FEATURE
building the last stages of the facil- ity, we had doors added to two of the recovery bays so that the noise from kids crying wouldn’t bother the rest of the patients, and the parents can stay with them during recovery.” While parents in the Monroe com- munity frequently express their appre- ciation to the ASC for the children’s care that it provides, the decision to treat young patients was made with a different customer in mind, Cunning- ham says. “We have three ENT surgeons who
are partners, so we do have a high vol- ume of ENT cases, and pediatrics is part of their case mix. We take care of kids because it’s a physician satisfier. Doing those cases is a standard part of their practice. They perform these cases here because of the speed, the
accuracy and the one-on-one atten- tion that we are able to give to their patients. There’s also shortness of turnover time. This is efficiency the ASC offers as opposed to the hospital environment.”
These cases have contributed to the satisfaction of the ASC’s
staff
members as well, Cunningham says. “They like having the kids to
take care of. It’s surprising, but ev- erybody likes having the kids. The nurses, with their own money, go to the dollar store and buy toys, color- ing books and crayons to give to the kids to take home with them after surgery. They didn’t ask me about it. They just decided they wanted to do it, so they did it.”
All of the nurses at Surgical In- stitute of Monroe are PALS certified.
New nurses must obtain PALS and ad- vanced cardiac life support by the end of their first year. Cunningham says preparing to treat and taking care of children has helped the staff become better care providers and brought the clinical team closer together as well. “None of my nurses were specific pediatric nurses before. All came from an adult nursing background. They have adapted, and all found tak- ing PALS to be very helpful. They learned that recovering children from anesthesia was different from recover- ing adults from anesthesia. If a child comes out with an airway issue, it can be stressful, but that’s when you build your teamwork. Everyone shows up at the patient’s beside to help. Every- body helps each other automatically, no questions asked.”
ASC FOCUS APRIL 2013
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