OR Excellence Award Winner
When a breast cancer patient recently came into the Bayfront Health Spring Hill campus surgical services department, a team member who had survived breast cancer took special note. She wanted to talk to the patient to see if she could answer any questions about her personal experience, something that could help allay the patient’s fears.
“She had been there and wanted to talk to the patient one-on-one, tell her that she knew what the patient was going through and ask if there was any way she could help,” says Susan Byrd, MBA, RN, director of surgical services at Bayfront Health Spring Hill (Fla.). “We try to go in and touch that person, tell them what we’ve experienced and how we overcame some of the challenges. Our nurses are just being themselves, and that’s what makes the connection.”
It’s that unscripted approach — encouraging staff members to be themselves and offer that extra personal touch — that propelled Bayfront Health Spring Hill to win the 2018 OR Excellence Award for Patient Satisfaction.
Ms. Byrd knows a lot of people who love scripting — having staff members saying the same things to patients over and over — and think if the message is continuously the same, you get better results. But that’s not what Ms. Byrd believes.
