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Gregory DeConciliis – Expanding Your ASC: From Concept to Completion
80 Plays4 months ago
Today is the third and final part of our three-episode series on Expanding Your ASC. We’ve covered how to bring on new physicians, add new specialties, and add a new operating room. I had the opportunity to sit down with Greg DeConciliis to talk about the expansion project he’s working on. Greg’s team realized a few years ago that they had outgrown their current 3-OR facility, so they are building an 8-OR facility a few miles down the road, and they are on track to open in January 2025. So we talked about how he knew it was time, financing, finding contractors, challenges and learnings, and everything in between.
After my conversation with Greg, we will end the episode with a new segment. I usually try to rotate between sharing the latest news and sharing helpful data points, but I thought it would be good to add a new segment around Using AI at Your ASC. It can be really tricky to know you can start using AI today, especially if it’s a subject you are a bit wary of or just haven’t had a lot of exposure to. So stay tuned until the end, and I’ll walk you through three safe and free ways to start using AI today.
Previous “Expanding Your ASC” episodes:
- Michael McClain – Expanding Your ASC: Bringing on New Surgeons + Specialties
- Bruce Johnstone – Expanding Your ASC: Adding an OR
ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/
Brought to you by HST Pathways.
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Transcript
Introduction: Podcast Format and Latest News
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. Here's what you can expect on today's episode.
ASC Expansion Journey: Greg DeConcilius' 8OR Facility
00:00:31
Speaker
Today is the third and final part of our three episode series on expanding your ASC. We've covered how to bring on new physicians, how to add new specialties, how to add a new operating room, and today I had the opportunity to sit down with Greg DeConcilius to talk with him about the expansion project he's actively working on. Greg's team realized a few years ago that they had outgrown their current 3OR facility. So they are building an 8OR facility a few miles down the road. And they are actually on track to open in January 2025. So we talked about how he knew it was time, financing, finding contractors, challenges, learnings, and everything in between.
00:01:16
Speaker
And after my conversation with Greg, we are going to end the episode with a brand new segment. I usually try to rotate between sharing the latest news and sharing helpful data, but I thought it would be good to add a new segment around using AI at your ASC. It can be really tricky to know how you can start using AI today, especially if if it's a subject you are a bit wary of or just have not had a lot of exposure of exposure to. So stay tuned until the end and I'll walk you through three very safe and very free ways you can start using AI today. Hope everyone enjoys the episode and here's what's going on this week in Surgery Centers.
Why Expand? Greg on Demand and Challenges
00:02:00
Speaker
Greg, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me. You are actually the final episode in our three-part series that is all about expanding your ASC. And I know you are about to do exactly that. So can you please share an overview of the project you're working on and what does expansion look like for you? Sure. So I've um operated our three-room ASC, three OR1 procedure room ASC since 2004, over 20 years now. And seeing the growth in the industry and kind of the highs and and not too many lows, but obviously COVID for everybody was going to slow down. But we, we recognized probably a few years ago that we had to expand to a larger location. A lot of that was, came on because of our, the growth of our practices. They're the ones obviously with fellow ORs and our practices grew tremendously and took in a bunch of new young surgeons and everybody won a block time. And again, we knew because of that and because of people just constantly reaching out that that we needed to expand. I say, if I had seven or eight ORs now,
00:02:59
Speaker
We would actually probably have the most of them full. That's what the need is. And so we are, our 8OR project just received our D1 approval last month and we are actively under construction. We're set to open, get the certificate of occupancy in December of 2024. And so realistically building in any kind of delays, any further delays, which they really haven't been. We're looking at January, February of next year for sure.
Design Strategy for Comprehensive ASC Facilities
00:03:23
Speaker
Very cool. And so how many providers do you have total? So there are about 50 surgeons who have interest or want to be, have ownership interest or ah interest in operating at the facility. What we've seen in our area in Massachusetts is that there is very little or capacity and the hospitals are really overconstrained because of staffing issues, anesthesia, et cetera. And what we've had is we've had providers just jump over the border up in New Hampshire where there's no CON, DON regulations. And so a lot of them have been involved in surgery centers right across the border.
