Journal for healthcare quality : official publication of the National Association for Healthcare Quality
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The intensive care unit (ICU) waiting room is a dynamic place that influences the satisfaction of families of critically ill patients. Waiting-room comfort and amenities are important, because families often spend a great deal of nonvisiting time there. ⋯ Methods included distribution of an 18-item family survey, ethnographic observations, interviews, and assessment of the physical environment. Findings suggest that the role of the receptionist and access to food and other services were important to families and influenced their assessment of the quality of services provided by the ICU.
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This brief report determines whether patients admitted to a large teaching hospital knew the name of their caretaker (physician or nurse) and whether emphasis on patients' awareness of this name improved their recall. A survey of 100 patients on the internal medicine and neurology services at a large teaching hospital in BrookLyn, NY, was conducted. A derivative survey was also conducted on 30 different patients to see whether caretaker name recall was enhanced after the patients were advised of the importance of remembering this name. ⋯ Less than a quarter of the patients initiaLLy surveyed were able to state either their physician's or nurse's name. However, after a specific effort to have a smaller group of patients remember their physician's name, more than 75% did so. Therefore, it was concluded that simple interventions such as providing the patients with their physician's name in writing and emphasizing the importance of knowing it result in a significantly greater percentage of physician-name recall.