Surgery coordination is an ever-changing, laborious process that requires diligent communication and oversight. There are many unique circumstances that can impact the case or cause it to change. From missing paperwork and medical devices to last minute scheduling conflicts/delays. When issues or changes occur, it is imperative that everyone involved with the case including nurses, office staff, surgeons, anesthesiologists, vendor reps, and others, are updated. Otherwise, miscommunication can disrupt patient flow by causing case delays or cancellations.
With so many people and steps required to coordinate a case, it is easy to miss someone or something when relying on outdated communication methods like email, text messages, phone calls, white boards, and word of mouth. This is a scenario with which the Surgery Center of South Bay was all too familiar.
With over 300 cases each month, our center’s clinical and business office teams were spending significant labor hours on surgical case communication and coordination. Struggling to track each patient’s step in the pre-op process was detrimental. To solve the Surgery Center of South Bay’s communication and coordination challenges, our center implemented a cloud-based communication suite from Casetabs. Streamlining surgery communication and reducing communication touch points saves our center an estimated $3,563 per month in labor hours.
Centers currently struggling with case communication and coordination should consider these three key takeaways based on our experience.
1. Decrease Staff Distractions: Staff no longer spend time chasing down information or attempting to update everyone involved in a case. A central hub for sharing case updates between all surgery participants eliminates the likelihood of communication drop, lost documentation, and other coordination errors. A single click to update a case instantly notifies the entire case team of the change. As a result, staff spend more time engaging with patients and helping with other areas.
2. Improve Patient Experience: Having real-time case information available to those who need it increases patient safety. Because every person involved in a case is looking at the same information, the exact content is seen by each person, which leads to fewer errors. More informed and efficient staff also provide better care to patients and better information to family members. Digital Surgery Boards enable key people to follow the care process from check-in to discharge with decreased distractions from overhead pages and inter-department phone calls.
3. Bring in More Cases: Rather than spending considerable time overseeing each case, staff can spend more time marketing the center and serving as liaisons between the physician offices and center. This is significant, as the easier it is to work with a surgery center, the more desirable the center is to a physician practice and its staff.
The benefits associated with moving our surgical coordination and communication to Casetab’s central hub in the cloud can’t be overstated. Communication errors are no longer an issue. We could never go back to outdated communication and coordination methods again.