Implementing primary care in the perianesthesia setting using a relationship-based care model

As surgical patients pass through the perianesthesia continuum, the nurses they encounter rarely have time to develop a nurse-patient relationship, or identify patient needs and concerns and pass this information along to other providers. In the preprocedural period of the care continuum, however, patients and their families often express information that is important to the patient and should be included in the patient's perioperative plan of care. Three questions were developed and added to the existing preoperative nursing assessment to ascertain the needs and concerns of patients and their families in the presurgical setting. Responses were communicated to the postanesthesia care unit nurse. Through implementation of this simple process, patient needs were better recognized and communicated during recovery from anesthesia. Results suggest that this primary care nursing model, adapted for a perioperative setting, has been overwhelmingly successful in communicating and responding to patients' needs during their surgical experience.