Ongoing clinician burnout, staffing shortages and rising supply costs have consistently been cited as some of the most significant industrywide issues among healthcare professionals — regardless of care setting.
These longstanding problems affect ASCs in different ways and to different degrees. Some practices may have trouble recruiting and retaining surgical technicians, while others have trouble finding anesthesiologists.
Compounded by the fact that 68% of ASCs operate independently, it may seem impossible to overcome healthcare's longstanding, industrywide problems. However, Ronald Hsu, MD, medical director at Sutter Roseville (Calif.) Endoscopy Center Gastroenterology and the Northern California governor of the American College of Gastroenterology, may have found a way to turn these practice-specific challenges into a strength.
Dr. Hsu and Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health, which has recently established an ASC division and expanded across Northern California, now host quarterly GI best practices meetings. These meetings bring together an administrator and a physician representative from each of Sutter's nearby ASCs and endoscopy centers to discuss the problems they are facing and use their combined expertise and unique experiences to devise a strategy to overcome those challenges.
"The purpose is for all of us to share the various best practices that each institution has in their own facility and to implement them at other locations to address concerns. It allows representatives to share their concerns and ask the other representatives for advice on how to address them," Dr. Hsu told Becker's.
Dr. Hsu found that the meetings have allowed the participants to share ideas for improvement while maintaining quality care.
"It's really had a good effect on our staff morale — and even patient satisfaction," Dr. Hsu said.