How to Measure your Quality of Care

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Dr. Filardo and I'm certified in Acupuncture and we're here in our office in Winter Park on behalf of Expert Village. And in this segment we're going to talk about warning signs. When to find another acupuncturist and what we really want to talk about is quality of care and serving patients better and improving their life in any way that we can. And so we thought that if we're going to do that and let's just talk about how that experience can be better for you. And from our office in a personal experience, I want other doctors to do really, really well so that when I get patients that come in and I ask them, would you like to get acupuncture, I think you are a candidate for it, they don't say no I had a bad experience or it doesn't work. So that kind of affects my practice, so some of the things to look out for, for warning signs to find another acupuncturist is communication. Are they actually telling you what they are doing, are they telling you the meridians they're treating, are they telling you where they are putting the needles in, why, and giving you good diagrams and pictures of what they're going to do and their plan of action. Because if, a lot of it is in Chinese literally, and it's hard to understand the concept of the meridians, the names and why they are being, and why they are doing that particular treatment for you. And so it's really important to get a good communication and laying it out. It can be broken down so that you can understand it and then you can be explained by the doctor. And so I think communication is a big part of that. Second part of it, all the needles they are supposed to be sterilized, and so it's a one shot deal. The needle is used once and it's discarded in a sharpie container. If you don't see any sharpie containers in the room or in the office, run, run. That's a good indication that something is going on with the needle. Another is cleanliness, you know when you are dealing with needles and you are dealing with blood and you're dealing with alcohol and bare skin, you want the office to be extremely clean. So office cleanliness is really important. And then the cleanliness of the staff and the doctor. Is the staff and the doctor, are the staff and the doctor, are they clean, are they getting care and are they really hygienic in the sense of their procedures. I think that's really important too. And so I would say that you want to have an open line of communication and you want a really clean environment, you want private rooms. Rooms that are, that no one else can see, often times in acupuncture the patient is completely naked and so it's important to have that privacy. That's another sign that it's not a good place to be in, because not only do you have the chi that you are trying to raise through the needle, but you also need to be in a very relaxing environment. And another factor is, acupuncture treatments should last ten to twelve minutes. So I think we went over some of the warning signs and I hope that you have a good experience at your acupuncturist. And if they can't resolve or do the things that you would, that we talked about here to doing, then just find another acupuncturist. Ok."