Loren Kennett, RN, administrator and director of nursing for Zion Eye Institute and Zion Surgery Center in St. George, Utah, discusses how the ASC pivoted from eye-only cases to successfully take on spine and pain management procedures.
Loren Kennett will speak at the Becker's ASC 25th Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, October 18-20, 2018 in Chicago. Click here to learn more and register.
Q: What is the biggest issue your ASC is facing today? What strategy are you using to overcome it?
Loren Kennett: Of the many that are mundane to all surgical centers, ours takes on a different character in that we were primarily an eye center to begin with, with pediatric dental coming one day a week with a smattering of procedures.
In December of 2015, we made some ownership changes and picked up pain management with spinal cord stimulator trials and permanents and then opened spine procedures with spinal cord stimulator perms, laminectomy and discectomy.
ACDFs were in the offing as well but we are not equipped to do overnight stays at the present and the surgeon has elected not to do those procedures until we can provide the accommodations needed to keep the patient for a 23-hour stay. Since that day we are filling our two-room operating room suite to the max on a daily basis. As spine and pain increased so did the other specialties, which created notoriety in the community and now even more physicians want to come and bring their cases here.
We are Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care-accredited which also adds to our desirability to take on more procedures and specialties — that is, the neurosurgeons at the hospital are wanting to bring their backs and discs here because we have become so efficient! Our strategy at the present is to utilize time and space as efficiently as possible with minimum turnover time, adequate instrumentation and a well-trained and qualified staff. Our anesthesia staff has also increased their efficient usage of medications that help in the recovery phase(s) of patient care. The utilization of our ORs is paramount on a heavy day and the scheduling is monitored for the best usage of each room. It has been an awesome experience to build this business and have the team I have to work with. All of them work hard and enjoy making each day better than the last.
The local hospital has just finished a massive expansion for services new to the community, including but not limited to neurosciences, genetics and cancer research to name but a few. We have been able to coordinate services with the hospital that they feel are better served in an outpatient surgical center setting allowing for opportunities to expand and serve where the hospital would rather outsource than provide.
Q: Over the next two to three years, what is the biggest opportunity for growth of your ASC?
LK: Our greatest opportunity for the future is bringing on more surgeons and specialties. We are pushing our capacity, and the hope and dream is to build another facility to accommodate the physicians who want to buy into the surgical center. The community is continuing to grow and the patient population is expanding exponentially. The market is wide open and to capitalize on the growth is our biggest opportunity in the next two to three years.