The film is mostly about general people in the healthcare system. It takes place at one particular hospital but the cases could all easily take place anywhere. The struggles of the doctors, nurses, staff, patients, and families are applicable anywhere in th ecountry with our less than optimal healthcare system, there is so much more managerial stress on everyone than just making people healthy.
It doesn't cover many people that openly do have insurance, nor does it interview the healthcare providers outside of the ER, like the PCPs, the recovery facilities, etc.
The film has a lot of emotional appeal by introducing each patient and their family situation. The doctors show their frustrations and humanity too - they want to help everyone and they can't give everyone everything. All of the narritive is made through following patients and doctors through their interactions. Scientific information is given through listening to the doctors, and a lot of family information is seen through direct infomation from the families and patients, as well as their interactions with each other.
The film is best for anyone over the age of 10. Everyone has the potential to find themselves in an ER at any point, so seeing this film is very good for giving perspective and probably makes the lives of the staff easier if the people coming in know a little more. It's hard when they can't do much to make the wait shorter but they are still being sworn at, so if everyone watched this film and had their eyes opened a bit more, then maybe they would find more patience and understanding for those around them in an ER. Nobody wants to be there and a little kindness to go around would only help. It can't make the wait any longer.
The film goes through the lives of those in the emrgency room of a hospital: the doctors, nurses, patients, families. It looked at how some families don't have any choice other than to go to the ER, which makes the wait times longer. It shows how the field is different than the doctors thought when going into it, but it is still rewarding and they can change lives. It shows holes in the system and how easy it is for people to fall through the cracks, especially if they do not have insurance or a PCP. There is stress on everyone involved to keep people moving but making sure nobody is forgotten. Traumas also bump those waiting farther down the list.
I was very compelled by the entire film. It was very interesting and revealing of all aspects of the ER. Most people only get to see one perspective ever, let alone at one time, so this helps give perspective and show everyone that everyone else is working hard and trying to help.
I looked up the rates of hospital bankruptcy/closing, the results looked to be interesting. The article (http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/hospital-bankruptcies-result-…) makes it seem avoidable, if the warnings are taken seriously in the years leading up to the crisis. "What they found was that filing hospitals tended to be smaller, not part of a health system and were more likely to be in the Northeast or West Coast. Many factors were involved, including poor financial management, changes in payer mix, reimbursement reductions, overzealous construction and purchasing of physician practices, decrease in volume and demographic shifts that were the impetus for filing."
I also looked up ER wait time statistics, by state, over the course of several years, etc. (https://projects.propublica.org/emergency/) Very interesting!
I was most interested by how hard the doctors worked beyond the medical stuff to care for the patients. Whether it is making sure they have somewhere warm to be discharged to or keeping them long enough that they can get the medicaltions they need, they really do more than medicine.
There clearly need to be some policy changes in the healthcare system. I think Obamacare is not the answer and is way too much policy and not enough sense, but we need something. People need affordable coverage for the issues that make sense for their gender and age bracket, they need to be given more help when they are trying to work, and there needs to be more incentive to become a doctor so that there are more PCPs out there nipping a lot of these issues in the bud. So the ER is for emergencies and is a less stressful, long-wait, ridiculous situation.
Emergency responders are only seen in the film when bringing patients in, but it is assumed that they face some of the same struggles since they work in the same system. They have to deal with people who can't pay or those who use the emergency as their only medical care.