00:03:57
Speaker
And so what we're trying to do is pull some of them back. It's a stressful situation for the the surgeons and for the patients and that drive is not easy. And for us, having our project is a 65,000 square foot project and our ASC is about 35,000 square feet. And so the top two floors of the building are gonna be the medical office buildings. And so once again, we're going along like we did here 20 years ago, the the idea of a patient be seen there, be operated on there, and we'll also have physical therapy and MRI, those sorts of things. So it's one-stop shopping. Yeah, very cool. so If we think about how you knew it was time, your ORs were bursting out the seams, and then just looking at the market, you knew that doctors were leaving the state to be able to perform the surgeries they wanted to, so you knew there was a need market-wise as well. Yeah, I said orthopedics. I should have mentioned that earlier. We do orthopedics and pain management, some general surgery. and so
00:04:49
Speaker
We're always the last to do things here, at least on the ASC side, as they've been doing total joints and spine for a long time. We were the first to do them here in Massachusetts on total shoulder, total hip, total knee back in 2016, 2017. But we haven't been able to really take that next step, although we're doing a fair amount of joints because we didn't build our facility to have the proper sterilization capacity, the proper PACU capacity to have people stay longer, et cetera. And so we're doing all these procedures now, but we just want to be able to expand and ah and accommodate those. Certainly COVID helped. I think when we opened up before the hospitals for elective surgeries, we had surgeons show up and and try and use the facility, get some privileges. And then they realized that the beauty of outpatient surgery and the efficiencies. And so again, as I mentioned earlier, if we had this space right now, we'd have it full. And so we're taking advantage of that. It's a long process. I'm sure those are listening for that reason. What does that process entail? And so I'm excited to talk about it.
Avoiding Pitfalls: Experience and Networking in Expansion
00:05:43
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the initial planning process. What did that look like for you? Yeah. And this is not all rocket science. You guys all know, and and and and unfortunately you'll hear some kind of just common themes, but the big thing is don't, unless you've actually done it before, don't just think it's a, Oh, I can do this type of thing. And I guess we can get to mistakes later on. I probably, I fortunately had some guidance and I'll talk about that in a second, but There's some things you realize that just doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheel. And so we spent, we had a developer that's helping us and and he's, he's spearhead of the whole project. And he had the experience in actually building ah new a new ASC. And so he didn't have the experience of something on the healthcare care side and the regulatory side, but on the building side, that's a ah big part of this. and Having someone who can give you expertise on, on when to pick the architect design team, permitting, all that kind of stuff. And so he takes that and and runs with it.
00:06:38
Speaker
And he's also been facilitating setting up the groups that we've put in place to get all these projects done. And one of my big things is again, get somebody a developer or somebody to spearhead the project with experience, I think. If you have a management company, they typically are probably involved in this process and they probably can do that for you. If you're a single mom and pop shop or just no management company, that type of thing, you're just with docs. Again, reach out to somebody who's actually done that. There's consultants out there for everything. And so take advantage of that. We did a ton of networking early on. So if you don't know who those consultants are, talk to facilities that have done this. And you can even see them online in the articles you see out there, et cetera. You'll see who the the places that open, the places in your state that have opened. Just give them a call. I find that people oftentimes are willing to talk about it and talk about who they used and pluses and you know minuses of using those people. It was a big process. We toured a bunch of facilities. And I think what we found by touring early on, we found facilities that we liked and and people have good experiences. That's how we got our architect.
