{"id":18120,"date":"2019-03-20T15:41:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T20:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thepapergown.zocdoc.com\/?p=18120"},"modified":"2023-03-03T15:44:31","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T20:44:31","slug":"waiting-rooms-stress-me-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zocdoc.com\/blog\/patient-stories\/waiting-rooms-stress-me-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiting Rooms Stress Me Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

The health center where I get my yearly mammogram has three tiers of waiting rooms, each tier more stressful than the last. First, there’s the reception room, a large, bright space with picture windows, pale blue walls and comfortable chairs. Everyone\u2019s wearing street clothes; friends and spouses are checking their phones. When the nurse calls your name, you move into the second-tier \u201cinner sanctum,\u201d a smaller, windowless room that\u2019s patients-only. Everyone\u2019s in gowns and you\u2019re surrounded by pamphlets and posters with the word \u201ccancer.\u201d Pre-mammogram nerves are palpable. Not even Wendy Williams, talking on the TV mounted overhead, can lighten the mood.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to throw up,\u201d one woman says aloud to herself. She takes a bottle of water out of her purse, pours some into her palm and splashes it on the back of her neck. Two other women are talking about chemo. \u201cMy hair didn\u2019t fall out,\u201d one says. \u201cDid yours?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone starts bonding, sharing illness stories. I\u2019m fortunate not to have one of my own, but just listening makes my anxiety soar. I try not to make eye contact with anyone lest I get roped into a conversation. There\u2019s a woman next to me with long, white hair and Clark Kent eyeglasses, hiding behind a year-old Christmas issue of <\/span>Better Homes and Gardens<\/span><\/i>. \u201cTis the Season!\u201d it says on the cover, in June. I feel the tiniest bit of comfort that someone else feels exactly how I do: not wanting to connect, just wanting to leave. <\/span><\/p>\n

Waiting can feel like a hassle in any situation. But in the context of healthcare, it can become an especially potent agent of anxiety<\/a>, frustration and hopelessness. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou feel your heart beat, you\u2019re looking at your cell phone to see what time it is, you\u2019re very acutely aware of the passage of time, and people get really frustrated,\u201d says Richard Larson, a professor at MIT\u2019s Institute for Data, Systems and Society. \u201cIf you don\u2019t know how long it\u2019s going to be, you have no management of expectations. [It\u2019s like] you\u2019re in a prison and you don\u2019t know when you\u2019re going to be let out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWaiting rooms are places in which inequalities and privileges are reproduced.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Old magazines and daytime talk shows only go so far. The time we spend waiting for doctors is significant. In fact, patients might spend as much or more time waiting to see doctors as they do actually seeing them. A <\/span>survey<\/span><\/a> by Medical Group Management Association<\/span> put the average wait time for U.S. patients at 20 minutes, which is exactly how long they typically spend in the exam room, according to a 2017 University of Cambridge <\/span>study<\/span><\/a>. That number is up from a few years earlier, when 15-minute appointments were the norm.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the ER, where patients are (hopefully) seen according to the severity of their condition, wait times are hard to anticipate. But when you have a set appointment with a doctor, you know ahead of time you\u2019ll probably have to wait, making the whole process more frustrating.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A recent survey by the design and development company Sequence suggests that across the board, most people consider waiting to be the worst thing about going to the doctor. <\/span>Sixty-three percent<\/span><\/a> of patients surveyed said it was the most stressful aspect of their visit. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the waiting-room experience actually isn\u2019t the same for everyone, according to Margaret Waltz, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has studied waiting rooms extensively.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey are places in which inequalities and privileges are reproduced,\u201d says Waltz. \u201cWhite people don\u2019t wait as long as Black and Hispanic people. People of high socioeconomic status have shorter wait times compared to people of low socioeconomic status. And women wait more often in these spaces than men. These seemingly innocuous places where we think nothing happens have a lot happening within them.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

