1 4 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 8
Ideas Work
That
H
urry up and wait. That's often how patients view the time
spent in your facility, where interactions with staff are fol-
lowed by periods of laying around waiting for the next flurry
of activity. When some of our patients complained about surgical
delays, we realized they perceived expected downtime during routine
care as time being wasted. That's when we had a nurse follow a
patient from registration to discharge. Incredibly, she noted that mem-
bers of our team directly cared for patients outside of the OR for only
23 total minutes during the entire 4- to 5-hour stay.
We created an "Outpatient Day of Surgery Schedule," an itinerary
that explains every step of the surgical process, notes how long each
step should take to complete and includes variables — OR availability,
PATIENT SATISFACTION
Itinerary Details the Trip From Pre-op to PACU
Rush
Oak
Park
Hospital
• TIME MANAGEMENT
Don Prokop, RN, BSN, BA, MBA
(left), says patients appreciate
knowing how long they'll spend
in each phase of care.