Sana Khan, MD, is Medical Director at West Coast Surgery in Palm Desert, Calif.
Dr. Khan will serve on the panel “Smart ASC Owner Moves During a Recession” at Becker’s ASC Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference on Oct. 27-29 in Chicago.
To learn more and register, click here.
Question: What is the smartest thing you've done in the last year to set your organization up for success?
Sana Khan: The smartest thing I did was to learn every aspect of my surgical facility — that included getting certified as an SPD, learning how to disinfect and clean appropriately, circulating in the operating room and becoming familiar with technical anesthesia processes to ensure complete independence and freedom to practice without dependence on too much staff.
Q: What are you most excited about right now and what makes you nervous?
SK: I’m excited about becoming more independent of things I used to depend on, I’m excited about using simpler processes and I’m excited about getting more out of less supplies and using more reusable and green supplies.
I’m nervous about supplies running out as they did during COVID.
Q: How are you thinking about growth over the next 12 months?
SK: Growth is good, however I prefer stability in processes to maintain a facility. The more you grow, the more you risk and, I believe, the more dilute your product becomes with less and less capability to monitor quality and outcomes.
Q: What will healthcare executives and leaders need to be effective leaders for the next five years?
SK: To become an effective leader, I know it’s important to become capable of running all parts of an ASC if possible. I play an active role in my ASC. I am the first one to arrive and the last one to leave. I am the IT, I am the infection control and I am overseeing every aspect of day to day functioning. You must do this as a leader; you can’t be a leader when you have no idea how to change an oxygen tank for anesthesia, or to troubleshoot your sterilizer, or to appropriately mix a solution for disinfection and describe sterile processing technique and perform wrapping. You have to be knowledgeable of every portion so you can teach and also be in a position to monitor the competency of new hires. The operating surgeons need stable and trustworthy processes and people in place for successful patient outcomes.
Q: What is your strategy for recruiting and retaining great teams?
SK: We used to have stable teams a few years ago, but slowly we realized that the local hospitals were capable of offering bonuses and salaries that we weren’t. This is where we began to successfully form teams using contractors. You may form the same relationship with a contractor and decide if you work well together you assign the duty to them regularly enough. It becomes a team. The best part of that is there is no stress of commitment, days off or arguments. My feedback from RNs, surgical technicians and SPDs has been so positive and they love working at my ASC. They wanted to be at a hospital setting due to the benefits, but I can clearly tell they love a smaller, closer knit well-monitored environment where the leaders have their back. I am also in favor of providing lunch to my team which relieves them of some worry before work. I believe in flexibility and independence, and the future is certainly geared towards outpatient surgical settings.