Background: Patient education is a common feature for the preparation for many aesthetic procedures. Comprehensive pre-treatment patient education is fundamental for increasing perception of expectations required before the procedure, improved patient satisfaction and the reduction of complications. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement recongnizes that many complications could be prevented with proper patient education. The World Health Organization (WHO) focuses on improving knowledge of the healthcare team, using safety checklists to improve safety and communication, keeping records, and cultivating a team culture. Investing time in preparing patients for pretreatment enhances the consistency of information given, assests in eliminating information gaps, and prevents procedure related complications. Foreground: Patients undergoing aesthetic procedures need to be properly educated. Examination of the current patient education at the clinical site revealed that patients were unprepared for their procedure, causing frustration for patients and staff, reducing efficiency, and loss of revenue for the facility and the provider. When patients do not understand the potential complications, a greater propensity for patient dissatisfaction, frustration, and undesired outcomes exist. Patient education is an interdisciplinary team effort. The team cannot educate or empower their patients if they do not possess the skills or the ability to provide the instruction. The Project Director and the practice owner determined that an initial training in-service and an on-going education process related to procedure education for the patient needed to be developed and implemented. Evidence-Based Practice Framework: The Stevens Star Model of Knowledge Transformation provided the Evidence Based Practice framework. The organizational change model utilized was Kurt Lewin’s Change Theory. Jean Watson’s philosophy was the nursing model used to guide the elements of patient education and communication. Findings/Results: All team members affected by this practice change shall demonstrate and have annual documented competencies in this new patient education process. Conclusion/Recommendations: The results of this project concluded that the implementation of a patient education protocol had a positive impact on decreasing complications, improving patient satisfaction and improving productivity. The patient education protocol implemented was a multidisciplinary pre-treatment educational process with a checklist and a documentation tool. To accomplish this evidence-based practice change, the staff was educated in a consistent formal process for the aesthetic procedures at the facility.
