Administrator to Know: Maria Sample of Roper Hospital West Ashley Surgery Center

Maria Sample (Roper Hospital West Ashley Surgery Center, Charleston, S.C.). Ms. Sample is the administrator at the Roper Hospital West Ashley Surgery Center in Charleston, S.C. The center opened in Aug. 1987 as a multi-specialty ASC and is a partnership between physicians and a community hospital. Currently, the center performs 6,000 procedures annually.

Ms. Sample has been with the center since its start up and oversaw hiring of the initial staff and set-up of the facility. She spent her career concentrating on surgical services and started out as an operating room nurse, "circulating and scrubbing on all types of procedures in community hospitals and a regional trauma center," she says. Ms. Sample became involved in perioperative education and then held a supervisory role in a surgical services department within a hospital.

"All of my prior experience helped, but did not fully prepare me for the role of the ambulatory surgery center administrator," Ms. Sample says.

According to Ms. Sample, the staff is the essential piece to the success of a surgery center. "Although competency is essential, I have found the most important attributes for a staff member to possess is a 'can do' attitude and the ability to be a team player," she says. "Staff can be, and should be, instrumental in streamlining processes that result in operational efficiencies, which in turn result in physician and patient satisfaction."

With the assistance of her great staff and under her leadership, Ms. Sample's center continues to be a "shining star" in the community. "We are recognized by our peers for the quality of care our patients receive and the great service we provide to our physicians," she says.

Ms. Sample enjoys many aspects about serving as administrator, but most of all, she says her favorite part of the job is "the ability to lead or respond to internal and external changes that ultimately impacts the lives of many, including our patients, our physicians and our staff."

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