Susan E. Mazer, Ph.D. Blog

Thoughts and ideas on healthcare

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.

LATEST POST

4 Ways to Practice Environmental Compassion

September 18, 2025

Environmental compassion starts with a simple promise: notice everything that affects a person’s senses, then design it to help them heal. It means being intentional about sound, light, visuals, temperature, touchpoints, and timing

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Patient Safety: It’s About the Culture!

November 15, 2013

This week, I spoke at the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California’s Patient Safety Exchange, an annual event that brings together nurses and administrators, physicians and risk officers, and

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Chasing the Rainbow of Health Care Reform

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

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Ready or Not, Here Comes the Future of Healthcare

November 1, 2013

The future shows up, ready or not. Old systems fade in the sunlight of time and new systems take over, ready or not. Transform 2013, the 4th annual symposium sponsored by the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation in September, looked at the future of healthcare only slightly visible in the amazing work and dreamers of the now.

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Jan Adrian of Healing Journeys: When Cancer Inspires, Motivates, and Transforms

October 25, 2013

I learned about living with cancer from Jan Adrian, the founder and executive director of Healing Journeys. I met Jan in the early 1980s when she asked me to do a workshop for nurses on music as therapy. It was the first time I’d done any work in healthcare.

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Magnetics of Patient Safety, Quality Care & Compassion

October 11, 2013

Coming from the 2013 Magnet Conference in Orlando last week, it’s hard to describe what it feels like to be in the presence of 8,000 nurses whose sole mission is to care for patients and be caring while setting new standards for quality and redefining excellence.

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The Time is Now for End of Life Conversations

September 27, 2013

In the busy-ness of this technological age, it is so easy to lose track of real value of in-person sharing. I know that for me, email is now part of my DNA, part of how I breathe, and part of how relationships form, live, and, in most cases, thrive.

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Pain Management is More Than Drugs

September 20, 2013

My darling niece, Jessica, at three and a half years of age has already learned all she needs to know about pain management. What she does first is declare what hurts.

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Transform 2013: A Brain Trust of Ideas for Healthcare

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.

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How Do We Add Mission to An Admission?

September 10, 2013

Great question. Great pun, too. However, in the current period of HCAHPS, patient engagement, employee engagement, patient satisfaction, without a mission, how can you ever reasonably expect to provide quality healthcare? And, I am not referring to the mission that is well framed and mounted in your administration office or hung in the lobby.

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A New Future for Healthcare and all that Jazz

September 6, 2013

Many of you know that I am a jazz harpist. But what you may not know is moving from classical to jazz was one of the most stressful, risky processes

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