one nurse, the one anesthesia provider — who is willing to do what-
ever it takes to make sure patient care is the best it can be?
6. Start small. Start practicing nutritional surveillance and fore-
going NPO with just one set of procedures or one willing surgical
team. Once others see the success of that one team or department,
we're all competitive by nature and others will be drawn in.
Patients taking charge
All of us are wired to prepare ourselves before undergoing something
major, like running a race, taking a long trip or having surgery. A
patient's risk of negative outcomes from an operation is often both
predetermined and modifiable before entering the operating room. Yet
for decades, we've been telling patients to just sign the paper and
show up on the day of their procedure. Instead, patients are asking
what they can do to get ahead of surgical intervention, and we've
found that providers who teach their patients what to do before sur-
gery are having better outcomes and higher patient satisfaction.
OSM
J U N E 2 0 1 8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 5 7
Dr. Varghese (thomas.varghese@hsc.utah.edu) is the head of the section of general tho-
racic surgery at the University of Utah and an associate professor in the department of
surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He helped design the Strong for
Surgery (osmag.net/t8mFKX) program, which aims to optimize patient health before
surgery.
