The current growth in Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs) is unprecedented and can be attributed mainly to the cost of surgical care. In a country that is struggling to rein in healthcare costs, ASCs are a vehicle for transforming how patients consider undergoing a surgical procedure. Most patients prefer the lower expense and appreciate the reduction in time involved by switching to the advantage of ASC services.
Surgical procedures are growing by at least 25% in Ambulatory Centers and 18% in hospital outpatient departments and physician offices over the next decade. A combination of reimbursement incentives and a growing consumer demand for accessible and enhanced healthcare will continue to drive that growth. Healthcare organizations can become more resilient, promote value-based care, increase patient satisfaction, control costs, and maintain a strong operating margin when comprehensive ASC strategies are effective. Here are some top tips to help your center improve operational efficiency to effectively grow their business.
Tips to Reduce Waste and Manage Increased Volume
Surgical procedures performed in hospital generally are billed at a significantly higher cost than in an ASC. Healthcare leaders can unlock the full potential of their ambulatory clinics using updated management strategies and current best practices. These tools result in enhanced operational efficiency, improved patient outcomes, and promote a culture of patient centric excellence in care. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have increased payments to the ambulatory market by 2.6%. Looking to the future, a robust ASC strategy can help healthcare organizations become more resilient, promote value-based care, increase patient satisfaction, control costs, and maintain a strong operating margin.
Development of a well-designed ASC facility operations protocol eliminates waste by analyzing every aspect of daily operational routines. For example, a well thought out protocol for preoperative and postoperative care establishes efficient workflows to ensure the consistent comfort and safety of patients. It is possible to reduce the number of full-time equivalent staff by coordinating patient registration and surgical staff ability during peak admission times.
Increasing Success with Technology
ASC challenges include the improvement of time management and the reliability of updated patient information. Real-time data software solutions that incorporate the latest technology and patient information can streamline clinical processes to improve efficiency and increase patient satisfaction. Today’s patients expect technology-driven experiences in ambulatory care and are impatient with wait times. They prefer faster, more efficient outpatient experience. Healthcare practice management software helps clinics optimize patient flow, maximize efficiency, and commonly results in improved outcomes. By incorporating a novel practice approach, practices can optimize seamless production with full utilization of existing operations for improved provider revenue, reliable scheduling, and improved staff time productivity.
Presurgical Testing (PST)
A surgical candidate presenting with multiple comorbidities, and/or a significant medical history will require additional planning before surgery. Presurgical testing (PST) is one way to minimize these challenges. PST services should be designed and led by the ASC anesthesia team. Scheduling, preregistration, and patient preparation are interconnected. Surgical teams and PST teams should collaborate closely.
When ACS facilities build an effective PST protocol, the surgical center can minimize complications and ensure that appropriate medical risk screening is complete prior to surgery. By improving patient comfort and providing a low stress environment during a surgical experience, the market will continue to grow with high patient satisfaction ratings. By better preparing patients for surgery, organizations will avoid costly delays, decrease, or eliminate unexpected cancellations, and mitigate negative outcomes that could lead to an unnecessarily longer stay, a transfer of care, or even litigation.
Ease of surgical clearance creates a less stressful patient environment and is a key reason to obtain a thorough health history to avoid unnecessary or dangerous hospital admissions and surgical problems. The PST anesthesia team should review criteria regularly. The team should include anesthesiologists, surgeons, RNs, radiology, and support technicians. In addition to outlining and categorizing the surgical procedure, the team should identify patients who have significant medical histories and comorbidities, such as a previous cardiac history, high blood pressure, diabetes, anticoagulant therapy, blood disorders, liver disease, or chronic respiratory disease.
10,000 baby boomers turn 65 years old every day. This growing group carries with them more chronic conditions and surgical risk factors than surgical centers have ever seen. As this sicker population ages, they become a larger part of the market. ASCs will need to continuously evaluate the needs of this group of patients.
A well thought out PST program can quickly categorize patients and incorporate a standardized scheduling process that includes preoperative orders to ensure adequate information is obtained for a safe patient experience. Also, the PST could develop a set of pre-anesthesia guidelines for laboratory testing bycreating and using established criteria or protocols to identify what level of presurgical testing is needed for patients and how to determine which patients require a face-to-face consultation with the healthcare team. Clinics can save time by identifying level II category patients without significant comorbidities who require only a telephone health intake screening with a PST registered nurse.
Don’t Sleep on Anesthesia
When an outpatient anesthesia team proactively manages the surgical patient in the pre-operative stages, the outcome has been proven to reduce care costs, prevent potential surgical complications, and improve patient experience.
For consistent successful ASC procedures, both the patient and the procedure must be assessed and deemed appropriate for ambulatory anesthesia. The advantages of ambulatory surgery are diminished if emergencies happen too often and result an unplanned transfer or hospital admission is required. With the growing prevalence of chronic conditions, the ambulatory surgery market must make clinical and operational improvements to their patient preparation and surgical selection process.
Anesthesia staff that leads and uses the PST process will take steps to stabilize and optimize each patient’s condition before their planned procedure.The careful management of all patient risk factors will allow the ambulatory surgical organizations to use resources effectively to improve surgical process performance and improve outcomes during, and postoperatively.
Patient Satisfaction Makes a Difference
Ambulatory surgical care is becoming the top provider for surgical services to patients outside of the traditional hospital setting. Due to exceptionally high growth, the surgical centers must overcome customary challenges. Centers who use advanced technologies combined with excellence in EHR will increase the efficiency of ambulatory care. Using mobile apps and patient portals for fast online check-in and pre-registration is familiar to most patients. With unified digital platforms ASC centers can analyze patient flow patterns, peak hours, and staff availability for better allocation of resources.
Create a Plan for Success
Virtual OfficeWare Software Solutions unifies all the roles of your clinic staff with a single software suite that allows you to work securely from anywhere and stay fully connected with immediate real-time access to information.
Shared staff dashboards easily track priorities and progress. Many clinics conduct brief morning meetings to align priorities at the beginning of the day. Keep these daily briefs more impactful by utilizing technology to enable remote participation and collaboration. Assign action items to create accountability, identify key takeaways, and delegate responsibilities for follow-up goals.
As healthcare organizations continue to incorporate the power of technology, clinics can automate manual tasks, allowing them to work more effectively to create a more efficient and patient-centric surgical center. A change in management strategy, combined with robust healthcare data and analytics, can ensure ambulatory care clinics evolve to meet the future demands of healthcare.
Start today by exploring the CureMD solution. The optimal EHR, all-in-one practice management with full patient engagement and powerful AI capabilities in a cloud-based experience. Schedule a complimentary demo today and see how the right software solution can lead you into less stressful, sustainable, and successful years ahead.
