FEATURE
are usually back to their normal rou- tine the following day,” she says. “It is going to be a stretch to get them at home because most of them are do- ing what they want to the next day. They are not limited the way a sur- gical patient would be. If we do not reach them, our message says they should call us if they have any prob- lems or concerns.” To increase the likelihood of
Caption to come. Lenia adi as eum explabore, aut. Pari aut quat estectur?
Best Practices for Patient Follow-Up. BY ROBERT KURTZ Show That You Care
T
here are a number of reasons why the staff at Southgate Surgery Center in Southgate, Michigan, makes multiple postop follow-up calls to pa- tients, says Linda Phillips, RN, the ASC’s administrator.
“It is another tool to increase our patient satisfaction,” she says. “The response we get from patients is that the call makes them feel like we are concerned about their well-being as opposed to their just being a pa- tient we saw and we are done with. It makes us seem more human and not just a facility that only provides sur- gical care.” Southgate staff make the first
follow-up call on the first business day after the procedure and leave a message if no one answers. If staff do not get in touch with the patient on the first day, a second call is made the following business day. The calls, Phillips says, can also provide a learning experience for the ASC.
“If patients say they were in a
great deal of pain following the pro- cedure or felt very nauseated, this may help identify areas we can work on,” she says. “Even if a patient says something as simple as ‘I’m fine, but I felt rushed when I was there’ or ‘I was cold,’ if we receive a com- mon complaint, it can be a quality improvement tool as well. We can take a look into the issue and see if there is an opportunity to do a pro- cess improvement plan and figure out the cause.” For surgical patients at the Ortho- paedic Surgery Center
in Concord,
New Hampshire, staff will place fol- low-up calls over three consecutive days, leaving messages, if necessary. The ASC’s pain management patients receive a single follow-up call the day after their procedure, says Donna Quinn, RN, the ASC’s director. “Since they do not receive anes- thesia, our pain management patients
24 ASC FOCUS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
reaching the patient with the follow- up call, Quinn says that the ASC’s staff ask patients to provide the tele- phone number where they can be reached the next day as they are re- viewing discharge instructions with the patient. “You cannot assume the patient will be reachable at their home number as some patients will go and stay with family members during those first few days of recov- ery,” she adds.
When a nurse reaches a patient,
she follows a two-page standardized questionnaire to ensure that the ASC consistently captures and shares the same information during each fol- low-up call, she says. “The nurses ask every patient specific questions including ‘Are you able to eat?’ and ‘How is your pain being controlled?’ The questionnaire reinforces instruc- tions we provided to them prior to discharge, such as the importance of keeping an extremity elevated, using crutches properly and following the pain medication regimen the phy- sician ordered. We verify that they have a follow-up appointment and know when it is so we can be sure they will keep that appointment.” The follow-up call also provides
an opportunity for the ASC to learn if the patient needs immediate assis- tance, Quinn adds. “We do a lot of ro- tator cuff surgery, and many patients have problems with the sling. We try to help patients with that over the phone and let them know that they can always come back to the ASC
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