00:07:37
Speaker
facilities that we like, their structure, and and and we feel like they had it all together. That's where we got our attorneys from. So we didn't pretend we knew anything, and I've made that comment already, but we didn't reinvent the wheel. We we used leaned on people and networking and asking people questions, and then we got our experts. And we have an equipment planning, you know, individual who does who does all takes all the stress out of ah the equipment, which is a big thing. Use those experts, and and again, don't pretend You can do this thing alone because you want to lean on those people to do a lot of the legwork and get you focused and quarterback on the whole thing. Yeah. I think that's great advice. We've, you're a part of our de novo series we did last year, but we, in talking to all these consultants, they had so many horror stories of people who tried to do it themselves, missed a step in the beginning, didn't realize it. Now they're 30 days from opening and they missed some certification and now they got to wait another six months.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, there's stuff we've missed and I think it goes back to that developer you select or somebody who's going to be the point person for you. We didn't, ours was not involved in healthcare. And so we, there are some issues we've had along the way because of that. So again, really interviewing this person, knowing you're partnering up with is really important. so Yeah,
Financing and Investor Engagement in ASC Projects
00:08:47
Speaker
for sure. but So how did you approach financing this project? So our developer is pretty comprehensive and this is one of the areas that was in his wheelhouse. So he actually helped us with securing financing. Healthcare, care especially our market is unbelievably financed in a bowl because we, especially we have a track is a track record, right?
00:09:06
Speaker
We had a 20 year track record with amazing consistency as far as volume and and revenue goes. And so the banks that a lot. Again, don't be an expert in finance. There's brokers out there. They get a fee, of course, but at least they'll do the homework for you. The same thing you always hear about shop around, you know, get multiple quotes, all that kind of stuff. But, um, the developer did a lot of that for us, but I was in the room for those initial meetings with the banks. but We had to make the decisions about locking the raid versus not locking. We've had the issues with. budget overruns and how to deal with that. And we got 41 doctors to invest in the building and put up capital to to build this building. And we did that because I think we had a lot of stuff organized and and the banks liked that. Put your docs behind you and and your history. If you've had if you've had history, put get that those records together, brag about yourself. And if it's a de novo project, again, you have docs behind you, you probably have a track record coming from somewhere.
00:09:58
Speaker
and just tell your story. and And again, you'll be amazed that it's pretty financeable. Of course, when we did it a couple of years ago, rates were a lot better. But again, there's money out there to be had. So you just got to go after it. Yeah, I would imagine having 41 investors near you at all times. Do you get a lot of questions? a lot Do they pull you aside, ask for updates? How do you keep them updated on what's going on and and happy? Yeah, and one of the things that I think one of our, I guess I could say it's a pitfall, but what we've learned along the way is that over communicating is not a bad thing, right? So we have a lot of standing meetings. Again, I talked to, I said this on the onset, it's a lot of work, a lot of work. And so,
00:10:34
Speaker
So you'll have to commit a lot of your personal time, if you will, in the evenings, because you have to have your meeting in the evening with a doc, right? But you have them, and you'll find over time, as I think people become comfortable with it, those in-person meetings that become Zoom meetings, that become email updates are all fine, as long as you're communicating. But we have a lot of a board that's strong. Again, you want to have physician leaders, if you're doing a physician project as a management company, obviously they'd have to say as well. but Have this board who's well-versed, has all the different disciplines involved if you're a multi-specialty center. And in their meeting often, probably once a month and maybe even twice a week. I'm sorry, twice a month to start at least. And then you, again, you you progress over time and then you have, then you can bring in all stakeholders because they don't want to be as involved and you know who they are, the people who don't really care as much, but they want to know. And and you have these meetings scheduled and some will show and some don't. Out of the 41 on those meetings, we sometimes get seven, eight, 10 people.
