Wow, we’ve been busy…running here and there…just like at my hospital where we have operating rooms on two floors. You realize, after you do the three-hundred yard, two flights of stairs, give directions to the Gift Store in the lobby, grab the pin cutters and pink pin caps, do the whole thing in reverse, stairs, yards, directions, that you needed the light green pin covers…Auditorium A, Dunkin’ Doughnuts, Hall E, AORN Bookstore, Reading Terminal, Hall E again…you get the picture…maybe I should have ridden my giraffe or tied a note to my wolfie and sent him out for provisions. I’ll have to acquire and train the animals earlier next year…”here boy…go get daddy a beignet!”.
Lee Woodruff’s story was especially inspiring. Their journey since his attack was arduous and difficult, at times, to listen too. Her humor and down to earth approach made the journey easier to follow. In her stories, she reminded me how valuable the stories of patients and their families are in helping nurses to improve the care they give. All too often, you talk to a patient in the Holding Area for 2 minutes, you shoo the family off to the Waiting Room and you’re off to the OR. The Surgical team works their magic and you’re off to the PACU. You give a short report, thirty to ninety seconds, finish your paperwork and you may never see the patient again. How can you know what the patient experienced while in your care? You don’t know what they are thinking, feeling, you don’t know what the family is thinking or feeling either.
I think that we need to have more patients come back and talk about their perioperative experience. Questionnaires can provide empirical data for graphs and charts. It can show tiny percentages of improvement. Having a person come and speak about how scared they were and talk about how the nurse held their hand and it made it all better. Personal feedback from our patients could make a great deal of difference. We do post-op phone calls, but it’s not the same as having a person come to a staff meeting and talking about their experience. I think I’ll try this at a staff meeting and see what happens.
great post. This is a very powerful way to get the patients perspective on how our care effected their experience. I have read Inspired Nurse, and this had a very profound effect on my thinking and teaching patient advocacy. Thanks for sharing it is really nice to get a feel for what is happening when you are not there.