInArms]

27. Are there no doctors in Fremont?

No excuse for this crap.

[Chemisse]

29. Wow. That was exceedingly cold.

Is humanity really going in this direction?

[workinclasszero]

31. They don't give a damn about the the patients, dying or otherwise

Its all about the $$$$$$ baby!

They have multi million dollar annual CEO salaries to pay, not to mention the stockholders!

So die ASAP and make way for another profit center patient!!!

[FM123]

32. This is what our world of health care has come to. We need change now.

[Dream Girl]

33. I don't know why Kaiser has such a bad rap. I have had nothin but caring and ptofessional

Service including a series of very expensive tests for a serious complaint and my doctor calling me to Perl’s ally discuss the results that same evenin. This occurred several times. Maybe I’ve been luck but been with them twenty plus years, had a baby who is now 19 and had all of his medical care with them as well. I had a very serious illness and received excellent care. When I see my doctor, I’m usually the one who ends the visit.

[Maxheader]

36. From my own experience with the medical

community here, the larger clinics..via christi..as an example...Have lost the touch of
medical CARING!! Rules on whether your sick, by their definition or not..ie., the temperature
must be above 100...Forget talking about your last visit..no follow up, takes too much time.

About all their good for is prescribing meds...

[yonder]

39. "..."regret falling short" of the patient's expectations.""

It sounds like they're placing blame on the patient. It's not only the patient's expectations.

How about societal expectations and
moral expectations and
human expectations and
common sense expectations and
cultural expectations and
professional expectations and
institutional expectations and
historical expectations and

this list could go on and on. If "corporations are people", Kaiser fell short of being part of the human race here. This is what chasing corporate wealth for the stockholder's benefit looks like. It's fucking wealth management they're practicing, not health management.

[Iggo]

42. Fuck his regret.

I want to hear "I'm incensed that we fucked up so royally."

[eezapata]

40. what's wrong with it?

we live in a society that has to sugar coat everything.

[Iggo]

43. Wow.

[aka-chmeee]

41. It's not limited to machines.....

After having tonsil removed for biopsy, got call from doctor where a cheery young lady informed me she just called to tell me my tests were positive and to have a nice day. Just a little bit jarring.

[area51]

45. This dovetails along with us not having a right to healthcare in this country.

The arrogance, the disrespect.

[suffragette]

46. The patient couldn't even hear the robot well because the robot couldn't move in close enough.

If his family had not been there to assist him, he would not have been able to hear all that was said.


From the article:

Wilharm said she had to repeat what the doctor said to her grandfather, because he was hard of hearing in his right ear and the machine couldn’t get to the other side of the bed.

“So he’s saying that maybe your next step is going to hospice at home,” Wilharm is heard saying in a video she recorded of the visit. “Right?”

“You know, I don’t know if he’s going to get home,” the doctor says.

[MrScorpio]

47. It won't be too long until we get Terminators

[SFnomad]

48. It's not like this was Dr. Max Headroom ... it was a live video call, with a real, remote doctor

To me, it's not as much of an issue as it seems to be with most people here.

[Iggo]

51. "Ernest Quintana's family...were devastated when a robot machine rolled into his room..."

"...in the intensive care unit that night and a doctor told the 78-year-old patient by video call he would likely die within days."

Sounds like a big deal to me.

[SFnomad]

53. "[The] family knew [Ernest] was dying of chronic lung disease when he was taken by ambulance

to a hospital, unable to breathe."

The context you edited out of your post. They knew he was dying. The doctor didn't tell them something they didn't already know.

[NBachers]

52. Yeah, it's Ernest Quintana's fault for having higher expectations that he expected to be

[ansible]

54. And then the doctor packed his Golf Clubs into his BMW/Audi and went golfing like nothing happened.

Doctors truly are sociopaths motivated purely by greed.

[Xolodno]

55. Well, that's pretty much the opposite of the movie Patch Adams.

But with the monopoly of the AMA, in the US. Suspect you will get more of this. When I don't make better changes for myself, my doctor, she yells the shit out of me. When I do something right, congratulates me.

[Sgent]

56. Telemedicine has its place

but your telling me there wasn't a single hospitalist or resident to deliver this news in person?

Radiology and pathology slides, cardiac consults, maybe a diagnosis of a rash -- but telemedicine should not be done without at least a nurse if not a referring physician physically in the room.

[DFW]

57. When I compare this to how my dad went (pancreatic cancer), it raises the hair on my neck

This sounds more like something Solzhenitsyn would have thought up for future generations of Soviet cancer patients. Or maybe George Orwell.

[Recursion]

61. So, should the remote doctor *not* have told them his prognonsis?

That seems like a worse idea.