Outpatient Surgery Magazine - Subscribers

How Safe Are Your Patients? - June 2016 - Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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1 8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J U N E 2 0 1 6 Make Patients' Escorts Feel at Home Innovative Ideas Being a surgical patient's escort is a thankless job. While you and the patient are busy with the perioperative process, they've taken the day off to wait, and possibly worry. Offering them coffee and tea is a gracious perk, and waiting room Wi-Fi is a bonus. But if you keep them informed and treat them with the same personal attention and professionalism that your patients get, your business will make a positive impression on them as well. — Compiled by David Bernard • Running late? Communicate! If the day's surgeries are running behind schedule or subject to other late changes, it's imperative to inform family members or escorts of the delay. While patients in pre-op know that their cases aren't starting on time, they have no way to communicate this to their rides home. Make sure your front desk secre- tary or another staffer keeps waiting room families in the loop during longer-than- expected delays — calling their mobile phones if they've left the site — and your pre-op nurses offer to ferry information from patients to their escorts. Communication doesn't cost you anything, it's good customer service, and it makes the wait more tolerable. • Make it personal. Draw up a simple floor plan of your waiting room, including all the furniture, and print out a stack of copies for your front desk staff. When patients check in for surgery, staff can mark up the maps to indi- cate where their family members sit, along with short descriptions. That way, when the procedure's done and it's time to lead them to the consulting area or PACU, staff or a surgeon or nurse can walk over with personal attention instead of hollering their name across the Ideas Work That

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