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forward slash beckerspodcast.
This is Gracelyn Keller at the Becker's Healthcare
Podcast, and we are recording live at the
thirty first annual business and operations of ASCs.
I'm currently joined by Jerry Eaves, who is
the CEO and administrator of Bone and Joint
Institute of Tennessee Surgery Center. Jerry, thanks for
being here. To start us off, I'll have
you introduce yourself and tell us a little
bit more about your work in the ASC
space.
Absolutely. Thank you. And as you said, I
am Jeri Eaves. I'm the administrator and CEO
at the Bone and Joint Institute of Tennessee
and Franklin, Tennessee.
We are a six OR
surgery center. We do orthopedics and spine.
We opened right in the middle of COVID.
So, the facility opened five years ago in
'20 March 2020.
And I myself have been in health care
in the ambulatory setting over twenty years,
and I did start my career out as
a nurse.
But I love working on the administrative side
and working with operations,
and I look forward to our podcast.
Wonderful.
Well, let's start our conversation with the ASC
market because in The US, this is projected
to reach $60,800,000,000
by 2030,
and it continues to experience strong year over
year growth. So from your perspective, what are
the most significant trends in Market Forces driving
this expansion, and how should ASC leaders be
preparing today?
Absolutely. Great question. So one of the things
that we wanna see is large shifts in
cases to the ASC outpatient setting.
We're gonna see minimally invasive techniques that include
robotics
and AI. All of those are increasing.
This is gonna help us perform more complex
cases in the outpatient setting.
Cost and managed care contracts are, you know,
going to push more cases to the ASCs
along with patient performance.
Quality metrics are gonna be a huge thing
that we're going to focus on.
ASC leaders should prepare, you know, they should
look at their road map ahead
and look at your margins,
analyze your case mix, proper profitability
margins. Make sure you're looking at all of
that because it's going to be huge with
some of the the forces that we're dealing
with.
And from AI and robotic surgeries to advanced
EHR systems, technology remains both a make or
break factor and a critical driver of ASC
operations at scale.
So how do you see deeper tech integration
shaping the way ASCs deliver care and manage
their business over the next few years?
Absolutely.
So technology is going to redefine what scalable
means when we talk about AI and robotic
surgeries. We used to just need case mix
and efficiency.
Now we need data integration,
automation,
and precision. So a lot of that is
just going to be key.
Data driven decision making is going to also
be one of those things that we're looking
at.
We're connecting clinical, financial, and operational data, which
allows us to have real time visibility in
the case cost, surgeon utilization,
and quality metrics. We're also able to forecast
cancellations,
optimize block scheduling,
flag high risk patients easier. There's so much
going into technology and how we drive our
business
going forward.
And follow-up to that, is there one specific
technology or innovation that you would pinpoint as
a standout,
to being
especially transformative?
I think robotics is going to be one
that I would say is key. Having a
personal experience with it myself,
it's it helps with recovery,
post op,
pain control. There's just so many things. It's
efficiency in the OR.
There's just so many things that I think
it's driving. So I'd say robotics.
100%.
And then with 60% of health systems considering
ASC joint ventures, and many ASCs already partnering
with systems in their communities, what opportunities do
you see for collaboration, whether with other providers
or vendors, to strengthen patient care and operational
efficiency?
So I really think collaborations where the ASCs
can can move the needle.
Joint ventures with health systems
are shifting
from ownership to true alignment.
We're seeing that that collaboration and that they're
working together more.
The shifting from ownership to true
relationships and alignment, working together to provide a
higher standard of care for all of our
patients is, truly important.
Partnerships with anesthesia groups and vendors can increase
supply chain efficiency,
keep cost down, and increase case throughput.
All of it is
things that we have to work together as
a team, and the team is not just
your immediate team. It's not just your managers
or your leaders. It's actually
the whole,
it's the whole system. It's it's your hospital
partner, your your vendors, your if you have
a management company, you have to work together
with all of these people.
Your contracted services, it's all key to to
making everything go well and the patient having
a great outcome.
And, Jeri, is there anything we didn't touch
on or any final thoughts you'd like to
share as we wrap up our conversation?
I do think that integration
is the new growth strategy,
technology data, and partnerships.
Efficiency is going to define our success. Partnerships
with everyone as I spoke about is going
to build stability,
shared resources, stronger community impact. And one of
the biggest things is leadership mindset matters. Leaders
have to think strategically,
invest intentionally, and stay agile as payer models
technology
and work realities involve. And we have to
be in all this together. So doing it
all together is going to be key.
Well, thank you so much for joining me
today on the Becker's Healthcare podcast and sharing
these thoughts and insights. Again, we are recording
live at the thirty first annual business and
operations of ASCs.