1. Leadership
Anesthesia
“You want an anesthesia group that offers very strong leadership within each institution,” says Michael Simon, MD, regional director of North American Partners in Anesthesia and chairman of the department of anesthesiology at UPMC Hamot Medical Center in Erie, Pa. “You want a chief anesthesiologist willing to take on the entire perioperative arena, from pre-surgical testing through discharge of the patient.”
Perioperative services
“The first thing [hospitals] need to do is change the way perioperative services are governed and put in a collaborative leadership structure where administration, OR nursing leadership, anesthesia and surgery are coming together to run the OR and to develop a plan that looks at reducing cost and improving clinical outcomes,” says Jeff Peters, president and CEO of Surgical Directions.
2. Quality
Anesthesia
To be valuable to an accountable care organization, an anesthesia group needs to have “a very strong history of dedication to quality and outcomes,” Dr. Simon says.
Perioperative services
Mr. Peters suggests the OR provide surgeons with a dashboard that shows metrics such as their overall block utilization, case time by procedure, turnover time, cost per procedure, patient length of stay, patient complication rate and surgical site infection rate compared to the median rates.
3. Costs
Anesthesia
An anesthesia group that has this ability can have a significant impact on the ACO’s overall costs since the perioperative area is responsible for a large portion of a healthcare organization’s costs, according to Dr. Simon.
Perioperative services
Perioperative leaders can examine surgeons’ preference cards, provide incentives to physicians to standardize products and reduce the number of items in case packs, among other strategies, to reduce costs, according to Mr. Peters.
More Articles on Perioperative Services:
3 Reasons Why Respect Matters in the OR
Surgical Directions to Launch Medical Director’s Forum
4 Skills to Look for When Including Anesthesia Groups in an ACO
