With the new year comes the opportunity for improvements in both your personal and professional life. In my role at Cardinal Health, I have the privilege of working with surgery centers to help them navigate major pain points and capitalize on opportunities for improved patient care.
Based on my experience, here are three suggestions that can help your ASC overcome challenges and thrive in 2020.
1. Celebrate staff successes
Of all possible improvements to make within your surgery center, this one is the most vital. Recognizing your employees for the work they do is a simple change and can create a massive difference in your facility. Not only does it motivate employees and make them feel valued, but it also supports increased employee productivity and helps attract and retain top performers.1
For such a simple solution, staff recognition is often overlooked. Amidst the everyday hustle and bustle of a facility, initiatives like employee recognition can suffer. However, this doesn’t have to be the case- there are tools available that help make employee recognition easy and meaningful. One such tool is Cardinal Health’s recognition toolkit, which offers recognition badges and notes of appreciation at no cost to you. It provides the resources you need to keep employee recognition going all year long, even when you’re pressed for time.
2. Prioritize streamlined operations
Streamlining operations and improving efficiency are always top priorities in a surgery center, especially when focusing on growing your business. But day-to-day tasks and urgent action items often push strategic streamlining to the back-burner. With this in mind, it’s important to plan ahead.
Take your peak times into account and set aside a few hours to observe your facility’s processes when traffic is lowest. Use that time to identify opportunities to improve efficiency and create a follow-up plan. This varies for each individual surgery center, but consider where time-savers like surgical packs could help streamline workflows and reduce waste. Or, if your facility already uses packs, determine which items often go unused and can be removed.
Additionally, consider working with your distributor for a clinical review to further identify ways to reduce waste, uncover real savings opportunities, and improve efficiency and compliance. At Cardinal Health, we have a team of dedicated clinicians and ASC representatives that can help you with this process.
3. Collaborate with your distributor to identify cost savings
Even the best cost-cutters need a little help from time to time. An ideal distributor relationship allows you to collaborate when you need to cut costs but aren’t sure what options are available. Ask your distributor to provide objective recommendations and share performance benchmarks for facilities that are similar to yours.
I hope these suggestions are helpful to you as you kick off 2020 on the right foot. For more information on how Cardinal Health can help you in the new year, visit cardinalhealth.com/SurgeryCenters.
1 Mann, Annamarie, and Nate Dvorak. “Employee Recognition: Low Cost, High Impact.” Gallup.com, 28 June 2016, www.gallup.com/workplace/236441/employee-recognition-low-cost-high-impact.aspx.