I am always aware of my health and sensitive to even a slight change of my body, so I regularly do health check-ups. Having been studying in Canada for almost 7 years, I found that all the nurses and doctors I met here a very nice to me. What disappointed me is that, the appointment scheduling for health checks is not that efficient.
Last week, I wanted to do a blood test to see if my cholesterol becomes lower after I changed my diet style several months ago. But I couldn’t book the blood test directly. Instead, I had to book an appointment with a doctor first, and the appointment was scheduled a week later. Thus I has to wait for a week ’til the day of appointment. What happens next is that, I see the doctor and then I am sent to the lab for the blood test. But I don’t get the result directly from the blood test lab. What I have to do, is to book a follow-up appointment with the same doctor to get the result, and the new appointment is a week later, again.
It takes me two week in total to see my blood information.
What happens if it is in China? OK, here are the steps:
- You go to the hospital in the morning, say 9am;
- Do your blood test and get a bar-code associated with your ID card;
- Then you get the test result in the afternoon, say 3pm, by showing your bar-code and ID.
In case you don’t understand the statistics in the result sheet, you go to your doctor and get the explanation. The whole process costs less than 12 hours. The point is that it’s your blood and you are the first person who has right to know the information about your health, even prior to your doctor. And if the mechanism is well managed enough, the process can be efficient.
Anyone has any comments? Let me know if I am wrong.