Patients undergoing surgery for a new ostomy require an extensive amount of education due to the complexity of the tasks required for self-care. By starting education earlier in the preoperative setting and providing written health literate materials for review, autonomy and confidence are supported by allowing sufficient time for education. The purpose of this project was to determine if supplementing the current education process with standardized, health literate written education materials improves patient self-efficacy for management of their new ostomy, with a secondary aim of decreasing post-surgical complication rates. A one-group, repeated measures, quasi-experimental design was utilized with a sample of 25 surgical patients. By adding the written materials and initiating patient education preoperatively, a statistically significant improvement in self-efficacy was demonstrated. Mean self-efficacy scores increased from 27.32 (SD = 12.15, CI = 22.30, 32.34) pre-education in the clinic to 39.56 (SD = 9.26, CI = 35.74, 43.38) post-education in the clinic (p = 0.000), and further increased to 47.20 (SD = 7.38, CI = 44.14, 50.25) at discharge from the hospital post-surgery (p = 0.0004). The quarterly complications O/E decreased from 0.99 pre-intervention to 0.88 post-intervention, indicating that the project facility performed better than the reference population. Initiating education preoperatively and supplementing it with standardized, health literate written education materials is recommended to improve patients’ stoma self-efficacy. By increasing self-efficacy, patients may be more effective in self-management of their ostomy and better prepared to care for themselves upon discharge from the hospital to prevent complications.