Welcome everyone to the Becker health care podcast
series. I'm Mohammed, Writer and Moderator with Becker
Health care. My thrilled to have the me
today, Amy Hendrix, Executive Director of Unit source
Surgery Center. Amy very nice to have you
on the podcast today. To get a started
with you mind. Please introducing yourself, selling us
a bit about your background?
Yes. No problem. Thank you so much for
allowing me this opportunity. I'm excited to be
able to share a little bit.
Yeah, I'm a nurse by background. I've spent
my entire professional nursing career in peri services.
As a nurse in the room as an
educator as a manager in the hospital setting,
then made the transition over into outpatient surgical
services.
And have been leading
surgery centers
for quite a while now, currently in the
center that's 100 percent physician owned very or
heavy
total joint, heavy,
and that's where I'm at.
Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you so much for giving
us that background, and I've also very excited
to speak with you today. So for starters,
can you give us an overview of the
biggest issues you're following in health care this
year?
Yes. I think there's a couple of things.
1 is the
challenges we're having with the economic state of
inflation and the rising cost of labor
of supplies and materials
of services,
and
then
not seeing things move on the reimbursement side
reimbursement with payers is not keeping up,
to help us cover those costs. So having
to get creative
in ways to bridge that gap and looking
at ways at either doing more
volume in order to increase your revenue or
keep your costs down that's certainly 1 of
the biggest things that we're facing now in
24.
Another
challenge that I really think is a big
issue
is tech... Has to do a technology
and the risk of cybersecurity
that in the As
industry
with our
being behind in adopting Emr and that technology.
We had been somewhat sheltered if you will
from that kind of threat and challenge, but,
you know, even of late, what's happened this
week nationally,
if not globally,
with cyber
threats and cybersecurity breaches.
It's undeniable as more and more of our
surgery centers integrate Emr and different types technology
into their businesses,
the threat of
security and risks is real and something that
we can't ignore and we've got to stay
up on.
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I completely agree, especially with
the cybersecurity issue.
I feel like Becker reports on cyber attack
every day now, which is pretty insane.
Is there anything that you're excited about or
anything else that is making you nervous whether
it's something you're dealing within the company?
Or anything is seeing in the news?
So
I mentioned technology it's kind of a challenge
or something that, you know, we think about
and have to be planning for us far
as risk and concern, but it also is
exciting to think about and how technology
is changing the way that we're delivering health
care that we're reaching our patients that we're
providing even education pre and post app.
Technology in terms of robot and how that
is being able now and affordable
in our industry and in the As market
and seeing it come into our centers and
us be able to provide care with those
things that I think can improve patient outcomes.
The efficiency in the way that care is
delivered, I think it's very, very exciting.
Not just the robot technology, but other technologies
such as software
that allows us to engage with our patients,
the way that
consumers want
information right now through texting and email and
video and
online portals and so forth,
that's really exciting to see.
I also think you know, post Covid,
the
way that consumers and providers have embraced
outpatient surgery centers is an option.
For surgical services and what we're seeing in
the continual
demand for surgery centers
patients get exceptional care,
great. We see that the outcomes are great,
and we're able to do more and more
in large part because of the technologies I
mentioned, and that's also very, very exciting. It's
great for our industry to see.
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely, Bet makes complete sense.
And at Amy before I let you go.
The last thing I wanted to ask you
is, well the most effective health leaders need
in order to be successful, in the next
2 to 3 years do you think?
Something that I'm constantly being challenged with myself,
but
really the need to be flexible and creative
and forward thinking
again, using
being aware of technology
the potential threat or risks that exist with
that, but then also looking at ways that
you can embrace that.
And make your businesses more efficient
and utilize that for the advantage of customer
service and taking care of patients.
Flexibility with
staffing with we've come through the last couple
years where the labor in labor market have
been just tremendously challenging for especially for us
that are in healthcare
and looking at creative ways that we can
staff our centers inc retain staff and recruit
staff and
know, we've looked at different things like for
the first time engaging with our local community
colleges
in getting students in a possible base
to recruit from here. So just
always looking at how you can do things
different,
not that that's wrong, not being so rigid,
and leaning on others to have that same
mindset to try to
think outside the box and just keep things
moving.
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Thank you so much for
those final thoughts, Amy. This has definitely been
informative discussion. So, again I wanna thank you
so much for coming on Decker health karen
and I look forward to connecting with you
again soon.
Thank you.
Okay