April 30, 2013

Health Care’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’: No One May Be Coordinating Care

By Logan Lafferty

Some medical centers have taken steps to improve communication, assigning color-coded ID tags or scrubs to staff members so patients know who's a nurse and who's a doctor, and installing white boards in patient rooms, where a nurse starting a shift can jot down his or her name. At some facilities, hospitalists write their names on those boards, and hand patients and their relatives business cards or sticky notes with their photos. A few hospitals have gone further. At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., patients having surgery attend a pre-admission education class so they know "almost to the hour, let alone to the day, what's going to happen," said Chief Medical Officer Michael Rock.

 

Kaiser Health News by Roni Caryn Rabin

Tags: communication, coordinating care, Education, Health Care, Kaiser Health News, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Michael Rock, Patient Care, pre-admission education

Contact Us · Privacy Policy