ASC leaders’ hands are full.
As reimbursements decline and workforce shortages persist, ASCs leaders are striving for greater efficiency — driving a heightened focus on streamlining procedures. They’re also looking to maximize the space devoted to revenue-generating activities while minimizing the space needed to store and process equipment.
To learn more about the challenges facing ASCs and how leaders are addressing them, Becker’s Healthcare recently spoke with Mark Copeland, Vice President of sales at 3T Medical Systems.
A blend of solutions can generate time, space and cost savings in ASCs
In his work with ASCs across the country, Mr. Copeland has seen facilities adopt a portfolio of solutions to improve their operational and financial efficiencies.
“One of the most common strategies is switching to sole-source vendors in order to get lower prices and to streamline supply acquisition,” Mr. Copeland said. “Many ASCs also implement software to help schedule cases more efficiently. I’m a big fan of simple fixes like reorganizing supplies — these measures improve efficiencies and lower costs quickly. I think ASCs need to use a blend of different strategies.”
The Total Solution (ONE TRAY® sterilization container, EZ-TRAX™ organizational trays and the ONE CART™ sealed case cart) help increase the efficiency of instrument reprocessing and translates to the ability to perform more cases per day, more rapid room turnover and increased patient and staff satisfaction.
“It’s been proven time and again that the more efficient surgical workflows are, the sooner cases are completed,” Mr. Copeland said. “On-time case completion makes patients happy, and we also know that shorter cases result in improved outcomes. Happy patients tend to have higher HCAHPS survey scores and these scores are very important to ASCs.”
ASCs that have streamlined operations with The Total Solution have also seen dramatic increases in staff satisfaction — from the operating room team to surgeons, to the sterile processing department and even vendor reps.
Value analysis: a key step in identifying the best approaches for ASC efficiency
As ASC leaders consider strategies for improving their organization’s operational and financial performance, some are using value analysis to evaluate different investments. Key questions in a value analysis include:
- How much a solution costs
- How much it will save the organization
- How soon the solution will pay for itself
- Whether it will help the organization make more money
“One advantage of ONE TRAY® and EZ-TRAX™, for example, is that these solutions require no capital outlay,” Mr. Copeland said. “That’s important these days, because no one has a lot of money to throw around. Deployment is also simple and repeatable. There are no major organizational changes needed. An ASC can deploy ONE TRAY® and EZ-TRAX™, in one day and by the second day, the facility starts to see improvements in efficiency, as well as time and cost savings.”
Innovation Sterilization Technologies, the manufacturer of The Total Solution, recently developed four case studies at hospitals performing primarily total knee and total hip replacements.
In summarizing one of the case studies, Mr. Copeland noted the significant savings hospitals have realized. “By addressing one surgeon’s procedures with ONE TRAY® and EZ-TRAX™, we’ve seen five-year efficiency, cost and time savings in the range of $80,000 to nearly half a million dollars a year,” he said. “Imagine the impact of scaling that across multiple surgeons. In addition, ROI is usually achieved within a couple of months.”
ASC cost data — a great place to start a value analysis
When leveraging value analysis for a potential investment, the best place for ASCs to start is by capturing the cost data associated with procedures.
“Operating rooms in hospitals tend to cost about $50 a minute to run, sometimes higher,” Mr. Copeland said. “ASCs cost around $32 a minute. It’s important to look at things such as how much it costs the sterile processing department to sterilize a set of instruments. Every wasted minute costs money.”
After gathering and organizing cost data, teams should consider the implementation costs for a tool or solution, as well as the expected gains in efficiency. At another hospital featured in an IST case study, tight surgical schedules needed more efficient sterile processing times. Sterile processing for two ONE TRAY®/EZ TRAX™ trays took only 94 minutes, saving about two hours and 39 minutes over sterile-wrapped vendor trays.
“Based on this kind of analysis, it becomes easier to make investment decisions,” Mr. Copeland said.
ASCs that focus on analyzing the value of their investments are seeing significant benefits in terms of better patient outcomes, higher-functioning ORs and financial savings.
“When you come in with a solution like ONE TRAY® or EZ-TRAX™, increased patient, surgeon and staff satisfaction is immediately apparent,” Mr. Copeland said. “As a result, ASCs find that they are much more effective, a better place to work and a better place for patients to get treatments.”
IST provides an online calculator where you can do YOUR OWN value analysis. You can find that here.