00:11:26
Speaker
When it's a hot item, we'll get half the people. So if it's really hot, we'll get everybody in this day of of zoom and that kind of stuff. It makes it a little bit easier, but you have to over communicate. You have to give them what you need. And I always say even an email or something that they can just read. And then if they ever come back to you, you always have your paper trail, right? Yep. Great advice. So what unexpected challenges or issues have you encountered so far? You have to realize if you're building a new project, your, the construction stuff is real. If you've done anything on your own. your own construction projects. There's constantly delays and subs that and pull out or can't finish. and And so expect the delays again, as long as you're communicating and have our construction folks have regular weekly meetings and they're constantly on top of it. That's why I think our construction, our date hasn't changed. I'll be honest with you, it really hasn't changed for a while because I think they they do such a good job of meeting. And again, meetings can be difficult. It can be a pain in the neck, but I think they're, they're really important to keep everybody in the same schedule.
00:12:21
Speaker
Again, be prepared for construction delays and and build that into your contingency, especially if you're planning on wanting to open, right? Like for us, for example, we were in a spot right now and what really triggered our move was our lease ending. And so we got an extension beyond when we think we're going to open, because we're just planning for that. Be prepared for costs being out of whack. Our budgets changed in two years just because of um strictly costs and in materials that couldn't be delivered in time. So we've had to change materials, all that kind of stuff. So I think those are really important. When you do your loan, I think, plan for that, build in a good contingency basis for that you can pull from it. There's issues on the cost side or or the delay sides. And then then the last thing was, I think any hiccups we've had have been from not communicating. There's been times where where information wasn't communicated on the construction side of things. And so I think that's, I've mentioned that a number of times already. So just making sure everyone's aware, even if it's an email, and that that is was comprehensive. I always advise when you're and you're when you're giving information to surgeons or physicians,
00:13:21
Speaker
to really make it simple and bold because everyone's busy with the basics and then attach other information or more detail below that they can get to. But get those points up front in a clear, concise fashion because this is the only way they'll communicate with you or they'll actually read it. On the other, only other hiccups are we did a tour, we did last week actually we did an open house and that staff walked through. And even though I i had employed a process where along the design, and design, decision making tree, if you will, I pulled different people from different disciplines in. And the people who weren't pulled in, they then when they did the tour, they're like, Oh, where's this? Where's that? And so you're never going to make everybody happy. But I think first off, don't pretend you can how a nurse does things and in pre-op or PACU when you don't work in that area or you can't speak to it. So bring people in. Not only does it add to like employee satisfaction because they feel like they're being involved, but again, they'll pick up on stuff you'll never pick up on. I never ever make a decision design wise or process wise.
00:14:20
Speaker
without involving my staff, I just know I'll make a mistake with it. And so if we've prevented some hiccups because we've done that, I wonder if we could have, I realized last week, if we should have involved maybe the whole PACU or nursing staff, because the other ones who weren't involved, then you get the, you know, why wasn't I involved or I think differently type of thing. So it's just one of those things. So again, and just like you're involving the docs in this, you're communicating with them, you're communicating with the staff as much as possible.
Key Recommendations for ASC Project Success
00:14:48
Speaker
When you get to these complex yeah equipment decisions, et cetera, or kind of flow decisions and and processes, again, involve the staff, involve the docs, as many as you can, because you'll be, not only will it help you, but then you'll see you'll get more buy-in and it just raises overall level of satisfaction.
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah. And I think even all your advice, this whole discussion for me, the underlying theme has just been building that trust and maintaining that trust amongst everybody. And that's what you're doing with the over communication for to have 41 surgeons buy-in, like they have an extremely high amount of trust in you. And it sounds like you don't take that lightly. and But even with your staff too, keeping them involved, like. Everyone's just got to be on the same page. all So do you have any ah key recommendations for other ASC admins considering an expansion? If you could go back in time. Yeah, I guess I'll, I'll just summarize what the things I said already, getting that developer, getting that point person, networking, touring places, go actually take the time and go and tour, especially a place that's going to be similar. Like I toured larger centers, right?
