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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The Power of Healing is the Nurse

May 10, 2013

Telling the story of nursing is like telling the story of everyone who has been ill, been in an accident, or has held a vigil at the bed of a

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The Environment of Care: Third Party in the Caregiver/Patient Relationship

April 26, 2013

Returning from the Beryl Institute’s Patient Experience conference last week, my thoughts run from the obligations of the caregiver community to the responsibility of the patient to engage, and to

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Just Because: Volunteerism at its Best

April 12, 2013

Volunteerism is authentic altruism in action, doing good work to improve the human condition — “just because.” The “just because” is often what parents say to their kids when they

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Everything Teaches: How Patients Learn

April 5, 2013

I learned to be afraid of shots following a shocking injection of penicillin on my behind when I was six years old. I had scarlet fever (was I the last

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One More Time: Patient Care is Patient Safety

March 29, 2013

Returning from the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) annual meeting in Denver last week was like coming out of the womb of caring that nurses bring to the urgency

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Today’s Noise is Tomorrow’s HCAHPS Score

March 15, 2013

I am writing about noise. Again. It is still here. It seems to survive earthquakes, hurricanes, elections, the flu season, and taxes. What is so fascinating about the topic is

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Patient Safety is Inseparable from Patient Engagement

March 8, 2013

I am a Florence Nightingale groupie. When I first read her short, direct, and pithy book, “Notes on Nursing,” Nightingale became my mentor in understanding the inherent role of the

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Transforming Care One Step at a Time

February 15, 2013

I am in Rochester, MN, visiting my close friend, Bani Mahadeva, who has been living in the Charter House for 10 years. Charter House is a CCCR, attached to Mayo

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From Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome to Post-Traumatic Hospital Syndrome

February 8, 2013

So, the term “post-hospital syndrome” does not say “traumatic” but its definition certainly implies just that. An article by Dr. Harlan Krumholz on the topic in the New England Journal

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Patient Safety & Quality: "Wellness is Not Enough!"

February 1, 2013

Just fresh from attending and speaking at the Hospital Association of Southern California’s Patient Safety Colloquium in Garden Grove, CA, I continue to hear the words of keynote speaker, Charles

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