This is Alan Condon with the Becker's ASC
Podcast, and I'm thrilled to be joined today
by Sarah Sterling, the director of operations for
Sutter Health Surgery Center Division in the Greater
San Francisco
area.
Sarah, a pleasure to have you back on
the Pechers
podcast with us today.
For those who may not be as well
acquainted with yourself or Sutter Health, do you
mind taking a quick peek to give us
a little bit more info about your role
and your background?
Yeah. Absolutely.
Again, Sarah Sterling,
ASC,
director of operations for the Greater Silicon Valley
market as well as Greater San Francisco
market.
I've been with Sutter Health for the past
5 years. We're a large health care system
in Northern California and now have a footprint
in Southern California.
I have been in the ambulatory surgery space
for over 20 years and really happy to
be here. So thank you so much.
Got it. A fantastic background there. Obviously, head
of operations for the Greater San Francisco and
Silicon Valley area. Been in the ASC industry
for about 20 years or so. So really
excited to to pick your brains a little
bit and kinda follow some of the trends
that you're paying most attention to, Sarah.
So so much going on in health care
at any one time. But specific to health
care, to ASCs, and the areas that you
focus on, do you mind get taking a
moment to give us what are 2, 3
trends that you're paying close attention to, and
why?
Yes, absolutely.
So really focused on our anesthesia
and physician growth strategy,
in this upcoming year. And,
as many of us have been impacted,
by
the decline in providers available
to take care of our patients, that's really
what we're focused on in this upcoming year.
And we are working on strategies such as
developing our own training programs for CRNAs and
GME for anesthesia providers,
for physician recruitment.
We are really focusing
on partnering with medical groups.
We have our first time partnership with Charles
r Drew University
Medical School.
We're really excited about that that partnership. We
have a lot of patients who are seeking
access and care,
from our organization
and need to ensure that we have providers
to care for them. Absolutely. It's something we've
heard many, providers, medical group, health systems across
the country really honing in on that anesthesia,
physician growth strategy, like you said. Do you
mind telling me a little bit more about,
I guess developing some of those training programs
for specifically for anesthesia providers and also how
you're partnering with some medical groups to to
make sure you're recruiting the top talent in
this area. No doubt there's a huge shortage
there, but be curious to hear a little
bit more about your strategy there.
Yes. Absolutely.
Our organization has,
relationships. We have 6,
regions,
in our area, and each have, 1 to
2 medical groups. And what we're doing is
just something a little different, which is our
surgery center division is partnering
with them about our strategy, ensuring that we
have alignment,
understanding what their medical group needs from us
as a surgery center division to ensure that
the physicians
are able to
provide, the techniques and we have the technology,
for them to do their cases in our
environment. And with the anesthesia strategy,
with some of the schools that we have
in our local area,
we're partnering with them,
from standing it up in terms of operations.
How many
faculty members do they need to support the
program? What can we do to help them
get there?
And what does that look like? And, it's
just been a really great partnership thus far,
and we look forward to the standing up
of these programs in the upcoming year.
Got it. And great to kinda hear a
little more insight into how you're tackling that.
No doubt it's on the minds of many
hospitals they see now to do across the
country.
Sarah, what are in other what are two
trends that you're paying close attention to?
AI, in the ambulatory space. We've just been
keeping a close eye on what that looks
like.
We've we've seen technology
in the revenue cycle,
side of the house, really looking forward to
AI being used in the operating room space.
Really excited to see that,
especially in the part of base costing in
the operating room space,
things such as,
observing time out.
Really looking forward to that.
Gotcha. AI. I think, every podcast I do,
no matter who we speak in health care,
everyone is so fascinated about AI and its
many different implications,
biggest opportunities there.
From what I'm hearing a lot from health
care leaders like yourself is exactly that, particularly
in the ASC division. It's around,
case costing,
provider scheduling, maybe block of wartime, really kind
of diving deeper into some of these statistics
and whatnot.
Is there a particular area or a particular,
I guess, opportunity
that you really see for your health system
that AI can make a big difference or
hopefully can make a big difference in the
coming months?
