Team Peak Performers: ENT & Surgery Scheduling Team

On numerous occasions, the ENT team has had to suddenly and quickly reschedule entire OR days to make sure our children get their surgeries. For example, we have had surgeons who have become acutely ill and not able to work as expected, or when they have to go on maternity leave prematurely. Cancelling the OR day last minute is very problematic for the patients and their families. The parents take off work, get coverage for their other children, and have to mentally prepare themselves for their child's surgery. To have this cancelled last minute and be rescheduled, causes a tremendous amount of logistical difficulty and emotional stress for these families. Sometimes it can be costly as well as they lose more time at work. When this happens, the ENT team immediately steps up to get all of these children rescheduled with another provider within 24 hours. Whether it is during a work day, or after hours, the team contacts every single patient, finds another provider with whom they can be rescheduled without delay, reschedules the surgery, and revises the preauthorization. This takes an inordinate amount of time and work to accomplish. The ENT physicians are also always willing to help out last minute and add patients on to their schedules.

Similarly, there are often multiple clinics that need to get rescheduled. This is typically even more work because there are usually more clinic days than OR days to reschedule and there are usually more patients in a clinic day than in an OR day. This requires the physicians as well as the APPs to accept extra patients in their clinics to accommodate everyone. In my own personal experience as a patient outside of Cooks, when appointments or surgeries get scheduled, the office just offers the next available which may be months later. But our ENT department will not settle for that as it would mean delayed treatment for our patients and their families. This department is impressive in so many ways. They go above and beyond to do the right thing for our children, even though it means a huge burden of work to make it happen.