00:15:54
Speaker
I charge toward larger ortho centers, lean on your vendors. They have a lot of resources. A lot of them have the ASC teams now, and especially the bigger, obviously the bigger companies, the strikers, the arthrex, the smith, the nephews of the world. And they have, they can do a lot of this legwork for you, especially with equipment selection, obviously, but they have teams of engineers that all that kind of stuff. It doesn't really cost you any money and they can actually facilitate those tours. And so lean on those vendors as well. talked about over communicating with staff and I'm sorry with the surgeons and also the staff involving them in the process. One thing I didn't mention was good legal. Make sure you have good legal representation against somebody who's got experience and you may have to have a vast team. You may have to have a team that's experienced with construction and who's reviewing your contracts and reviewing all that kind of stuff. They may have to have somebody on on the finance side
00:16:42
Speaker
that that are that are reviewing elements of the finance of the, you know, legally. And then you have, get an owner's rep. is it is a record So get somebody who can work for you and the docs, you'll have to pay them. And they'll be validating all of the constructions, the construction work, and you involve them early in the process. And so they'll know what goes into these steps and they'll be able to, it's a check and balance and money well spent on the contractor. And the last thing is a one that you probably is not as as uplifting, but I think the big thing is if you're trying to do this, and run a facility and and think your day job is going to stay the same. is It's not. So you may want to consider some kind of a path where there's somebody who can cover for you in your day job or do a bulk of that work. but You're training somebody, you're mentoring somebody so you can devote a lot of time because it's a ton of time. I'm telling you it's weekends, it's nights. And again, I don't want to be discouraging because the end result is huge, right? But make sure you're planning for the amount of work you're going to undertake to do this thing.
00:17:39
Speaker
And also before you get into it, maybe you seek compensation, some kind of compensation for it, right? Everybody's getting paid in these projects, especially the developers and the lawyers and the consultants, right? But what are you getting for your work and advocate for yourself and realize it's going to take a lot of time. It's a big step to undertake. So it's important. Yeah, that's an interesting call out. Has, so aside from your time, has the expansion project impacted the current surgery centers operations at all?
Impact of Expansion on Current Operations
00:18:07
Speaker
No, not only with, I guess I could say the use of staff for some of these things, right? So maybe some financially a bit to some extent. The, we're starting, we're going to start now and the next in the fall and the end of the summer here to work on some of our structure. So like we only have a nurse manager structure now, who oversees the entire clinical staff. We may go to a PACU manager, OR manager type. Our new structure may work out some of those kinks now. And so that may, that may be some cost overrun.
00:18:35
Speaker
down the road again, so again, no impact now, but down the road, we may all start to hire and train, right? So we're building in that, as I mentioned, that contingency or that planning for some expenses coming up that we're gonna need for the new center and hire and hiring. That's obviously the biggest thing that people get concerned about, right? Besides all of this, you build it and and then how you gonna how you can staff it. So not only medical, clinical staff for you, but also your anesthesiologist, right? A big issue these days. And so how are you going to staff that? And some of that may be mean if the people are available now, We may have to hire them now and and start to train them. And so we hit the ground running. But overall, the impact for our area is going to be pretty tremendous. We're a tremendously hospital-dominated market. And so there's not a ton of ASCs. I'm the head of the ASC Association. And I will say that we've done, maybe we've done a poor job because we're very stagnant. we haven't we Our numbers haven't grown that much. We haven't all sort of dropped, I guess you'd say. We're seeing some of the hospitals doing their outpatient thing, but no not a lot of free standings. And so to open up OR capacity,
00:19:34
Speaker
I think for our docs and maybe even preventing those patients from going across the border and driving post-operatively for two hours after their knee replacement, I think that's gonna be a good thing for our state and for our area for sure. Fantastic. I do feel like I could ask you another 30 questions, but I guess I will just ask you the one question we do every week with our guests. What is ah one thing our listeners can do this week to improve their surgery centers? You said you were going to mention this, so I thought about it. I'm like, yeah I think ah wonder if people always mention the thing they probably do the least or they wish they did more, I should say. I you know i mentioned, I just mentioned that this takes up so much of my time and I feel like we had a really good center and a really great culture.
