Health Trends in Sacramento County

Health Trends in Sacramento County

Name: Nathan Stoneking

The health professional I spoke with was Bill Trythall, who is an Emergency Room Physician for Kaiser Permanente. He works in a hospital in Sacramento, CA. The trends I chose to investigate focus on trends from emergency rooms, since that is where I would like to work someday.

1.Overcrowding in emergency rooms

Recent laws concerning health insurance have made it so that many people don’t have access to or cannot afford health insurance. Since many people can’t afford health insurance, they don’t have family practitioners or doctors they can see on a regular basis. This results in many patients going to the emergency room to see a doctor for basic health problems that normally a family practitioner would be able to take care of. The emergency rooms get overcrowded, because there are so many patients in the emergency rooms who don’t really need to be there. Another problem that the doctors in the emergency room face is trying to find these patients places to go for follow up appointments after they’ve been seen in the emergency room.

2. Increase in number of Pertussis diagnosis (whooping cough)

One illness that has been showing up more in emergency rooms is Pertussis (whooping cough). This illness is highly contagious, and it can cause people to get very ill. Especially in children, this illness is becoming much more pervasive than in the past. Kids entering middle and high school are being required to get boosters now in some areas for Pertussis. More people are being diagnosed with Pertussis than before in emergency rooms.

3. Increase in number of Influenza diagnosis

Obviously at this time of the year many people get infected with the influenza. People are encouraged to get the vaccine for the influenza to help prevent them from getting it, and healthcare workers are even required to get the vaccine. In the winter more people are diagnosed with it, because it’s cold outside so they are stuck inside and people are closer together for longer periods of time. The infection spreads quickly and so the vaccine can help prevent people from getting this infectious disease. Elderly people are especially encouraged to get the vaccine, because they are more likely to get it than others. 

4. Increase in the number of West Nile Virus diagnosis

In emergency rooms there have been many patients that come in confused with headaches and a have a fever. To try to be able to diagnose the patient, the doctors insert a needle into the patients back and take out some cerebral spinal fluid. They analyze the fluid and then often diagnosis the patient with West Nile Virus. This virus is spread by mosquitos, and there have been an increasing number of people diagnosised with it. Doctor Trythall says that he expects the number of people who get diagnosed with West Nile Virus to keep increasing in emergency rooms.

5. Increase in the number of mental patients in emergency rooms

The government has cut a lot of funding to psychiatric facilities, because of its need to stay within its budget. The decrease in funding to these facilities has caused a lot of them to close down. Since so many psychiatric facilities have closed the patients who normally go to them, go to the emergency room for help instead. In the emergency room there’s not much the doctors can do for the patients, but often times these patients stay in the hospitals for hours or days, which adds to the overcrowding in emergency rooms. The number of psychiatric patients in the emergency rooms has been increasing recently.