In her research, Waltz observed how different patients cope in different ways. \u201cPeople bonded in waiting rooms, joking with each other and sharing stories of illness experiences. I saw this mostly with women,\u201d she says. In her view, this behavior is a type of emotional labor that\u00a0<\/span>women tend to perform in these spaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stress can be proportional to the gravity of a patient\u2019s appointment reason. For example, waiting at your primary care provider\u2019s office for your yearly physical is likely less nerve-wracking than waiting for a serious test result. Either way, the heart of the matter tends to relate to feelings of helplessness. Finding a distraction is one of the best ways to cope. If you\u2019re not into the available entertainment options, the app <\/span>EZ Waiting Room<\/span><\/a> has a vast library of stories, books, videos and games that you can download onto a phone or tablet, and it\u2019s free to use for the first four hours (which is hopefully far longer than any waiting patient needs). That said, the app still requires a device, which not every patient owns. <\/span><\/p>\n

One <\/span>recent study<\/span><\/a> suggests that providers can capitalize on the time patients spend waiting by providing educational materials, like a video on preventive care or a specific condition. The waiting room can also be a place for patients to fill out questionnaires, like a <\/span>depression screening<\/span><\/a>, ahead of their appointments, or to write down topics they\u2019d like to discuss with their providers. In a research experiment, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a D.C.-based nonprofit, turned the <\/span>waiting room into a classroom<\/span><\/a>, teaching nutrition to patients with Type 2 diabetes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some experts are pushing to get rid of waiting rooms altogether, an approach called \u201cself-rooming.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though Disney theme parks are a far cry from medical offices, Larson cites the Disney model as a master class in managing people who are waiting. \u201cDisney does this with long lines,\u201d he points out, giving customers estimated wait times for rides. \u201cTypically they deliberately overestimate, and that one-hour estimated wait is really more like 45 minutes. So when you\u2019re finally boarding Space Mountain, \u2018We\u2019re 15 minutes ahead of schedule!\u2019 The psychology of that \u2014 of having people wait 45 minutes for a four-minute service and thinking they\u2019re happy because they\u2019re ahead of schedule \u2014 it\u2019s brilliant.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Healthcare providers, Larson suggests, could do something similar, and give patients overestimated wait times whenever possible: \u201cI think anxiety and frustration would be greatly reduced.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the standard process of being moved from the waiting room into an exam room, only to wait more. But even that shift can bring comfort, Waltz says. The impression of making progress can alleviate some boredom and stress. \u201cAnd probably just the moving around makes people feel like they are doing something, which occupies their time and makes them feel like they are waiting less,\u201d she notes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some experts are pushing to get rid of waiting rooms altogether, an approach called \u201cself-rooming.\u201d In an <\/span>Oregon Medical Group<\/span><\/a> pilot program, patients check in and receive an electronic badge that tracks them. They\u2019re directed straight to an exam room, where they\u2019re met by a medical assistant who takes care of any prep, like entering information into electronic health records. After the patient\u2019s clinical visit is over, the assistant returns and either directs them to their next service, such as imaging or blood work, or sees them out. The program directors say this system has decreased wait times and increased time spent with clinicians. It also eliminates the social aspects of waiting, which some people enjoy. But I don\u2019t. <\/span><\/p>\n

After my mammogram, a nurse directed me to that third-tier waiting room, the post-mammogram, see-if-you-need-more-tests waiting room. It\u2019s the most stressful room of all, but the staff seems to sense that and they try to get you out quickly. I\u2019m dismissed soon after I arrive, grateful for an uneventful visit. As I walk to my car, I see the woman with the white hair who was hiding behind the magazine. She looks up at me. \u201cYou OK?\u201d she asks gently. I nod. \u201cYou?\u201d I ask. She smiles and nods, and we go our separate ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Ready to book a doctor’s appointment? Visit Zocdoc.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The worst part of going to the doctor is waiting for your appointment to begin. Does it have to be that way? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":18124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[231],"tags":[12,90,69],"class_list":["post-18120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patient-stories","tag-anxiety","tag-feature","tag-the-psychology-of-being-a-patient","reviewer-dr-nassim-assefi","specialist_by_city-find-primary-care-physicians-near-you"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy the Waiting Room at the Doctor's Office Is So Stressful<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The worst part of going to the doctor is waiting for your appointment to begin. 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