2019 National Healthcare Supply Chain Week | Enhancing the Surgical Experience; Advancing Strategic Direction

The Integrated Surgical Experience is one of the many initiatives under Ascension’s wave of Mission-inspired Transformation and their Advanced Strategic Direction. With a focus on patient experience, the Integrated Surgical Experience aims to redefine excellence in surgical care.  The Resource Group, along with other Ascension groups, has been tasked with the answering four key questions: 

• How can surgical service operations be improved to remove the burden on the care team and improve costs?
• How can data and critical information be gathered, tracked, and shared most effectively?
• What tools are needed to create a proactive surgical growth strategy and how can these tools be shared effectively?
• How can patient inconvenience be minimized, if not eliminated, in this space?

As the solution area overseeing resource and supply chain management, The Resource Group has strong fundamental knowledge on the current state of surgical experiences across Participant sites. “The Resource Group has been working on projects impacting the goals of Integrated Surgical Experience for several years” said Todd Adams, Chief Operating Officer, The Resource Group. “For example, projects such as Physician Preference Card management, have created a solid foundation to launch the Integrated Surgical Experience”.

With this foundation in place, The Integrated Surgical Experience initiative aims to drive efficiency across many Operating Room (OR) activities by focusing on the following areas:

Case Scheduling – By leveraging transformative information technologies and developing user-friendly workflows, Integrated Surgical Experience looks to build a scheduling tool with a focus on human-centered design. 

Instrument Tracking – Maximizing efficiencies and preparedness through implementation of a standardized instrument tray tracking system across sites of care.

Point-of-Use Scanning (POU) – Through the use of barcode scanning technology, the POU solution will provide a standardized process for tracking supply inventory across the full surgical experience. This work will decrease clinician time spent managing surgical inventory.

Preference Cards – Through improved supply utilization captured via POU scanning, Physician Preference Cards will become increasingly accurate. This accuracy will result in reductions in waste and stabilize supply cost variation. Once fully implemented, the information provided from Physician Preference Cards will also assist in dissecting cost versus outcome data.

Ascension’s Integrated Surgical Experience initiative is one of the many projects aimed at innovating patient care delivery through Mission-inspired Transformation. The effort to design a single-stream, horizontal solution which gives time back to caregivers and enhances the delivery of care to patients is one The Resource Group is honored to be a part of.