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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compliance. Apps designed to handle pre-admission assessments, for example, can help you reallocate labor hours so your nurses can focus on clinical care rather than spend hours on the phone. Such benefits do come with a price tag, however. One industry expert esti- mates the subscription cost at $500 to $1,000 per month, depending on the app. Here are 6 benefits of connecting to your patients using apps. Completing pre-admission assessments. When scheduling new patients for surgery, rather than having a preadmission nurse chase them down for their health history and insurance informa- tion, apps can do the job for you. Surgical facilities can set up an app's screening process to provide different "alerts" if a patient has a partic- ular concern — fear of anesthesia, for example — or health condition that might affect how care is delivered. Also, some apps offer value- added tools such as the ability to track and store consent forms, labs and other important documents. Some even offer value-added callback services to further free up staff members for more vital tasks. Sharing pre-op instructions. How many surgeries are delayed because patients forgot their NPO instructions? You can now use apps to send text messages the night before, reminding patients to refrain from eating or drinking after midnight. Avoid other complica- tions by reminding patients to stop taking blood thinners or other med- ications in advance of a surgical procedure. What's more, some apps can provide helpful information that has nothing to do with the actual surgery, such as driving directions to the surgical facility and route-spe- cific traffic conditions — even parking options — for smoother visits from start to finish. 1 2 5 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 • J a n u a r y 2 0 1 7