Switching to a new ASC management software system: 4 thoughts

Many ASCs may still rely on paper to a certain extent, but a practice management system is essential to smooth daily operations.

At the Becker's ASC 22nd Annual Meeting – The Business and Operations of ASCs in Chicago, four ASC industry leaders discussed four important thoughts for transitioning to a new software system.

1. Why change? At Southwest Surgical Center in Byron Center, Mich., the software system in place just wasn't meeting the center's needs. Margaret Acker, MSN, RN, CASC, CEO of Blake Woods Medical Park Surgery Center and former administrator of Southwest Surgical Center, described how the data pulled from the system was inaccurate. "Every month I would have to manipulate the data to make it correct," she said. A practice management system should support ASC operations, not add to a center's workload.

2. Choosing a new system. The first step in selecting a new system is performing thorough due diligence. "There are a lot of things to look for. There are a lot of big systems out there that aren't surgery center-specific," said Bruce Davis, regional vice president of sales at AmkaiSolutions. "You need [a company] that understand pennies really count."  Ms. Acker along with her coworkers Brenda Zuiderveen, CPC, business operations manager of Southwest Surgical Center, and Susan MacConnach, project manager of Southwest Surgery Center, looked at each possible vendor and weighed the pros and cons. Then, the team asked their staff for their thoughts. An ASC's staff members are going to be a system's everyday users; their input can be invaluable.

3. Pick the right staff for support. Any project that affects an entire ASC, software or otherwise, requires buy-in and support from key staff members. In the case of selecting team members for a new practice management system, Ms. Zuiderveen recommended looking to employees that are dedicated and focused on details. "Choose your detail-oriented staff, even if they don't have much experience. If you educate them on how you want it done, they will be the right fit," she said.

4. Implementing the new system. Eventually, the leadership at Southwest Surgical Center selected AmkaiSolutions as its practice management software vendor. After finalizing the decision, the center's leadership focused on front-end training to ensure all employees were comfortable with the system prior to the go-live date. "We had two servers: a training server and a go-live server," said Ms. MacConnach. "We had Amkai load the training server with dummy data, which allowed staff to practice entering cases and codes." By the time the system went live, the entire center was comfortable and the transition went off without a hitch.

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