eli5-why does getting discharged from hospital take so long?

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I’m truly curious. Not even trying to complain, I understand the hospitals are full but like what takes so long to print paperwork?

UPDATE: Thank you all for your input and responses, it definitely helped the time pass by. We are home now. I do understand waiting is not suffering but at some point something has to give. We have an infant and toddler who had to be left with family and we were anxious to get home to them. I understand we are not the only people who have ever had to wait for discharge. I was truly curious as to what the hold up is. After getting incoming responses seeming to state that this is normal, it all got to me. This should not be normal and the patient, critical or not, should not have to get the short end of the stick. Reality or not. In a perfect world I guess.
Sorry to all the underpaid, over worked staff.

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54 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Basically comes down to 2 things that take time –

1) there are multiple things to do for each patient

2) the people who need to do them have multiple patients.

(OP, I absolutely understand and agree with your frustration, believe me healthcare workers are generally the most frustrated that these things end up getting backed up – you have a horrible day, they have multiple people nagging them all the way up to yelling at them every day. Put in your patient feedback, express your concern, the more people complain the more likely you get increased staffing and attention paid to the discharge process).

In the case of discharges, it’s less about resourcing of that specific step, as hospitals generally are very keen to get discharges done quickly as it frees up beds. It’s more about overall resourcing and how busy the people who have to do the tasks are.

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