There’s more than a few blog posts here about after visit summaries. I received this additional support for After Visit Summaries from my former colleague and quality improvement expert extraordinaire Martin Stabler (who is also an exceptional photographer – during our improvement work together, his beautiful photographs captured the passion of people dedicated to improving patients’ experiences, and through them we could see that this is just about every person in health care).
We have After Visit Summaries, why not a Post Surgery Summary?
I recently had occasion to wait anxiously in a waiting room for a surgeon’s summary of a family member’s operation.
The familiar process: surgeon comes out to waiting room, family gathers around, noisy backgrd, stress high, family listens intently but stress reduces ability to process and retain the info.
Surgeon leaves, family processes the info, then calls and emails others. As the “information” ripples out from person to person, more mis-information accrues just like in the game of “telephone.”
With a written summary in hand the doc could go over it with the family, post surgery. Families would be incredibly grateful, and could refer back to it and use it to pass on a more accurate report, instead of having to make it up from memory. Car repair shops give written summaries, we give summaries for simple office visits, but not for visits that involve complex, potentially life-changing situations.
Anyway, a thought… –Martin Stabler in Portland
To our surgical colleagues – are any of you innovating in this area? To fellow patients. does this situation sound similar to yours?
