Hi, and welcome to my blog! I'm Susan E. Mazer -- a knowledge expert and thought leader on how the environment of care impacts the patient experience. Topics I write about include safety, satisfaction, hospital noise, nursing, care at the bedside, and much more. Subscribe below to get email notices so you won't miss any great content.
January 18, 2019
If we are fortunate in our pursuit of meaningful work, we will find a mentor, a leader who will help us find our way. A guide who will let us know that no matter what is going on around us, we can put on the blinders of “purpose and mission” and move forward. I was
Read more >September 22, 2017
This month, Mayo Clinic’s medical education journal published an article by Texas A&M Professor Leonard L. Berry and others about “Hostage Bargaining Syndrome” (HBS). HBS is what happens when the power differential between physicians and patients is perceived to be a barrier to shared decision-making. The only difference between patients and their caregivers – whether physicians,
Read more >September 2, 2016
Not sure you heard, but one of the arteries in the heart of the U.S. healthcare system collapsed. Yup, a stroke. Blockages abound; both brain and heart. In addition, the system suffers from obesity and malnutrition.
Aetna is ending its participation in the state exchanges leaving millions abandoned without insurance, and with few options. Aetna is the largest insurer, but not the only one to exit the insurance exchanges.
Their reason? “Too many sick people.”
Read more >March 22, 2016
Is healthcare (1) a human right, (2) a privilege, (3) a commodity, (4) a luxury, (5) a public utility, (6) a targeted market, (7) a service industry? Is a sick person in need of healthcare (1) a patient, (2) a consumer, (3) a guest, (4) a user, (5) an advertising target? Is excellence in patient
Read more >December 6, 2013
Thanksgiving is celebrated as a day of gratitude. The day after Thanksgiving, something magical happens: Black Friday obliterates all gratitude and replaces it with blatant panic, fear, and urgency. This year, for some, it only took a few hours after turkey dinner to enter into the frightening abyss. Thanksgivingitus: a condition rampant among communities and
Read more >November 22, 2013
So, healthcare reform is in our face, hitting our checkbooks, and so very confusing. However, never was the challenge as clear to me as today, after spending some time speaking with a young man and his mother while sharing a natural hot spring in Genoa, NV, where I was taking a little R&R. This is
Read more >November 8, 2013
If I think about how many rainbows I have seen in my life, none have been as stunning as the absolutely vivid and full one, end-to-end, that I saw in Reno a couple of years ago. It followed an amazing lightning storm that I am sure set off a couple of brush fires. But, in
Read more >September 16, 2013
This past week my husband Dallas and I spoke at the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation conference, Transform 2013. This was the third year of the conference, attended by over 900 people with many minds and ideas colliding in a wash of TED-style talks.
Read more >July 5, 2013
Our final week prior to returning to the U.S. was spent in Stockholm, Sweden. My husband and business partner Dallas Smith, who speaks fluent Swedish and has spent many years traveling and performing in Sweden, often comments on its richness in social services, including a healthcare system that tends to the Swedish population from birth
Read more >May 31, 2013
My husband Dallas and I are in Israel this week, on our way to Jordan and Qatar. A conversation came up around the differences between the U.S. healthcare system and the Israeli healthcare system. Currently in the U.S., you need insurance to make a doctor’s appointment. In Israel, you need only to call to make
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