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IDEAS THAT WORK
BRIGHTEN UP YOUR BAYS
A Bit of Paint Pleases Pre-Op Patients
T
here's nothing that says
all of your walls have
to be eggshell or beige
— especially if you've got a
nurse with artistic talent and a
good idea on staff. The management of Reading Hospital
SurgiCenter at Spring Ridge in
Wyomissing, Pa., let Darlene
Faust, RN, take a paintbrush to the pre-op bays and decorate some of
the walls that patients spend anxious hours staring at with floral color
and inspirational sayings.
The wall murals, which Ms. Faust painted during evenings and
weekends between fall 2011 and spring 2012, will eventually cover
all of the ASC's 12 pre-op bays, including the 2 reserved for pediatric
patients. "We were all just amazed at how different it made the
rooms look, a whole different atmosphere," says Alice Heiser, BSN,
RN, CAPA, the center's director of nursing and QI coordinator. "We
get comments on it every day." Ms. Heiser is even conducting a
study on whether patients treated in the painted pre-op bays show
reduced anxiety, lower blood pressure and higher patient satisfaction scores than those in the as-yet-unpainted bays. — David Bernard
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | D E C E M B E R 2012
