For Covenant High Plains Surgery Center in Lubbock, Texas, sharing risk among staff was key to surviving the pandemic.
Administrator Alfonso del Granado spoke with Becker's ASC Review on his strategy for success in the past year.
Question: What's the most important thing you've learned in the past year?
Alfonso del Granado: Togetherness may not be a current buzzword, but it describes the ethos that allowed this center to thrive during the pandemic. Every decision was made with three vital issues considered: How does this affect the patients, the staff and the physicians? What kept patients coming was the knowledge that we were doing everything possible to keep them safe and take care of their needs. What kept the staff loyal was the physicians' willingness to sacrifice their profits to keep them fully employed and to share the health risks at their side. What kept the physicians engaged was the desire to preserve and protect the organization they had created and the people they served. This sense of mutual obligation and shared risk brought and kept everyone together through the tough days of the shutdown and the tougher days of the recovery.