they were hypervigilant, hyperaware, anxious, and very interested in
what is going on. A patient's overall experience is very much impacted by
what happens prior to them going into the OR, and that's reflected in
their survey responses.
Staff at Bon Secours Surgery Center at Harbour View in Suffolk, Va.,
use purposeful rounding with the patients and their families to pre-
vent an issue from happening, or to address it in real time if it does.
Keeping patients and their family members informed — and providing
immediate answers to unforeseen issues — gives them the comfort
they need at a stressful time.
"Make sure members of the clinical team, business staff and leader-
ship take part," says Patrick Guzik, administrator at Bon Secours.
"Even if there's no issue, introduce yourselves, talk about things such
as the expected length of the stay and explain what's happening now
and what will be happening soon."
Patients often ask staff at Bon Secours, "Why was I told to be here
at 9 a.m. when it's 11:30 a.m. and I still haven't gone into surgery?"
This issue is a challenge for many facilities, because the scheduling
and registration process is not completely under their control. Some
physician's offices schedule patients to arrive well before they really
need to. Doctors want to stay busy, so they want to be able to squeeze
in the early arriver if another case gets canceled. While that may be
more efficient for the surgeon, it causes unnecessary anxiety for the
patients and their family members. To minimize this issue, suggests
Mr. Guzik, coordinate closely with physician's offices to make sure
patients arrive at an appropriate time for their procedures. Patients,
however, don't make distinctions about who's to blame for their long
waits.
"We were able to engage the physicians and that paved the way for
us to share our center's schedule with their offices, which allowed us
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