Preparing for Your Procedure

Based on your procedure and health assessment, a preadmission phone call or visit will be arranged to help prepare you for surgery. These are called the Preoperative Phone Call or the Preanesthesia Testing (PAT) visit. During the phone call or visit, you will speak or meet with a PAT nurse and will: 

  • Be asked about your health history and current medicine use
  • Be expected to pay your insurance co-pay. If you are unable to pay your co-pay, St. Joseph’s Hospital will provide financial assistance or a financial counselor.
  • Have any needed tests done. This may include blood tests, a urine test, chest X-rays (to check your lungs), an EKG (to check your heart) and other tests ordered by your doctor.
  • Have your surgery consent form reviewed with you
  • Receive instructions for surgery
  • Meet with a staff member from the anesthesia department to review your health history, medicine use and test results to determine your anesthesia needs. Anesthesia is given during surgery to induce sleep and prevent pain.

For more information on your anesthesia provider, please visit the Millennium Anesthesia Care Web site at macsleep.com.

The length of your visit will depend on your needs before surgery as well as the number of patients scheduled, so please allow several hours for your appointment. You are very important to us and we will work hard to answer your questions, make your visit as pleasant and short as possible and, most importantly, make your surgery safe and successful.

Before Surgery

The evening before your procedure, you will receive a phone call to inform you what time and where to report for your procedure. You will be taken to a private room to get ready for surgery. Family and friends may come with you. There you will:

  • Put on an ID band after your identity is verified
  • Change into a hospital gown
  • Have your vital signs checked - heartbeat, body temperature, blood pressure, etc.
  • Be asked about the last time you had food, drink or medicine
  • Have your allergy information verified
  • Be asked if family or friends will be waiting in the main waiting room for the doctor to speak with them
  • Have an intravenous line (I.V.) started for use in surgery

If you are an outpatient who will be going home after surgery, you MUST have someone available to take you home or the surgery will be canceled. When it is time for surgery, if you are an inpatient you will be taken to the Pre-Op/Holding Area. Only one person may accompany you to the Pre-Op/Holding Area. All other family and friends must wait in the main waiting room on the second floor. The doctor will speak with your family and friends in this area once the surgery is complete. If you are an outpatient you will go directly from the Preoperative Area to the OR. Volunteers are available to answer questions from 8am to 5pm. After 5pm, the recovery room staff will communicate with family and friends from the volunteer desk phone or in person.

After Surgery

After surgery you will be moved to the recovery area. This is called the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU). You will be there for an hour or longer. Specially trained nurses will check your vital signs often and monitor your condition closely. No visitors are allowed in this area. When you are ready to leave the PACU, you will go either to a hospital room (if spending one or more nights in the hospital) or to the Stage II Recovery Room if you are going home the same day as your surgery. We will tell your family and friends waiting in the main waiting room on the second floor, or in the Same Day Surgery waiting area, when and where they may visit you. One visitor is allowed in the Stage II Recovery Area. If you will be staying in the hospital after surgery, your visitors will be given your hospital room number and directed to visit you there.

Outpatients

If you will be going home the same day of surgery, you will be given instructions about how to care for yourself while you heal. You will also be given prescriptions for any medicine your doctor orders. 

Remember to ask questions about anything that you do not understand. Please make sure to follow your discharge instructions so your recovery will be safe and speedy. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to meet your surgical needs. We hope you have a speedy recovery.

St. Joseph’s Same Day Surgery
3003 West Martin Luther King Blvd
(813)870-4711