00:20:15
Speaker
And maybe for me, it's just, I feel like I'm not as in touch with everybody as I used to be, because I don't, I'm not up and about moving as much. And so my one thing I'd say now is again, get out there and and meet with the staff and see how they're doing, see what their issues are, see what, what's bothering them. And we just had a staff meeting this morning and we had really good turnout and really good conversations. So I think the FaceTime is really key if you're in my spot as an administrator, it shows you, you're, you really care, stop. It's not just a breeze through, it's a stopping, seeing what people are doing. If you're clinical. Maybe spend some more time in the business office. that If you're business oriented, spend some time in the clinical staff, see what they're doing, see it, learn. I think it's important. And the face time for the docs is also the surgeons that are there. It also shows how
AI in ASCs: Safe and Practical Applications
00:20:56
Speaker
much you really care. So building that time, if you can, I think that's.
00:20:59
Speaker
You can do that right now, right? So that doesn't take much. Just get up and get moving around. So that's my one tidbit. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. You've shared such great advice to hear from someone who's actually doing it is super interesting and insightful. So thanks as always and keep us posted. Appreciate it. Yeah. Hopefully we'll be seeing some ah LinkedIn announcements around December, January of your new facility. I hope so. Fingers are crossed. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Greg.
00:21:32
Speaker
Welcome to our AI segment, where I will share three safe, free, and helpful ways you can start using generative AI at your surgery center today. If you have reservations about using AI or have concerns about how it will be safely implemented in healthcare, you are certainly not alone. Anything that garners so much attention so fast should rightfully give you pause, especially when patient safety could be impacted. I feel strongly though that the best way to understand how AI works and what it truly is to just get started and start small and dip your toe in ways over which you have full control and there's virtually no risk. So I tried to keep all of that in mind when putting together these three examples. ah You'll definitely notice a theme with the three of them. They are meant to help with some of the lower value tasks, if you will.
00:22:25
Speaker
that are simply administrative, and by pulling in some support, you will save a ton of time. These examples don't include PHI. They don't pose any data risk to you at all, so you should feel very comfortable getting started. Lastly, you'll notice that I reference chat GPT in all of these examples, as that is the AI tool that I use. They have a free version that works great, and I would recommend trying, but please know that there are other tools out there if you prefer a different solution.
Using AI for Administrative Efficiency with ChatGPT
00:22:56
Speaker
Okay, so use case number one is creating staff schedules. Scheduling staff at your surgery center can be a little complex and time consuming. You have to balance availability, skills, preferences, all while making sure that you have at a adequate coverage. So chat GPT can help with this kind of logistical headache.
00:23:19
Speaker
Here's how it works. Uh, so all of these will start with a prompt, right? And as you use chat GPT or other AI solutions more, your prompts will get better and better and you'll have to do less tweaking, but that's just something that comes with practice. First, you have to input your prompt, right? You want to input variables such as staff names, their availability, roles, shift preferences, any specific constraints like requested days off or maximum working hours. ah For example, this is a little simplified, but it should give you
00:23:53
Speaker
The concept here, you can use a prompt like, I have five nurses, Jenna, Daniel, Marie, Emma, and Caleb. Our morning shift runs from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the day shift is 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. We are open Monday through Friday. Jenna cannot work Tuesdays. Emma cannot do the day shift. Can you please create the schedule for the month of August? It should be as balanced as possible and every person except for Emma should do both shifts throughout the week. So in this prompt, we're giving it kind of those boundaries and parameters. So within seconds, right? Chat GPT is going to analyze your prompt and it's going to generate a schedule that optimizes staff allocation. I would say requests like this will probably be completed by chat GPT in about, oh, definitely under 30 seconds. And you can actually converse with the system too, right? So you can say, actually, Daniel can't work August 23rd. Can you please tweak that?
