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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare

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Podcast, and we are live at the business

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and operations of ASCs.

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I am joined right now by Sarah Sterling,

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who serves as the director of area operations

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for the Greater San Francisco and Greater Silicon

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Valley areas

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for Sutter Surgery Center Division.

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Sarah, thanks for being here today. Would love

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to have you start off by taking a

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moment to introduce yourself and tell us a

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little bit more about the work in your

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industry?

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Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having

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me today.

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I am the area ops director,

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within Sutter Health in our surgery center division.

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We have 36,

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ASCs and one surgical

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hospital,

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mostly in Northern California and in Southern,

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California.

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I have been in ambulatory care for 25

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years

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and 18 of those years in the ambulatory

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surgery center space.

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Wonderful. Well, thank you for being here.

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And let's start our conversation today with ASC

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volume.

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So this is expected to increase by 16%

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across the country by 2032.

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So with this growth, what is the most

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pressing challenge to maintaining a positive patient experience?

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Yes. So I think

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for us that the most pressing challenge is

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having enough physicians, enough providers,

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and staff to care for those patients in

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our

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community,

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with increasing burnout,

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and

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in the era of COVID

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and changing how people want to work when

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people want to work,

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is is definitely challenging. So we have to

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have enough people to care for our patients

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in our community.

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And

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it's also

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ensuring that we energize

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and engage those providers

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to continue to be resilient and compassionate

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to to care for our patients.

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And going along with that, what strategies have

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worked for your organization as you tackle some

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of these challenges?

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And what is the recommendation you have for

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health care leaders to stay ahead?

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Yes. Absolutely. So in our organization,

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in terms of having enough providers and staff,

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there are a couple of things that we're

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doing. We are now training, have GME programs

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to,

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train our own providers,

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and hopefully stay within our organization.

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And we have a saying within Sutter Health.

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It is patients first and people always.

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And so we've been really focused

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on

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engaging not only our patients, but our staff,

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in in being compassionate towards our our patients.

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And so it's spending an incredible amount of

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time and investment in our people to decrease

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the the burnout,

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allowing them to be innovative and engaged with

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with the care that they provide.

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Well, thank you for those insights.

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And what are some best practices or strategies

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that you recommend to leaders

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striving to align staff with organizational

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goals and patient satisfaction rates, and what has

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worked well for you in that area?

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Yes. Absolutely. So I think it's really important

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for leaders,

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in engaging their staff that in everything they

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do and in every meeting, every huddle, every

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1 on 1, every staff meeting,

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that leaders are ensuring

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that their frontline staff

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know what the organizational goals are, the mission,

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vision, and values,

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and connecting it to purpose in everything they

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do. If a staff member has an idea,

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challenge that employee

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to connect it to the purpose, connect it

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to the goals and the values of the

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organization, to always keep it top of mind

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that everything that we do and we create

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and implement

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goes back to those goals, those metrics, those

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KPIs.

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I think that's really important. And for patient

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satisfaction rates,

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our organization,

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I actually,

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lead the initiative for the patient experience within

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our surgery center division.

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And what we've done is we've created a

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team of individuals

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whose primary focus

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is improving and increasing those patient satisfaction scores.

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Although we're a large healthcare organization,

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this can be simply applied to a lot

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of those smaller,

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ASCs

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if they have a couple of people to

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create a committee. The one thing that I

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will say that we have to remember to

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do, and as I mentioned in the session,

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yesterday here is that we can't forget the

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patient along in this journey. We need to

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have patient advocates in our meetings,

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when we're in building designs or if there's

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a new process. We need to make sure

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we have the voice of the patient at

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everything that we do.

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Wonderful. Well, as we wrap our conversation up

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today, do you have any closing remarks you'd

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like to share on the podcast?

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Yes. I think just, closing remark is that

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I would just really, really encourage people. I

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don't think we do it enough in organizations,

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as I mentioned to bring patients along in

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that journey.

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We are in the business that's taking care

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of people and need to ensure that we

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meet their needs and give them a voice.

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Wonderful. Well, Sarah, thank you for joining me

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today on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. Again, we

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are live at the business and operations of

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ASCs. Thank you.