When The Aberrant Becomes The Accepted: The Rise Of Hallway Care In Emergency Medicine

Recently my wife and I have been spending a lot of time going to many outpatient office visits. Interestingly, when we go to an outpatient clinic to see a provider, we are never seated among many patients waiting in a hallway to be evaluated. We never are interviewed or examined while we are fully dressed and seated in a hallway chair or told that an important part of the examination must be deferred. Although more patients could be seen in a clinic setting by implementing hallway care, the providers would surely object to such a practice as both adversely affecting the quality of medical care provided and the patient experience surveys that follow every visit.