Free Paper Example: Perioperative Service Enhancement

Introduction

There has been a significant improvement in technology over the last decades, with promises of even more improvement being eminent. Care or patients that have been admitted has slowly switched, showcasing an improvement. The use of new and advanced technology has been quite significant in the development of patient care. The perioperative period is when a patient takes from when they are first admitted into a hospital or the doctor's office to their stay in the hospital until the time they are discharged. The perioperative period is divided into three parts: preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative. The patient's surgical procedure consists of processes like ward admission where a patient is admitted into the hospital for after diagnosis and plan for the surgery. The next step in the process is anesthesia, which involves using medicine to slip the patient into unconsciousness so that surgery is the next step in the process. The final step is the patient recovery, which involves taking care of the patient in the hospital or in-home care until they fully recover. Therefore, it is paramount to develop an action plan that the perioperative nurse must adapt to in his/her daily practice.

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Smart Hospitals

The automation of health services in an age where patients are readily equipped with information may be the most daunting task globally. Hospitals spend quite a significant amount of resources each time to improve their patients' interactions and systems. Digital systems have ensured that hospitals are patient-centered and continue to offer a better patient experience. Some new technologies such as 3-D printing, virtual reality, precision medicine, telemedicine, and more have been developed by companies to ensure that the future of customer care delivery is elevated to greater heights ensuring that the perioperative period is carried out well (Moro & Martiniello, 2019, p.16). There is a need to address an action plan to lay down the perioperative nurse's functions to ensure that they are uptake their important role in taking care of patients.

Goals of the Action Plan

One of the action plan's end goals is to ensure the installation of the virtual reality machine. The VR machine is for the purpose of, ensuring that the patients go through a Pre-operation tour. The hospital environment contains quite a harsh environment that may make a patient uncomfortable with the hospital's visit from the views they have of the surroundings to doctors and other patients' sights (Haque, 2017, p.6). To protect the patient from the shock of being admitted to a hospital for the first time just before the surgery, researchers have found it useful to take the patient through a pre-operation tour through a virtual reality machine.

This machine uses artificial intelligence fed to its system to show the patient a surround of the hospital and the procedures that they are to go through during the perioperative period. This tour is efficient in enhancing the experience of the patient who is about to undergo surgery. That is an important step since it reduces the person's stress levels. It provides them with the relevant knowledge of what they need to know about the surgery (Simon et al., 2019, p.117). The method of using VR has proven to be satisfactory since it enables the patient to undertake the journey right from the hospital's lobby to the time when they are receiving their general anesthesia by giving them a 360 video of the operating room.

Although some patients are allowed to go through the OT a day before the operation to familiarize themselves with the environment, not all hospitals may be in the position to do that. That may be due to the operating room procedure, and it may be in use when they are to go through the tour (Simon et al., 2019 p.107). That would bring much work to the perioperative nurse when preparing the patient to undergo the procedure. Virtual reality will ease the nurse's preparation procedure since it will enable the patient to undergo the preparation procedure without much human input.

The other end goal is the installation of a smart whiteboard strategically outside an isolation theater. The whiteboard will be a digital transformation that displays the information that clinicians have taken from the patients and fed to the electronic records. These records include the alerts on the ailment that the person is going through, the level of risk that the patient holds, the length of admission of the patient, and an estimate of the period expected for the patient (Moro & Martiniello, 2019, p.16). This innovation will increase the safety of both the patient and the perioperative nurse.

The isolation theater is often used with patients who have an ailment, which is highly contagious infections. The theater is often used to separate sick individuals with a contagious disease such as Covid-19 from the healthy individuals who do not have the disease to safeguard members of the general public from exposure to the contagious disease. The use of a whiteboard will tell the patient's situation from the previous examination without necessarily having to interact with them (Haque, 2017, p.4). That ensures that the perioperative nurse takes care of the patient as required without necessarily interacting with them often.

The other goal of the smart hospital's two technological advancements will be to improve the clients' service. Clients seeking treatment will be confident in the hospital's services due to the availability of a VR machine that readies them for the surgery and the availability of an isolation theater, ensuring that the patients with highly contagious infections can be treated without mingling with others (Simon et al., 2019, p.109). The availability of a white screen will improve the perioperative nurse's service delivery since they will be sure of their safety in mingling with the patients. The number of interactions with the patient will be decreased, leading to a decrease in the probability of catching the highly infectious infection.

