r/emergencymedicine • u/Princessgargoyle ED Attending • 13d ago

Advice Patients interpreting their own portal results

Attending physician new to practicing in a more affluent area. How are you all dealing with patients asking for explanations for each out-of-range lab result that popped up in their patient portal?

I’m finding this aspect of my new site to be very frustrating and time consuming to have to convince the patient why the google interpretation of their isolated eosinophilia or glucose of 100 does not align with my “Great news! Everything looks good!”

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u/Playcrackersthesky BSN 13d ago

My patients now get their lab results before I do. I’m in hell.

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u/Princessgargoyle ED Attending 13d ago

That is exactly how my shop is set up too. They’ll get labs in triage and go back out to the waiting room. They’ll often have their lab results before they even get to tell me what brought them in.

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u/No-Statistician-3053 10d ago

“MY SODIUM IS 133! YOU WERE JUST GOING TO LET ME DIE OUT HERE?” And other conversations I have often.