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