Joe Peluso, administrator at Aestique Surgical Center in Greensburg, Pa., joined Becker's to discuss his ASC teams' approach to leadership.
Editor's note: This response was edited lightly for brevity and clarity.
Joe Peluso: Building a state-of-the art, sustainable, growth-oriented ASC, amid uncertainty, is associated with many challenges that are often interrelated, creating a complex array of risk and ramifications demanding swift decision-making. The economic environment is shaping today’s ASC decision-making. Financial stability and growth rely on leadership’s ability for proactive decision making and developing reliable teams and partnerships.
Aestique’s overall approach to promote our commitment to the patient experience and compliance with all acceptable laws, rules, and regulations in conducting our business with integrity is driven by six key guiding principles:
- Aestique fosters an open culture in which concerns can be raised without fear of retaliation.
- Our clinical and professional staff must act with the highest standards of personal and professional integrity in the best interest of providing the highest quality care and services to our patients.
- Aestique’s people are our greatest assets. We are people who care for people.
- Aestique competes fairly and complies with applicable laws, rules, regulations, and the highest standards of ethical conduct.
- Quality patient care is our highest priority. Our staff act to support and advance our goal of providing care and services that meet or exceed our patients’ expectations for safety, quality, cost effectiveness, and integrity, advancing healthcare together.
- We are a multispecialty surgical center supporting our communities focusing on access, cost, quality, and convenience with highly trained clinicians.
Winning strategies that address controlling costs, improving patient outcomes and satisfying/engaging patients require leadership alignment, strong partnerships, dedicated group members, organizational agility and a culture that welcomes ideas from all levels of the organization. When organizational synergy exists between and among leadership, managers, employees and physicians, challenges can be addressed to create a sustainable ASC that keeps pace with changes in community health, competition, workforce and payers. Cross-collaboration encourages innovation, creativity and a collaborative fresh view on problem solving by listening to the needs and ideas of colleagues resulting in better decision making. Strategic opportunities will be considered that have all the necessary information from all parties to be in a position to complete due diligence through critical thinking, financial acuity and the ability to take on more risk. This type of strategic thinking leads to strong decisions by leaders that are clearly articulated and communicated as to why all group members of the organization should be excited about the new ideas and perspectives.