Oh, absolutely. OR efficiencies,
in the actual OR space,
with the case costing is just huge in
itself.
In the operating room space of supplies that
are being used,
not used,
it's just key,
to help us improve our operational efficiencies in
our overall margins.
So that is definitely
key for us at this time.
Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating to see how
far it is coming along over the last
year or so. And, you know, I can
only imagine where we'll be in the next
year. Yeah. Totally.
So, Sarah, maybe, is there one more trend
that you can share with me that you're
really excited by,
before we jump into our next question?
Yeah. Let's see. In terms of additional trends,
I think it's just really
in California
expanding on our cardiovascular
procedures in the ASC space. We're really
looking to that. Not sure if this will
be accomplished next year, but
we are really
looking to expand in terms of different types
of services.
One of the things that,
I'd love to share share today is just
the partnership with hospital migration of cases
that are appropriate for the ASC into the
ASC space.
Mhmm. Yeah. I think that that's kind of
what we're hearing as well. In terms of,
I guess, those higher acuity procedures, like you
said, whether it's in the cardiovascular
space, whether it's in the orthopedic space,
are you seeing, I guess, just an acceleration
of a lot of these higher acuity, maybe
complex procedures moving from those hospital inpatient setting
to 2 ASCs?
And I guess, is there anything,
any other shifts or trends within that outpatient
migration shift that you're following throughout the year?
Yeah. I think for the, almost basic level
right now is just developing that partnership with
the hospitals in our community. Traditionally, we've been
competitors
and, really trying to think outside the box
and being curious around what does this partnership
look like,
and really coming together
as a community
to serve our patients and our patients, you
know, divert deserve
the highest quality of care
and care that's affordable.
And so partnering with our local hospitals
and with the local ASCs that are close
proximity to one another,
partnering with those executive,
leadership teams and looking to just bring some
of those cases that we currently do,
that are appropriate for our environment.
And how do we migrate those cases over?
How do we partner with the hospitals to
ensure that they have
a strong strategy to back fill,
what might be migrating to our ASCs.
And that is the most basic level and
then we will start to transition
into being curious about what else might we
be able to bring over to the ASC.
Got it. Well, I know this this data,
that's obviously one core area of growth for
you, for your health system.
You did talk earlier in the conversation about
your physician
growth strategy as well, particularly as it relates
to anesthesia providers.
I'd love kinda get 1 or 2 more
bites for you. I guess, over the next
12 months or so, what are the core
key areas of growth that you're gonna be
focusing on?
Outside of that hospital migration is, block
utilization utilization of our ASC. Traditionally, ASCs have
been a Monday through Friday,
and, you know, maybe end at 4 or
5 at 5 PM.
We are now transitioning into
offering extended hours into the evenings and even
into the weekends,
which is definitely a different
thing for our ASCs
and just in general overall in the industry.
And that is for a patient experience
and satisfaction.
A lot of patients want to be able
to have surgery over the weekend and not
have to take time off of work,
for example.
And so we've really partnered with our physicians
to be able to offer
services in the evenings and weekends.
Yeah. I mean, that's something I've heard so
many ASC administrators,
talk about recently. I think, you know, a
lot of nurses, administrators, staff who traditionally were
at ASCs enjoyed that Monday to Friday, 9
to 5 schedule.
Can you talk a little bit about how
you have managed that cultural shift and from
from expanding those hours into the evenings, into
weekends at ASCs? Has it been a difficult
turn corner to turn, or how are you
kinda best managing that?
Yeah. Absolutely.
I think one of the key things is,
you know, partnering with our staff and physicians
of just interested
and not making it mandatory.
It's more partnering with people. There are people
who want to work evenings,
or weekends prefer,
and so we really just aim
to, not make it mandatory. And we've had
great success in having people sign up to
be able to do evenings and and weekends,
and that's where it it makes the most
sense.
Got it. Well, Sarah, really, real pleasure to
to get to catch up with you again,
to hear a little bit more about Sutter
Health, the surgery center division that you're operating.
Fascinating, fascinating to hear some of those insights,
and I look forward to connecting with you
again down the line. Thank you so much.
Likewise. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.