This is Liz Hatton with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by doctor
Chris Nanson,
program director of the Oregon Surgical Institute hip
and knee arthroplasty
program.
For a fireside chat about the big trends
and topics in orthopedics,
spine, and surgery centers today.
Doctor Nanson, thank you so much for being
here.
Well, thanks for having me. Pleasure to join.
So before we dive into our discussion today,
could you tell us just a little bit
more about yourself and your background?
Yeah. Absolutely.
I, am a fellowship trained
hip and knee replacement surgeon,
native Oregonian,
but trained all over the country. Did my
fellowship at North Carolina and now,
am part of a group. We developed a
surgery center, really the first one in the
region that was kinda specifically built for doing
total joints in the ASC setting.
We started this project about 02/2015.
We opened in 02/2018,
and now we're over four years in.
And, so I've been serving as the program
director for our outpatient arthroplasty program,
and,
proud to say that we were the highest
volume total joint facility in the state, including
all hospitals last year in the state of
Oregon. So,
that's kinda what we've been doing out west
here, and, and things are going fairly well.
Wow. That's so great to hear.
So what trends are you currently following most
closely today in health care?
Really, it's, it seems to be particularly in
orthopedics,
a lot about consolidation. We've got a very
fragmented market here, with a lot of small
groups,
kind of traditional,
small fee for service practices.
Not a lot of big groups,
no Rothmans
or
core type
mega groups out here. And so really following
a lot of the consolidation trends
and the
ability to utilize
technology and AI,
to manage more population,
size level health, and and, that's, that's kinda
got a lot of my attention right now.
Interesting. So how do you see orthopedic spine
and ASCs evolving,
in the next two years?
Well, I think, we're gonna see in in
smaller markets like ours,
that increased trend for consolidation,
our formation of bigger groups.
I think
in certain places, you're going to see,
larger organizations moving in.
We're seeing Rothman
Institute, you know, expanding its footprint into Seattle.
You have, you're gonna have a lot of,
a lot of groups trying to engage more
in population level
management of orthopedic issues.
I think payers are are interested primarily in
in managing everything musculoskeletal
rather than just trying to manage the one
small piece of musculoskeletal
surgery. And so, I think being able to
create an organization that's responsive
and, has a good technology base and and
good partnerships,
so that you can manage
not only the the surgical piece through your
ASC,
which I think is vital,
but, but also the nonoperative
piece,
through your office, and and managing that with,
your ancillary providers such as physician assistants,
nurse practitioners, other other folks to kinda help,
see those patients and and manage that care.
So I think you've you've really gotta build
a robust organization,
not only with orthopedic surgeons,
but with, with other providers that can, that
can help manage the patient burden,
as well as the technology to keep things
consistent and maintain high quality outcomes,
in addition to,
ensuring that you've got a robust ASC program
so that you can get these surgeries done
because we're seeing the stress on the hospital
systems
really nationwide has has kinda proven too much
for for the hospitals, particularly in our area,
to handle the volume of patient care they
need to. They just,
they haven't been able to to kinda come
back from the COVID and the staffing hit.
Interesting. And and I see you kinda you
kinda touched on touched on, the next question
towards the end with, I was wondering
what challenges,
do you believe are ahead?
So, you know, I think,
you you have to
you have to deal with, with, obviously, the
the current challenges of of staffing issues, maintaining,
you know, a a happy staff, maintaining a
consistent staff so that, you know, you can
you have good quality, consistent outcomes.
I think that's that's kind of something that
we're all living in right now. Certainly, the
hospitals are struggling more than we are.
But,
as we kinda move beyond that, I think,
you know, the biggest challenge is gonna be
maintaining
the driver's seat in health care,
as,
physicians and physician led organizations.
I think,
it's,
you know, it's a little bit of an
adapt or die strategy,
and and you do need to have some
size, and you would need to have some
some robust measures in place.
I think a lot of physicians,
wanna be physicians, and they and they they
they don't wanna necessarily manage,
a large organization. I think that's,
it's challenging to, ensure that you've got the
the right leaders in position, so that
the docs can be docs and and take
care of patients.
And, I think that's gonna be a a
real kind of paradigm shift,
in in medicine is, you know, moving away
from the the, small practice,
kinda country doc mentality to, you know, we
really need to be a health care organization,
and and,
and do it better than the hospitals have
traditionally done. Because, like I said, they're part
of their struggles, I think, are are due
to
their difficulty in in managing their staff and
keeping their staff,
happy and engaged,
and and that's why they're having a lot
of staffing issues right now.
Interesting.
Is there anything else that you'd like to
share with us today?
You know, it's, I I think there's a
lot of opportunity, and, you know, I don't
wanna sound too pessimistic. I think there's a
lot of opportunity. I think there's room for
growth. I think there's room for positive change.
And and,
and, personally, I'm excited to to kinda move
on
to to the next, generation health care, as
we as we move through the post COVID
era or the the living with COVID area
era, I should say.
And, you know, I think there's, there's just
a lot of, a lot of space for
for smart motivated,
you know, driven people to to be in
the health care space and and, create some
innovation and some change for the betterment of
patient care,
and, really to improve,
how we interact. And and, it's very exciting
to be in the ASC space, and
and seeing all of
this come down and, being provided the opportunity
to to actually maybe contribute to to some
of the change and and making America's health
care system better. So,
it's a it's a daunting task, but,
I think, I think there's a lot of
reasons to be optimistic.
Well, thank you so much,
doctor Nansen for that fascinating discussion. I look
forward to connecting with you again in the
future.
Alright. Well, thanks for having me. It was
a pleasure talking today.