Story Published:
Feb 1, 2010 at 4:41 PM CST
Story Updated:
Feb 1, 2010 at 10:40 PM CST
Family members and visitors waiting on patients in surgery at Cookeville Regional Medical Center will now be able to monitor their loved one’s progress through the phases of surgery.
When a patient goes to surgery, family members are given a tracking code to follow on the monitor placed in the Surgery Waiting Area to see where the patient is at any given time. The code allows the patient information to be kept private.
"It keeps the (family) more informed, and it makes the waiting time not seem so long," said Chevelle Johnson, director of the same day surgery unit at CRMC.
"Basically when the patient gets here, they're put into the computer and tracked throughout the day."
The family will know when the patient is:
prepped for surgery,
in the operating room,
enters recovery
transported to a hospital room or ready to be discharged.
The new system is meant to help take away much of the stress associated with waiting on a loved one in surgery.
"It's very nerve-wrecking sitting in the waiting room and not knowing what's going on," said Linda Crawford, CRMC chief clinical officer.
"This is also immediate, so it's much faster than somebody coming out and talking to the family members."
