Ideas That Work: Give Patients a Giggle as They Check Out

Practical pearls from your colleagues

The patient care coordinators at Urology Health Surgery Center in Fort Washington, Pa., try to make sure their patients leave with smiles on their faces. To do this, they created a wall of laughs that is covered in silly “dad jokes” to amuse patients and their visitors. (Example: What do you call a sick bird of prey on the run from the law? Illegal!) The jokes are pulled from a “Joke of the Day” desk calendar, and the three patient care coordinators decide which jokes are worthy of the wall. “It has really been a huge hit with many patients who actually snap pictures to share,” says Lore Wieler, nurse manager at the center. “We are a Class A facility at which all procedures are performed under local or topical anesthesia only, so our patients are awake and aware as they check out,” she says. OSM