Changes to Occur

For the actualization of the action plan that involves implementing the virtual reality kit and the smart whiteboards outside of the isolation theatres, there needs to be training for the personnel that is going to be the frequent users of the machinery. Technology is quite efficient when used effectively but may harm if wrongly used (Simon et al., 2019, p.112). The perioperative nurses' introduction to how the technology works are quite important in ensuring that implementation is undertaken smoothly. That may involve the spending of funds in purchasing the kits and payment of a plan to ensure that the nurses are oriented on how they operate and how to offer quality healthcare while using the new advancements.

There will be an increase in confidence that the patients have on the clinicians in the hospital. That is due to the improvement in the level of healthcare they are providing. The whiteboards will require that the hospital personnel shift from recording information on normal boards with their handwriting. This method was faulty since it involves the transfer of information by another person into an electronic system. That brought about the probability of errors while transferring the information (Evans, 2016, p.9). The hospital management will be required to shift the focus to the use of electronic boards to feed information from the first time that a patient checks in to the hospital. This information, combined with the doctor's diagnosis, will be shown on the whiteboard outside of the isolation theater.

For highly contagious diseases like COVID-19, the perioperative nurses will be highly cautious to ensure that maximum care is taken to protect themselves from the contagious disease and, in return, infect others. Since the whiteboard displays the latest information on the patient's status and the severity of the ailment, it will also display the caution to be taken to safeguard the caregiver's health (Haque, 2017, p.6). It will also bring the latest update on the type of care that the patient should be given, ensuring that they receive updated care and improve their survival chances.

Evaluation of Success

The smart hospital's success will depend on the monitoring measures that will be placed to assess how the implementation is being done. The evaluation of success can be reviewed through various methods like interviewing perioperative nurses regarding how they think the machinery has helped them relate with the clients. Besides, they should also assess how it has eased their service delivery process while still protecting them from the infection that they could acquire from their patients (Simon et al., 2019 p.112). These evaluation methods can be quarterly after launching the VR and the electronic whiteboard outside the isolation theatre.

Accessing Customer Feedback

The use of feedback from customers who have been through a procedure like the virtual reality program is vital in assessing whether the program was successful. After the procedure of virtual preparation for the surgery, the perioperative nurse may ask the patient if they feel prepared for the process. The virtual experience using the VR is supposed to help the patient get comfortable with the hospital environment to ensure that they reduce anxiety and stress levels that may arise due to the hospital's phobia and the operations carried on in hospitals. The evaluation of how a highly contagious infection was dealt with will showcase the level of care that the staff has for the patients and the lengths to ensure that the general public is protected (Evans, 2016 p.7). The use of a whiteboard will ensure to reduction of contacts that will, in turn, reduce the risk of highly contagious ailments like COVID-19.

Assessing the Feedback of The Clinicians

The technology users to provide clients with efficient services are also a good source of feedback to evaluate the success of the technology in the smart hospital. The efficiency of the VR machines and the digital whiteboard is also used to assess success. The healthcare practitioners can also confirm the patient engagement that the technology allows because, in healthcare, the care process is entirely dependent on how the doctor relates to the patient. The doctor can review the patient's health records in real-time through the use of a digital whiteboard, get test results, and provide an opportunity for disease management (Haque, 2017, p.6). The electronic whiteboards should also help the healthcare organization identify any bottlenecks they may have before they slow down their services.

Conclusion

Smart hospitals are the future that the health industry holds dear as an essential thing and necessary. In this modern era, where patients are well-equipped with information on the type of care they wish to receive, they always look for places that offer nothing but quality in patient care. The concept of smart hospitals will help the perioperative service enhancement since it will help the nurses deliver quality service in the care for the patient. Furthermore, the smart hospitals' concept will help clinicians plan their schedules more, reduce the risks and costs incurred in doing rounds, and contact patients with highly contagious infections. Assessment is necessary for the actualization of the plan. That will confirm the virtual reality's success in alleviating patient stress and reducing infection levels on patients with highly contagious infections like Covid-19.

References

Evans, E.A., 2016. Improving Patient Safety and Nursing Care Utilizing.https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/190330865.pdf

Haque, A., Guo, M., Alahi, A., Yeung, S., Luo, Z., Rege, A., Jopling, J., Downing, L., Beninati, W., Singh, A. and Platchek, T....