Driving Perioperative Performance to Improve the Bottom Line

“How better performing hospitals have improved $250,000-$750,000 per operating room”

The webinar will begin at 1:30 pm CT and will be 1 hour in duration. For more information contact Surgical Directions at 312.870.5600.

Intervention: Implement collaborative leadership; upgraded PAT/scheduling; reduced non-labor costs.

Outcome: Surgeon satisfaction increased; OR volume grew; financial performance improved $6 million within one year

Intervention: Established new model of collaborative perioperative leadership; revised block rules; facilitated workflow redesign; established anesthesia service standards; facilitated development of strategic perioperative growth plan.

Outcome: Surgeon satisfaction increased; turnover time decreased; increased case volume by 29% and profitability $25 million over three years.

Intervention: Revised organization structure of surgical services department; established new models for perioperative leadership; fostered collaborative relationship between surgeons, anesthesiologists, nursing and administration; implemented changes to improve patient flow; implemented new preoperative assessment; implemented improvements in materials and supplies flow.

Outcomes: Increased surgical volume by 12% and hospital profitability by $6 million within one year; improved surgeon and nurse satisfaction; streamlined patient throughput and minimized patient inconvenience.

Intervention: Completed a perioperative assessment of governance, block scheduling, and operations; developed a perioperative dashboard populated through customized crystal reports; implemented a perpetual inventory system, and provided additional training on the Lawson general ledger system; completed a perioperative turnaround implementation and a cardiac service line process improvement engagement.

Outcomes: Developed dashboard reports including surgeon and anesthesiologist/CRNA report cards for performance and an OR metrics dashboard with best practice comparisons to monthly outcomes; revised block schedule to increase "open" time to allow for growth in case load; established perpetual inventory system and increased items on consignment; net financial improvement of $4.5M and $2.4M in ongoing inventory reduction savings.

Intervention: Implemented a collaborative OR governance model; strengthened OR management; recruited new anesthesia; transformed OR processes; and implemented a perioperative sales function with defined strategy, plan, and tactics

Outcome: Surgeon satisfaction improved; OR volume increased 16% within 10 months; OR financial performance increased seven figures

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 28, 2011—HealthWare Systems, a provider of innovative software solutions to improve workflow processes within the revenue cycle, and Surgical Directions, a national consulting firm that assists community hospitals and academic medical centers with operational, financial, and strategic performance improvements in perioperative and anesthesia services, announced today that they have joined together to promote each other's products and services.

Surgery departments and hospital systems across the country are struggling to improve operations and their bottom line. With declining patient volumes and reimbursement and new emphasis on quality outcomes, patient and physician satisfaction are more important than ever. Given the tight economic conditions, efficiency, throughput, and pre-admission testing costs per patient are being scrutinized. It is these economic and operational imperatives that brought HealthWare Systems and Surgical Directions together.

HealthWare offers a suite of products to help hospitals and health systems insure that each and every patient encounter is financially and clinically cleared prior to the procedure/service and billing. Specifically, HealthWare's ActiveFAX for Surgery is a comprehensive "paperless" solution for efficiently managing the disparate data and documentation requirements associated with the pre-surgical process. With ActiveFAX, referring physicians, primary care physicians, and 3rd party testing facilities simply continue to fax information as they always have. ActiveFAX converts all faxed communication to electronic documents which are then incorporated into electronic workflows for review, evaluation, and acceptance prior to the patient's scheduled procedure.

Surgical Directions brings the consulting and surgery department management expertise to help streamline processes and provide a strong platform to support the ActiveFAX for Surgery solution. Most surgery departments do not have the time or resources to do internal process improvement effectively. ActiveFAX for Surgery provides a powerful workflow solution that can be applied to just about any facility. Surgical Directions brings "best practice" to perioperative processes and surgery department operations to insure that the full benefit of the system are realized and sustained.

"We are excited about working with Surgical Directions to help surgical departments across the country to improve their overall operations. Surgical Directions' deep clinical knowledge and proven best practices will be a great addition to any surgery department's operations" states Steve Gruner, President of HealthWare Systems.

Dr. David Young, principal and managing partner at Surgical Directions as well as the Director of Pre Surgical Testing at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital says "HealthWare Systems brings to market the IT capabilities and solutions that we've been looking for to be able to create a best-in-breed pre-surgical testing department. We are excited to be able to partner with innovative, talented, and experienced professionals to provide technological solutions to help our clients achieve superior results. These results are not only cost savings opportunities and improved patient safety but also create competitive advantages in the marketplace."

About HealthWare Systems:
HealthWare Systems works with hospitals and health systems to reengineer their revenue cycle, leveraging existing technologies as possible or integrating new technologies where needed, ensuring that each and every patient encounter is clinically and financially cleared. This results in dramatically improved revenue recovery and reductions in AR days, decreased denials and payment delays. All this is done at a fraction of the cost and risk of replacing core systems. Healthware offers solutions for registration accuracy, physician order management, insurance eligibility and pre certification, kiosks and patient tracking, pricing and collections, pre bill edit and PFS workflows, pre surgical and pre encounter workflows, self pay and charity management.

HealthWare Systems is headquarted in the Chicago area and can be reached at 847-649-5100 or www.healthwaresystems.com for further information.

About Surgical Direction:
Surgical Directions – led by a collaborative team of Anesthesiologists, seasoned OR Nurse Executives, and Perioperative Business Strategists and Analysts – has successfully helped hospitals and health systems across the country improve their perioperative services by:

1. Implementing new models of perioperative governance by creating alignment of key constituents.
2. Improving patient throughput, utilizing Lean Methodology, reducing waste and increasing efficiencies.
3. Increasing access to the O.R. by creating appropriate and fair block scheduling systems that increases block utilization, incremental growth in surgical cases, and improvement in surgeon, anesthesia, staff, and patient satisfaction.
4. Ensuring adequate Anesthesiology coverage and services.
5. Developing surgical service business-line strategies, plan, and tactics to grow incremental case volumes.
6. Streamlining and standardizing the pre-operative process to decrease case cancellations, increase % of first case on-time starts, decrease unnecessary pre-operative tests, and increase surgeon and primary care physician satisfaction.
7. Improving anesthesia charge capture through efficient billing and collection processes.
8. Developing performance-based Anesthesia compensation programs.

Surgical Directions has assisted over 200 health systems nationally to provide lasting operational and financial improvements in perioperative and anesthesia services. They also provide interim placement services. Surgical Directions, with corporate headquarters in Chicago, can be reached at (312) 870-5600 or www.surgicaldirections.com for further information.

Contact:
Ann DeBartolo
HealthWare Systems
Phone: 877-362-7772 xt. 5104
Email: adebartolo@healthwaresystems.com

Intervention: Established new model of collaborative perioperative leadership; expanded OR schedule; established urgent room; facilitated workflow redesign; facilitated development of strategic perioperative growth plan.

Outcome: Surgeon satisfaction increased; surgical volume increased 7% within six months; perioperative systems improved; hospital has new, positive vision for future.

Intervention: Worked with senior physician and hospital leadership to strengthen anesthesia and OR nursing leadership; established a preoperative clinic; strengthened perioperative systems through improved materials management, scheduling, preoperative evaluation, and information systems.

Outcome: Surgical volume increased 19% within 24 months; Anesthesia Department fully staffed; Anesthesia financial performance improved; all ORs open and staffed; same day cancellations decreased and surgeon satisfaction increased.