Inpatient Surgery

Inpatient Surgery at Lake Forest Hospital

Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital provides a comfortable caring environment to help you recover if your surgical procedure requires an extended or overnight hospital stay. To help prepare for your inpatient surgery, please review the following information.

Admission to the hospital

When an overnight or extended stay is needed, after a period of observation, you will be taken to your room from the recovery area or the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU). Your family and friends can wait in the surgical waiting room where the surgeon will usually meet with them at the end of the procedure. Family and friends can join you once you are transferred to your room.

Your new nurse will meet you and show you how to call for assistance when you arrive in the room. You will be taught how to use any electronic equipment available to you. Appropriate diet, activity levels and medications will be explained to you.

Inpatient discharge guidelines

When your physician decides you are ready to leave the hospital, you will be given a discharge order. Your physician and nurse will discuss your release and instructions for continued care once you return home.

Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital offers discharge planning, as well as Palliative Care Services for those with acute or complex illnesses.

When you receive approval for release, a hospital representative will escort you to the visitor entrance. When you are escorted to the visitor entrance, your driver can pull up in front of the visitor entrance to meet you.

Driver

A driver is required on the day of discharge for your trip home and you should not stay alone after surgery. Transportation and personal arrangements must be made in advance, and the driver's name with contact number or location should be given to the admitting nurse for later use.