Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1149353
17 PATIENT EXPERIENCE Hospitals are glamorizing the mammogram By Emily Rappleye H ospitals are stepping up the game at their imaging centers to woo women to undergo mammogram screenings regularly, The New York Times reported. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City is putting special care into making its new imaging locations "bright and lively," with trendy wallpaper and furniture, snacks and goody bags. A Fairview Health Services clinic in Eagan, Minn., offers patients a "VIP night," which involves chair massages, beverages, warm robes, freebies like pedicure accessories, and of course, a mammogram. The hope is that a less intimidating envi- ronment will encourage more women to get screened. From a financial perspective, hospitals say many women are the healthcare decision-makers in their families, so ensuring they have a good mammogram experience means they may make more appointments with that system down the line. It has also helped some hospitals negotiate better rates with payers. n Why this surgeon emails patients' family members before surgery By Mackenzie Bean B enjamin Schwartz, MD, a gynecological surgeon at Northwell Health's Southside Hospital in Bayshore, N.Y., implemented an additional step to standard preoperative protocols: He emails patients' loved ones to learn more about them before surgery. "Our standard protocol had been to take a presurgical pause to prepare before a patient entered the operating room. … Following the pause, we apply our skills to the person lying before us — often without knowing who they really are," Dr. Schwartz, who also serves as Southside Hospital's chairman of obstetrics and gynecology, wrote in an op-ed for STAT. Now, Dr. Schwartz and the surgical team take a moment to read emails from patients' family members immediately before their sur- geries. In one case, he learned that a patient loved Pink Floyd, so Dr. Schwartz played one of the band's songs over the operating room's sound system to help relax the patient before surgery. Dr. Schwartz said this process helps the surgical team create a human connection with patients that is often absent in modern medicine. "We need to guard against dehumanization by learning about our patients' amazing, individual lives and the impact they have on so many others' lives, rather than knowing them only as 'the gallblad- der in room 302,'" he wrote. n Viewpoint: Why hospitals should think twice about disrupting patients' sleep By Mackenzie Bean H ospitals should limit unnecessary sleep disruptions for patients, as poor sleep can hinder the healing process, a physician wrote in an op-ed for e New York Times. Amitha Kalaichandran, MD, a resident physician based in Ottawa, Ontario, shared her experience caring for a 2-year-old pa- tient with a rare disease who'd been hospi- talized for seven weeks. Dr. Kalaichandran recalled a night she had to wake the child up to take her vitals. Once she le, it took the child an hour to fall back asleep. "I hated to wake her, but recently, when I had offered to wait to examine a child until after a nap, my attending physician had scolded: 'You can't care about that. If you do, you'll never examine them. They have to get used to it — they're in the hospital, after all,'" Dr. Kalaichandran wrote. These disruptions not only hinder the patient experience, but can have numer- ous health consequences for patients, according to Dr. Kalaichandran. She pointed to research that shows sleep disruption can worsen patients' percep- tion of pain, slow wound healing process- es and increase risk of disease. "If sleep were regarded as a continuous infusion of a medication that helped a patient heal faster, provided them with emotional stability, and ensured they were in the best mind-set to understand the risks and benefits of that care, we would think twice about disrupting it," she wrote. n