Newswise — Recovering heart surgery patients slowly shuffle down the corridors for exercise on the cardiac care floor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). While it's a familiar sight in most hospitals, what makes this scene different is the once sterile hospital walls are no longer bland muted beige. These walls are adorned with brightly sketched pictures of the human heart and cartoons of people demonstrating good post-surgery cardiac care.
The pictures were drawn by Marnie Chavez, a BIDMC nurse educator. The idea for the drawings came after the nurses in the unit began a class teaching heart surgery patients how to take care of themselves when they're discharged. It's all part of a hospital-wide initiative to achieve the perfect patient experience. "I thought it would be nice for the patients while they were walking the hallways to see the informational pictures so they could get the educational reinforcement and learn more," Chaves says. Patients are required to take at least three walks a day post-surgery so they are a captive audience. Patients told Chaves the more information they had " and the more reinforcement they received " the better off they'll be. Some pictures demonstrate how the heart works. Diagrams are accompanied by brief, easy-to-understand explanations. Chaves says she tried to break down some of the complicated terms and use words that would be easy to understand. The more cartoon-like pictures are part of a series called 'Going Home after Surgery.' A woman in the tub behind a shower curtain is the blond behind the helpful pointers to wash your incision gently with a mild soap. A man struggling to carry a bag of groceries is the face that tells you no lifting anything greater than 10 pounds for 10 weeks. A little cartoon heart holds a sign explaining that it takes 4-6 weeks for the sternum to heal. "I read a book called 'Laughter in Healthcare' that showed how people learn much more from cartoon pictures than the more serious anatomical book-like pictures," says Chaves, who has no formal art training other than the classes she took in high school. She's completed another series of pictures to help lung surgery patients located on the same floor and hopes they will have the same impact for them as they did for the patients recovering from heart surgery. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and ranks third in National Institutes of Health funding among independent hospitals nationwide. BIDMC is clinically affiliated with the Joslin Diabetes Center and is a research partner of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit http://www.bidmc.harvard.edu.
*NOTE: PHOTOS AVAILABLE FOR THIS STORY*
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