00:24:51
Speaker
So you can go back and forth with this with the system, either tweak your prompt or just give feedback after after you see what it spit out. And then you might realize but you missed a holiday in there. You missed, okay, wait, I told you Jenna could do day shifts, but she can't, whatever it might be. You can go back and forth with the system like that. So by using AI, you just streamlined the scheduling process and hopefully it'll save you a ton of administrative time and also improve staff satisfaction if they know it's done with a fair, if the schedule has been created in a fair and unbiased way. And then with all of these prompts too, over time, any AI tool will learn from your feedback and will continuously improve. So.
00:25:36
Speaker
Even if you didn't put it in the prompt, it's going to look at its memory history and it's going to see a last time we did X and they liked it. So let's do it again, that kind of thing. So that's your first example, creating those staff schedules. Use case number two would be patient education
AI in Patient Education and Post-Op Instructions
00:25:52
Speaker
materials. So providing proper education to your patients obviously helps decrease the repetitive questions your staff gets. It helps make patients feel safer and keep them engaged and it will also improve your outcomes. So here's how AI can help.
00:26:08
Speaker
Let's say your ASC keeps getting the same patient question, right? How long will it take me to recover from my total knee arthroplasty? And you want to create some collateral to give to the patient or maybe even use on your website. So you can go to chat GPT and say something like, my surgery center keeps getting the same patient question. How long will it take me to recover from my total knee arthroplasty? Can you please create a one page document that very simply explains CPT 27447. answers how long it will take to recover, and any other frequently asked questions. A reminder that this procedure will be done in an outpatient setting. So that's your whole prompt right there.
00:26:51
Speaker
So it's funny because that last sentence of reminder that this procedure will be done in an outpatient setting is something that I've learned from using chat GPT. So when I first put that prompt in without that reminder, it spit out everything I needed, except it was for a hospital setting. So that was a tweet. So after I got what, got back what chat GPT created, I replied and said, thanks so much. However, this is actually going to be done in outpatient setting. Can you please update? And it it did exactly that. So again, just learning those prompts and tweaks as you go. All of that say within seconds, you chat GPT will give you back what you asked for and typically will expand in areas that thinks would be helpful.
00:27:32
Speaker
Now, because this is going to the patient, you want to of course go through it with a fine tooth comb, make any necessary tweaks. The system is really good, but it's not perfect. So that clinical review will be key. But if I had to guess, you'd likely be able to use at least 90% of what chat GPT has created for you. And it might actually spark other content ideas and you could continue using that content wherever you need it. So that second example was patient education.
00:28:02
Speaker
All right, and our last use case today is around post-op instructions. So very similar to the above, you could ask chat GPT something like, can you please write very simple post-op instructions to a patient who just had their cataracts removed? So giving more examples of those prompts and that tweaks and how we're evolving our requests. Maybe that they were, they, what they create is just a little too heavy on the medical jargon. It's a little too advanced. um
00:28:34
Speaker
You could then say, thanks, that all looks great, but can you please use a tone that is compassionate and direct and please explain it in layman's terms? So you can keep tweaking it as you go until you get the exact um answer that you want. So now we're starting to add in guidance around tone and complexity levels, all of which obviously you can tweak in your prompt for the next time, but just a learning from this time. Now, again, this example of the post-op instructions is truly medical advice. You'll absolutely want to give it a read and make edits before publishing it. I would anticipate that you would need to update it based on your ASC's policies and what your physicians recommend, but it will hopefully get you maybe 80 to 90% there and save you a ton of time.
00:29:19
Speaker
So there you have it, three examples of how you can start using AI at your surgery center today.
Conclusion: Subscribe and Engage
00:29:24
Speaker
And quick recap, we're creating staff schedules, creating patient education copy, and creating post-op instructions. If you give any of these a try or if you have any other ideas, please let me know. I would love to hear your thoughts. And we'll do this segment again on the August 13th episode, and I will share three new ideas. And that officially wraps up this week's podcast. So thank you as always for spending a few minutes of your week with us. Make sure to subscribe or leave a review on whichever platform you're listening from. I hope you have a great day and we will see you again next week.