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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast, and we are live at the business
and operations of ASCs.
I'm currently joined by Elena Turner, who is
the ASC administrator at Commonwealth Pain and Spine.
Elena, thanks for being here this morning. We'd
love to have you start off by introducing
yourself and telling us a little bit more
about your role in the industry. Of course.
Thanks for having me. My name is Elena
Turner. And like you said, I'm the administrator
for Commonwealth Pain and Spine for the ASC
that we have in New Albany, Indiana. We
are currently building
3 de novo ASCs,
throughout Indiana and Kentucky.
So that's big news for us coming up.
I've been in surgery for about 13 years.
3 of those years are in the ASC
space.
Yeah. The first surgery center is slated to
be open, December of this year. The other
2 to follow summer of 2025.
I've had a great career in the OR.
My whole nursing career has been in the
OR. I've had the opportunity to serve on
surgical mission trips in Guatemala.
So I'm happy to be here and further
my career even even more.
Wonderful. Well, thanks for taking the time today,
and let's start our conversation
now with ASC volume. So this is expected
to increase by 16%
across the country by the year 2032.
With this growth, what are the most pressing
challenges to maintaining a positive patient experience?
Yeah. I think there's a few,
key items that we need to look at
there. The first of all being staffing. You
gotta make sure you have the correct staff,
make sure they're focused on patient care,
and creating that positive patient environment.
Additionally,
patients come to the ASCs because of efficiency.
Doctors wanna be in the ASC because of
efficiency. So you wanna make sure that, you're
scheduling correctly and using time management skills to
allow
that higher volume in smaller spaces.
And then supply chain management, making sure you
have all the supplies that you need to
to do the surgeries that are on your
schedule
while you navigate
back orders and and allocations.
Absolutely. And going along with that, what strategies
have worked for your organization to tackle these
challenges you're discussing, and what's one recommendation you
have for healthcare leaders to stay ahead? Sure.
Forming close partnerships with, suppliers,
and encouraging those
conversations to stay ahead of back orders, allotments,
things like that
will help with the supply chain part of
it. As far as the staffing part, you
have to lead by example, set the stage
and ensure
there's a positive culture with your staffing,
which will lead to a positive patient experience
and ultimately happy surgeons.
And then as far as efficiency, you want
a quality EHR that,
uses automation
and
then additionally focused schedulers that know how to
schedule cases so that you can get
the most efficient use of your time.
And shifting gears just slightly to the financial
side. How can leaders ensure their staff are
well equipped to help patients navigate the financial
aspect of care? And how does this benefit
patient provider relationships?
Of course, I think it starts with educating
a patient before their procedure.
Making sure they have their estimate prior to
day of surgery, that we don't have same
day cancellations just based on, financials for the
patient, finding out about huge co pays day
of is a huge bummer for any patient.
And then obviously that leads to unhappy patients,
unhappy surgeons,
due to cancellations. So
making sure your staff have the correct information
to give to the patients ahead of time.
So in that pre surgery testing phone call,
talking to them about what their estimate might
be, using automation through your EHR to send
those information out to people to patients before
they get there is huge.
And then just making sure your staff
know where to go to
for
the financial information. Because I don't I just
don't think my staff should be giving financial
information to the patients. We should let our
billers kinda handle that.
Absolutely. And as we wrap our conversation today,
are there any parting words you'd like to
share on the podcast? No. I just appreciate
the the opportunity in being here and and
happy to be at Becker's this year. Wonderful.
Well, Elena, thanks so much for joining me
today on the Becker's Healthcare podcast. Again, we
are live at the business and operations of
ASCs. Thanks so much.