Managing patient expectation is essential for enhanced recovery pathways to work

This week we feature an article published in Orthopaedics Today. The article reports data from a survey of 200 leading surgeons across Europe and concludes that “managing patient expectation” is the most important factor in reducing length of stay with fast-track rehabilitation.

Do you agree? We would be interested to hear your views across the surgical specialties. Please use the comments section attached to this post to respond.

From our experience in orthopaedics we definitely think that it is important and we invested an considerable amount of time in thinking about how we would choreograph our pathway to ensure that patients were thoroughly prepared prior to surgery.

We made sure that every interaction with the patient helped to reinforce consistent messages about their recovery. We found that the conversations between non-clinical staff and patients were especially important. We therefore trained team members such as admissions clerks, secretaries, and housekeeping staff in the principles of enhanced recovery. We walked the pathway with them, invited them to pre-operative education sessions, and made sure that they knew how important their role was in communicating the positive benefits of enhanced recovery to patients.

By training all of our staff we were able to give our patients consistant messages about what to expect and how long they would be in hospital. This consistency is essential in helping to manage patient expectation.