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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 | O U T P AT 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
seem less surprising when you con-
sider that 45% said fewer than half of
their patients were actually using the
system, and another 26% pegged the
number of users at somewhere
between 50% and 70%. In other
words, only 29% were hitting the 70%-
or-better sweet spot they'd no doubt
envisioned.
Why are the numbers so low?
"Our MD offices have not been
forthcoming to patients to fill out
the information from home," says Holly Sousa, RN, BSN, MS, CNOR,
director of perioperative services at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in
Needham (Mass.). "So the pre-admission nurses who should only be
reviewing them are actually creating them. That's time-consuming. I
think if patients were made aware of this from the beginning, our suc-
cess rate would be awesome."
Several others echoed Ms. Sousa's complaint.
"The biggest challenge has been getting physicians' offices to coop-
erate and provide the information to the patients," says Penny
Nichols, MBA, administrator of the Crescent View Surgery Center in
Metairie, La. "When you're starting out, expect there to be a trial peri-
od and expect it to be a little more work up front to get the patients
and doctors offices in the groove."
One suggested solution: "We provide the physicians' offices with
informational pieces to go into the surgical packet, and one part of it
is instructions on how to conduct the online assessment," says Andrea
Fann, CASC, administrator of the Orthopaedic South Surgical Center
in Morrow, Ga. "When we rolled it out, we stressed to the physicians
O N L I N E P R E - A D M I S S I O N
Our pre-assessment
nurse still calls
patients, but now
instead of spending
30 minutes on the
phone, it's more
like 10 or 15.
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