Technology reassures families in waiting rooms
Software tracks patients
(Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series that looks at improving communications with family members of patients. Last month we learned about nurse liaisons that are responsible for updating family members. This month we will evaluate different technological ways to keep family members updated.)
Good communications with family members on the day of surgery is essential for reduction of anxiety in the waiting room, say experts interviewed by Same-Day Surgery. Some facilities are using technology to keep family members updated on the progress of their loved one.
"We have an electronic board in our waiting room that lists patient case numbers and indicates by color, where the patient is located," says Lorraine Osborne, RN, CPN(C), perioperative clinical educator at Kingston (Ontario) General Hospital in Canada. "If the patient is in the operating room, the color of the bar containing the information is green, then when the patient moves to recovery, the color changes to yellow," she explains.
Just watch the screen
Finding information is easy for family members because they don’t have to do anything but watch the screen, Osborne points out. "The information continuously scrolls, so a family member just needs to look for the case number used to identify the patient," she says.
While her Canadian facility does not have to meet privacy requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a patient’s privacy is protected because the screen in the waiting area contains only case numbers and the surgeon’s name, says Osborne. "The case number is given to the family member on a small card so no one else knows the name of the patient," she adds.
The outpatient surgery staff members at Yale-New Haven (CT) Hospital also rely upon a patient tracking system that includes a component for family viewing in the waiting room, says Jeanie Cacopardo, RN, BSN, perioperative educator. The screens that are in the operating rooms or the surgical areas that are not open to the public contain more information about each patient, including names and type of procedure, but the family view screens only contain a code to identify the patient and location, she explains. As a patient moves from pre-op to the operating room, staff members enter "leave" or "take" to indicate that the patient has left one area and been taken by the staff of another area, Cacopardo says.
"Most of the commands simply require the staff person to click on the information and drag it to the proper area, so it is not time-consuming," she adds. "Not only are we constantly aware of where the patient is located, but family members can see what is happening."
Family members love being able to immediately obtain information about the patient, says Babette Edwards, surgical services systems manager at Multicare Health System in Tacoma, WA. "They feel more involved and they are less anxious about the length of time they wait," Edwards says. "This helps our staff members and our volunteers who are in the waiting room, because they can immediately help a family member by checking their screens."
This system is more efficient than volunteers or staff members having to leave the waiting room to find someone who knows where the patient is located, then relaying the information back to the family member, she explains.
Edwards’ facility opened a new surgical hospital last year that handles inpatient and outpatient procedures. "While most patient tracking systems with a family view feature can be run on a computer monitor, we opted to install larger screens that sit up on pillars so that they can easily be seen by people in the waiting room," she says. "There are two 21-inch screens in the waiting room with one facing in one direction and the other screen facing the opposite direction, so that no matter where in the waiting room you sit, you can see the screen," she says. The two screens scroll the color-coded case numbers continuously, she adds.
Avoiding initial confusion
Even if you have staff members or volunteers in the waiting room, it is a good idea to post instructions near the screen, suggests Cacopardo. "Some people see the slowly scrolling information, the numbers, and the different colors and find it confusing when they first look at the screen," she admits. "If you have posted instructions that include a reminder to look for the case number they’ve been given and explain the meaning of the different colors, they find it much easier to remember what they are waiting to see."
No matter how well your communications technology works, remember that your primary goal is to keep family members informed and less anxious, says Cacopardo. "If the patient is undergoing a long procedure, or if you’ve encountered a situation that will make the procedure last longer than the family member was told to expect, a nurse needs to go to the waiting room to reassure the family," she points out. "An electronic board, no matter how well it works, cannot offer the reassurance that a nurse can offer."
Sources/Resources
For more information on the use of technology in waiting rooms, contact:
- Jeannie Cacopardo, RN, BSN, Perioperative Educator, Yale-New Haven Hospital, 20 York St., New Haven, CT 06510. Telephone: (203) 688-4792. E-mail: [email protected].
- Babette Edwards, Surgical Services System Manager, Multicare Health System, 315 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma, WA 98405. Telephone: (253) 403-4959. E-mail: babette. [email protected].
- Lorraine Osborne, RN, CPN(C), Perioperative Clinical Educator, Kingston General Hospital, 76 Stuart St., Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 2V7. Telephone: (613) 549-6666, ext. 4396. E-mail: [email protected].
Vendors that offer computerized patient tracking systems include:
- Hill-Rom, 1069 State Route 46 E., Batesville, IN 47006. Hill-Rom offers NaviCare, a patient tracking system that can be customized to a facility’s needs. While the price of the product is determined by an outpatient surgery program’s specific requirements, the cost for the NaviCare software application, configuration, implementation, and annual support for a procedural area that does 5,000 cases per year would be about $150,000. For information about NaviCare, call (800) 445-3730 or (919) 854-3351 or go to www.navicare.com.
- Per-Se Technologies, 1145 Sanctuary Park-way, Suite 200, Alpharetta, GA 30004. Per-Se Technologies offers two products that add communication and patient tracking options to the ORSOS One-Call system that the company offers. The products, Big Board Module and PathFinder, are priced according to facility size and needs, but generally the Big Board expansion module for the ORSOS system costs between $20,000 and $50,000, and PathFinder costs $150,000 and up for software and service. For more information on these products, call (877) 737-3773 or go to www.per-se.com.
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