Preoperative education: preparing patients for a positive experience.

Education can be lost amid the fast pace of advanced technology, decreased financial reimbursement, and increased volume of ambulatory surgery. Preoperative education is important to the patient, family, physicians, and nurses, and it can be provided in many ways. This article describes a preoperative registration education program developed at Hartford Memorial Hospital. Hartford's experience has shown that the program facilitated decreased anxiety and earlier patient discharge, with resultant decrease in cost of hospitalization. Other institutions can tailor this patient-focused education program to their needs. Preoperative education is both an important and rewarding area of nursing and should not be lost in the fast-paced health care environment.