Any surgical procedure is a daunting prospect for patients. If it’s the first time a patient is having surgery, it can be frightening as well. Anxious patients often have questions or concerns that need to be adequately addressed. Putting these patients at ease is essential to their recovery and ensuring their ASC experience is positive.
This is blog 2 of 3 that explains the ins and outs of pre-admissions cardiac testing from my perspective. As an anesthesiologist, with over 30 years of experience, I’ve done everything from open heart and liver transplant to fast-paced ASCs and pain management. My goal is to provide a common-sense explanation that helps ASC preop nurses to better understand cardiac testing in the context of a preop evaluation for ambulatory surgery.
So here’s what I can tell you: If stranded on a deserted island (or is it a desert island!?) doing anesthesia on old folks and I could have only one cardiac test, the cardiac echo would be it. Hands down. Stop the show.
20 years ago, most ASCs typically cared for ASA 1 and 2 patients: young, relatively healthy patients having simple, relatively non-invasive surgery. Fast forward to 2021 - as advances in anesthesia techniques, surgical techniques, and an overall better understanding of minimizing risk for ambulatory surgical patients has evolved, most ambulatory surgery center preop surgical nurses today will routinely care for at least some ASA 3 patients.
As an ambulatory surgical nurse, you know what that means: older, sicker patients with more cardiac problems. Frequently, these patients come with either (1) a slew of pre-admissions documentation that you have to weed through or (2) nothing at all. It seems like there’s never just the right amount!
Patient satisfaction can make or break the success of your ASC. As an anesthesiologist, I broke down 5 changes you can implement to keep your patients happy without costing you anything! Here are my thoughts:
In healthcare, patient satisfaction is always a top priority. But what about team member satisfaction? At its core, strong employee engagement leads to reduced turnover, increased revenue, and even higher patient engagement. Consider the following strategies for boosting staff morale: staff communication, celebrate success, and lead iin more ways than one.
Every ASC leader knows that you can collect data all you want, but if you don’t know what to do with that data, nothing will ever change. How are your reporting processes working for your ASC? Here’s what you need to know about honing your data collection to pinpoint issues within your surgery center.
We live in a hyper-partisan, hyper-sensitive, hyper-litigious society. We are also addicted to our social media. The two can be an explosive combination.
As frightening as the news is right now - it will pass. Our healthcare industry will be smarter and stronger from what we are learning today from this crisis. On the other side of this nightmare our hospitals will be more focused on greater healthcare challenges such as intensive care, organ transplants, and acute care management. Surgery centers will rapidly expand and multiply as we realize that elective and routine outpatient surgery does not belong in acute care facilities.
More individuals will choose healthcare as a profession, impressed by the inspiration of our first responders, our nurses, our physicians, our intake personnel. Our healthcare supply chains will not be dependent upon countries outside of the US to maintain adequate par levels of needed supplies. Our strength shall come from within. Thank everyone of you for the job you are doing! It may get darker before the light - but the light will come...
First things first: I have ZERO, ZIP, NADA relationship with McGrath.
