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2022 Highlight Reel - What is one thing you can do to improve your Surgery Center?
146 Plays2 years ago
Over the last three months, we have had 12 exceptional ASC leaders on our podcast. At the end of every discussion, we always ask them, “What is one thing our listeners can do this week to improve their surgery centers?” To close out the year, we took all 12 of their answers, tied them up in a pretty bow, and turned them into this week’s episode as our holiday gift to you. Thank you to all our listeners who spent time with us this year and shared our episodes. On behalf of HST Pathways, we hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your loved ones and enjoy this round-up of things you can do this week to improve your surgery centers.
Brought to you by HST Pathways
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to This Week in Surgery Centers. If you're in the ASC industry, then you're in the right place. Every week, we'll start the episode off by sharing an interesting conversation we had with our featured guests, and then we'll close the episode by recapping the latest news impacting surgery centers. We're excited to share with you what we have, so let's get started and see what the industry's been up to.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hi, everyone.
Holiday Highlight Reel
00:00:28
Speaker
For today's episode, we're going to change it up a bit from our usual format and agenda. There will be no guest interview and no news, but instead a highlight reel of all the great advice our most recent guests have shared. To date, we have had 12 amazing ASC leaders on our podcast, and at the end of every discussion, we always ask them
00:00:50
Speaker
What is one thing our listeners can do this week to improve their surgery centers? So we took all 12 of those answers, tied them up in a pretty bow, and turned them into this week's episode as our holiday gift to you. And
Looking Ahead to 2023
00:01:06
Speaker
as this will be our last episode of the year, I just wanted to say thank you to all of our listeners who spent time with us and subscribed to our podcast and shared our episodes.
00:01:16
Speaker
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your loved ones and can take some much needed time off. We already have some incredible guests scheduled for 2023. So happy holidays, happy new year, and we will see you on the other side.
Data Analysis in Surgery Centers
00:01:32
Speaker
Hope you enjoy this roundup of things you can do this week to improve your surgery center. You know, to the point of data,
00:01:45
Speaker
you know, run through, double check everything that's being put through the data analytics machine, whatever that is, whether that's the EMR or whatever software the facility uses. You know, I think perhaps think of one way to tweak any report to, you know, visualize the data in a different way.
Cost Comparison: Hospitals vs. Surgery Centers
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want to sound like a nerd, but I think
00:02:15
Speaker
It's really all about the data. One exercise that we actually went through recently that it might not necessarily help improve the operations of the service center, but I think is very eye-opening is, okay, everybody now understands that hospitals are twice as expensive as a service center on average.
00:02:42
Speaker
So, you know, take that Survey Center's revenue that they generated, you know, up to this point in time and multiply that by two. That's how much that would have cost the healthcare system if those procedures were done at the hospital. And you cut it in half, which is, you know, the same as the revenue of the Survey Center. That's how much money a Survey Center has saved the healthcare infrastructure, right?
00:03:11
Speaker
Um, it's not necessarily something that would improve, um, this, you know, the operations of the surgery center. Um, but I, I done that exercise with my team and I think it's, it's eyeopening to them because then they realize, um, wow, we're, you know, we're not only helping, you know, our patients, we're not only giving our surgeons, uh, you know, a good day. Um, but we're also helping to lower the cost of
00:03:40
Speaker
of healthcare for Americans. So yeah, I would recommend administrators or survey centers to go through that exercise. I think the team would really like it.
00:03:50
Speaker
One thing
Advocacy for ASCs
00:03:51
Speaker
that I was thinking about that I'm not sure is possible in a week, but I think can be started in a week was to just be an advocate for your center. You know, we still here on the local level, the state level, the national level, a lot of not just uncertainty, but people who don't know about ASCs in particular, you know, and the advantages that they can provide to patients in terms of better patient experience, lower costs, all of those things that we in the industry kind of inherently understand from working here.
00:04:17
Speaker
So I think if you can advocate a little on behalf of your center, that advocates on behalf of the industry as well. And that could mean a little social media, it could mean some volunteer work, it could mean giving a lawmaker an official a tour of your facility so they see you're not just some random facility, you're a state of the art center.
00:04:36
Speaker
that has all of the things that you might expect to have these procedures done safely. I think those things will go a long way and hopefully as we kind of build the understanding of the ASC industry at the local and at the national level we'll get more policies that are favorable to our industry. But
Transparency and Trust with Patients
00:04:53
Speaker
again I just can't reiterate the most important thing you can do and you can start this today is even if you have to do a simple website or even just when you're dealing with your patients be 100% transparent.
00:05:06
Speaker
Just tell them your good points and your bad points. I mean, you don't want to burn yourself up, but don't try to hide things. Just be honest about what's going to happen, what it's going to cost, and what their expectations are, and what your expectations are too, and make it a partnership. That's probably more important than anything to do.
Profit Sharing and Employee Ownership
00:05:26
Speaker
And the other thing is, I go back to this, a lot of centers will not do this profit sharing with your employees. You have no idea.
00:05:35
Speaker
on a quarterly basis. We do that in a check and we hand it to our employees. How much that means to them because they are involved in what's going on. They know
00:05:46
Speaker
My pre-op nurses know that crayons cost 65 cents a piece. So they go in and they ask the child, are you gonna play with your mom's phone or are you gonna color? Because they don't wanna waste the 65 cents because for every dollar it's five cents in their pocket. And we cost live here, we're on a true EMR, we're paperless and so we cost every penny and we know when the patient walks out the door exactly what our profit margin is. So if you can get your employees to be owners in the business,
00:06:16
Speaker
you'll make money.
