Our staff at SBSC recognizes that your time is important and that prolonged waiting before a procedure is both unnerving and inconvenient to you and the people who have accompanied you to our center.

We utilize our computer data and requests of your surgeons/physicians to construct a schedule that attempts to be as close to anticipated reality as humanly possible. However there are many factors outside of our control that can alter the progression of starting times, resulting in delay or change (even forward!) in the time of your procedure. Example of these factors are:

• Prolongation of a surgery before your procedure, whether at our center or another facility where your surgeon might be working.
• Prolongation of office duties, delaying your surgeon’s arrival.
• Emergency procedures that your attending surgeon must address.
• Late arrivals of patients who were scheduled to arrive before you.

Whenever there is a change in your anticipated procedure starting time, our staff will try to keep you informed and provide updates to the best of our ability. If your surgeon is involved in an emergency procedure or another surgery, we may not be able to provide you with frequent updates. Nevertheless, always feel free to ask one of our staff and we will do the best we can to provide you with reliable information.

Why do we ask you to come in prior to your surgery time?
We ask you to come in before surgery early enough to provide us with adequate time to perform your front desk admission process, admit you to our preoperative area, institute monitoring and intravenous preparation, antibiotic administration (if applicable), and permit interview by your Anesthesiologist (if applicable) and your treating Physician. The same 4 events listed above can sometimes lead to a longer than anticipated stay in our preoperative area.

We certainly hope that we will minimize your waiting time and provide your services as close to the scheduled time as possible. However, we hope that you will understand that delivery of the best care to each patient does not always conform to our computer’s plan! And if you do encounter a delay, please let us know what we can do to make your wait more comfortable.

Thank you,

Dena McCague, RN
Administrator
Santa Barbara Surgery Center