so every staff member who sees it is reminded that they're part of an
effort to provide excellent patient care that's bigger than their individ-
ual roles. They also know they're empowered to hold colleagues
accountable for delivering on that promise.
If you're not positive patients will have positive things to say about
how well they were treated at your facility, remind your staff about
the impact every patient interaction makes on satisfaction scores and
reemphasize the importance of treating patients like the most impor-
tant people in your facility. Before long, they'll be singing your praises
to anyone who will listen.
Setting the tone
Laying the groundwork for excellent care on the day of surgery
demands connecting with patients long before they enter your facili-
ty, says Cynthia Shashaty, RN, BSN, CAPA, clinical director at the
Lakewood (N.J.) Surgery Center. Her staff e-mails pre-admission
information and post-op satisfaction surveys to patients, who are
more likely to respond to directives and requests for feedback if
they show up in inboxes instead of mailboxes. The center also uses
e-mail to provide patients with a link to the facility's website and
access to a secured portal through which they submit health histo-
ries and pre-op information. Patients prefer to register for surgery
through the portal, according to Ms. Shashaty, because they can fill
out the online forms — which take about 30 minutes to complete —
at their convenience.
Patients who schedule surgeries at Copper Ridge Surgery Center in
Traverse City, Mich., receive packets that contain key facility informa-
tion and a timeline of their surgical care that spells out what they will
go through from 2 weeks before procedures to 3 days afterward. The
timeline also includes an hour-by-hour breakdown of what will hap-
3 6 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • M A Y 2 0 1 8
