As CEO of Surgical Directions, Jeff Peters has led initiatives to improve operational, clinical and financial performance at more than 500 hospitals across the country.
Mr. Peters is a national speaker and has published numerous articles on anesthesia support and negotiations, OR operations, perioperative benchmarks, block scheduling, physician-hospital relations and hospital organizational issues. He earned his MBA from the prestigious Kellogg Graduate School of Management and has helmed Surgical Directions since 2007.
As part of an ongoing series, Becker's Hospital Review is speaking with veteran industry leaders to gain insight into healthcare strategy, management and innovation.
To learn more about Surgical Directions, click here.
Question: What are the most common strategic challenges hospitals come to Surgical Directions with?
Jeff Peters: The most common strategic challenges we see are hospitals being under pressure to improve their financial performance in light of decreases in reimbursement and an increased emphasis on clinical outcomes.
We often see leadership looking for new strategies to drive the hospitals most important service line – surgical services. Hospitals are also looking for innovative approaches to increase surgeon satisfaction, improve OR efficiency and reduce cost.
Q: How is the healthcare leadership structure changing?
JP: Healthcare has embraced the concept of collaborative leadership where physicians, nurses and administration come together to set a direction and manage key service lines. To establish a "best in class" perioperative service line, this style of leadership is essential.
We call this group of physician, nurse and administrative leaders the Surgical Services Executive Committee. Surgical Directions helps surgeons, anesthesiologists, nursing leadership and administrative leadership come to together to establish a strategic direction for the OR and implement policies and procedures that set them on the path to realizing their vision.
The SSEC can help guide the organization's transition to value-based payment and bundled payment for surgery as well as lead efforts to manage the entire episode of care, not only within the hospital, but through the first 100 days after discharge.
Q: What are some strategies hospitals use to implement cultural change?
JP: The key to implementing cultural change is getting all stakeholders to understand that how they got to where they are today is not going to get them where they need to go in the future.
Leadership needs to help the organization understand change is essential to survival. At the same time, the organization needs to identify champions to lead this process. Identifying and empowering physicians to lead the change process is necessary to achieving lasting cultural change.
Q: Do you have any predictions for 2017?
JP: Despite all the rhetoric in Washington, D.C., value-based payment is here to stay. Value-based payment is politically agnostic and there is widespread realization that healthcare providers need to provide better clinical outcomes while lowering the cost of care. The regulations and formulas may change, but value-based payment is the new reality.
Within surgical services, we need to understand how to manage surgical bundles. Hospitals will be responsible for managing the entire episode of care, from the point a patient is scheduled through the entire acute care episode. They are also responsible for the clinical outcomes and costs 100 days post-surgery. This requires the re-engineering of clinical processes and the creation of a collaborative governance body to manage the bundle, provide robust information on clinical outcomes and reduce costs.
Q: If you could fix one thing about healthcare overnight, what would it be?
JP: I would like to break down the silos within healthcare organizations and get physicians, nurses and administration to collaboratively work together to better organize and deliver care.
Surgical Directions has been very successful in changing the culture within healthcare organizations, improving clinical outcomes and lowering costs. Our innovative approach to governance, patient throughput redesign and predictive analytics for block scheduling has consistently improved surgeon and staff satisfaction while growing surgical market share and improving overall financial performance.