Three ASC leaders joined Becker's to share what changes they have made in the last year have brought the most benefit.
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity. If you would like to contribute to our next question, please email Paige Haeffele at phaeffele@beckershealthcare.com.
Question: What change you made in the past year has paid off the most?
Charlotte Ipsan, DNP. Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer at Norton Women's and Children's Hospital (Louisville, Ky.). The past year has yielded many opportunities where we are continuing to advance access and ease of use for our patients and their families. We have been able to increase communication ahead of time to help our patients and families understand what will happen on the day of their surgery and to educate them on how to be involved in their care journey. We use many forms of communication and education to meet our patients where they are. Also, by implementing our text feature for those who opt to do so, we are able to get information and updates to families while our patient is in surgery. It is important to us to ease worry for those loved ones who are there supporting the patient before and after the procedure. It is the "during" that can be the most worrying for those who are there supporting the patient.
Les Jebson. Regional Administrator at Prisma Health (Greenville, S.C.). Capacity and operational management upgrades: hired new supervisory and management leaders and secured new sterile processing equipment to handle expanded case demand.
Liliana Lehmann. President of Axis HealthCare Partners (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.). One of the changes that we had done in the past year at one of our ASCs is the streamline and automation of a portion of the procurement and inventory processes. By doing so, we have true case costing, a perpetual inventory, cost-cutting initiatives are realized, and additional operational efficiencies have been met.