Waiting room card reduces family anxiety
The Family Care Card provided to family members waiting during surgery at Baylor Jack and Jane Hamilton Heart and Vascular Hospital in Dallas has significantly improved patient satisfaction, according to a study the Baylor team published.
The team noted in its report that anxiety can be exacerbated if staff members provide inadequate or inconsistent information about the patient’s status, but educational interventions and other staff-intensive and time-intensive measures may not be practical in a high volume facility.
A survey of family members indicated that receiving Baylor’s Family Care Card reduced anxiety in a significant proportion of the respondents.1 Prior to the card’s introduction, some family members believed that they were not being adequately informed about the patient’s status during surgery, even though a volunteer or a guest services staff member was available in the waiting room to assist families with questions or concerns, the report notes.
An investigation identified the following targets for improvement: insufficient or delayed communication between staff members in the procedure areas and family members in the waiting room, time estimates by a nurse or staff member in the waiting room that contradicted information previously given by the physician, inability of family members to call the postanesthesia care unit (PACU) to determine whether the patient had been transported there, and lack of tangible reference material about the details of surgery to help staff members and family members communicate.
The Baylor team surveyed family members and friends after procedures at the hospital and received 47 usable responses. Twenty-nine (61.7%) of the patients underwent diagnostic angiography or diagnostic angiography with angioplasty. At 8.5, the Flesch-Kincaid grade level for the card was slightly higher than the goal range of 5 to 8.
“Nevertheless, all 47 respondents (100%) felt that the card was easy to read, and 46 (97.9%) agreed that it also was easy to understand. Most respondents reported that the procedure times listed on the card were accurate; 33 (70.2%) thought that the actual waiting time was equal to the time listed on the card, and the 14 remaining respondents were equally divided in reporting that the actual waiting time was greater than or less than the time listed on the card (7 [14.9%] for each category),” the report says.
More than half of the respondents either strongly agreed or agreed that the information on the Family Care Card decreased their anxiety during the waiting period. “In summary, our project showed that a statistically significant proportion of survey respondents believed that the Family Care Card helped reduce their anxiety, regardless of the amount of time they spent in the waiting room or the type of procedure the patient underwent.”
REFERENCE
- Muldoon M, Cheng D, Vish N, et al. Implementation of an Informational Card to Reduce Family Members’ Anxiety. AORN J 2011; 94: 246-253.
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