Community Engagement and Leadership
00:06:18
Speaker
I would say have your ASC, if they have not joined, they need to join their local chamber of commerce. This is kind of like the easy button and a lot of ASCs are missing out on this. They are providing essential health care in their community. And so you need to be tapped into your community. And what a great way to establish connections with business leaders.
00:06:44
Speaker
in the elected officials in your community, your local council or supervisors who often go up the chain to the state or even the federal level. So huge connections, huge opportunity to build your leadership skills. And honestly, when they're gonna have conversations about healthcare in the community, now you're a part of it.
00:07:12
Speaker
And it's just a huge opportunity and so easy for your FASE that's just a great marketing tool.
Medication Management Strategies
00:07:26
Speaker
One thing from a medication management perspective is having a consultant pharmacist. Whether you have a consultant pharmacist, at the very minimum, having a dedicated staff member that can help you with your medication management.
00:07:40
Speaker
That will lead to standard of care, best practice, preventing drug errors, having a safe, effective way to give medications in your surgery center, and allocating the staff to that. So if the consultant is coming in and helping with those processes or the dedicated staff member is given time to work on those. I think that's the simplest
00:08:08
Speaker
you know, answer to walk away with and for people whether that is the owners of the surgery centers or the providers knowing how important and how time consuming the medication process can be.
00:08:22
Speaker
So
Technology Adoption in Surgery Centers
00:08:23
Speaker
I think I would say it's 2022, let's embrace technology. There are a lot of surgery centers out there who I see scheduling on spreadsheets. I see not taking advantage of, you know, we use our phones for everything today. And there are so many opportunities to introduce technology. Again, thinking about revenue cycle that can help us be more efficient. So whether it's adopting a way to text a patient,
00:08:51
Speaker
either clinical information or financial information, adopting a method for them to communicate with you electronically, including paying their bills electronically. I would look for those. I would try to take advantage of those. It really exists everywhere else in our life. And I think from my experience in visiting surgery centers, it seems to be a place where there's a nice opportunity for us to take advantage of what's out there.
00:09:15
Speaker
present the surgeons with the data. That is probably the most important thing you can do. Obviously, do your homework ahead of time, but put in the time and effort to summarize your raw implant purchase history and to an easy understanding list of comparing apples to apples. The same
Data-Driven Decisions for Surgeons
00:09:34
Speaker
products that you've got there to
00:09:37
Speaker
to the same products that you benchmarked against, the usage, the CPT codes. By the way, and the reimbursement, which we talked about earlier, put all of that together and talk about how that affects the whole business outcome. But you start with presenting the surgeons with data. You start with putting the data together in reports, but start with sitting down with your surgeons. After you've done the homework,
00:10:00
Speaker
and talk to them. They're going to appreciate, as I said, their owners in the business. They want the best outcomes. They're going to make the best decisions for their patients and for their center. But I would do that. I would go to the data, get the data from whatever you've got in your facility, HSTMB, or whatever you're using.
00:10:18
Speaker
and do the other homework, do that, and then go to your surgeons and make a plan with your surgeons and do it as a team. And I think that's the best way to, and one of the things that all surgery centers, if they're not doing it this week, they should plan for it by opinion.
Leadership and Work Environment
00:10:33
Speaker
Ask your most important person in each department what their biggest challenge is and listen to their answer, whether it's something personal or whether it's something work related.
00:10:48
Speaker
You don't have to fix it, but just listen for the answer. Secondly, look to find a way where someone else can take a leadership position to step up, right? To promote them into growing and spreading their wings. Look to find ways to highlight positives. If you want to change a behavior, you don't focus on the negative. It's not through punishment. It's through promoting the positive behavior that you want to see.
00:11:18
Speaker
take them out, go bowling. Get to know who you are working with because I promise you it'll be returned to you in tenfold.
00:11:30
Speaker
patient experience
Enhancing Patient Experience through Leadership
00:11:31
Speaker
because patient experience, I mean, this can go in multiple different directions, but when your patient experiences a really good surgical day, they're gonna go out and tell their friends, and that's word of mouth, right? That's gonna bring more patients into your facility. I truly believe word of mouth is probably your best marketing strategy for any center.
00:11:57
Speaker
Not only this, your patient experience is going to stem from your surgeon leadership. So from a surgeon standpoint, no matter if they want to be a leader or not, when they slap that MD behind their name, they're automatically a leader. And so it's huge for surgeons to understand that if they're good leaders to their staff, their staff are going to have a more
00:12:23
Speaker
positive day and they're going to give the patients more positive experience as well. So it's kind of like a snowball effect. I would say in any surgery center, a great surgery team is what makes an ASC successful. My advice is leaders, you must show your appreciation to your staff because happy staff
00:12:50
Speaker
means happy patients and it all translates to increased patient satisfaction and better outcomes.
Vendor Management and Cost Savings
00:12:57
Speaker
Just being on the business side of it, most important thing I think to do is to look at your GPOs and your vendor contracts, make sure that they're updated, make sure that they're
00:13:09
Speaker
on contract, they fall off occasionally, they'll go every so many years and then they'll fall off. Having someone who's knowledgeable in and watching pricing on items, I think is one of the biggest cost savings on day-to-day purchases. If you know that a pack of towels is $32.96 and the next time somebody tries to order them, they're $69, well,
00:13:36
Speaker
And that's the kind of things that we try to do. There's a thousand items, but on the day-to-day items is where you really spend your money. So keeping an eye on that kind of stuff.