Outpatient Surgery and Patient Safety— The Patient's Voice

Excerpt

Four outpatient surgery centers from a large Midwestern community participated in this study assessing the impact of an intervention—aimed at improving the collection of patients' pre-operative clinical information—on both the patients' clinical outcomes and staffs' quality of working life. As part of this study the investigators developed a patient telephone survey to assess the incidence of common or undesirable postoperative symptoms and how they were subsequently managed. This survey was adapted from instruments developed in previous work in outpatient follow-up and anesthesiology. In addition to symptom assessment and management, the investigators were interested in determining how participants rated their medication teaching, pre-operative preparation, and postoperative education. The investigators recruited patients to participate in this study who had ophthalmic, open-joint, otolaryngological (ear, nose, and throat), or intra-/extra-abdominal surgery. The investigators contacted the participants via telephone at least 7 days after surgery and asked them a series of questions about symptoms they experienced, how they managed these symptoms, and the education they received. This paper will detail the development and content of the patient survey.