Gastroenterology leaders have no shortage of technology to evaluate. The harder question is how any of it gets approved, funded and adopted across an organization.
That question ran through a panel discussion at Becker’s 32nd Annual: The Business and Operations of ASCs conference Oct. 29-31 in Chicago, where GI leaders from academic health systems and independent practice described what it takes to win C-suite approval.
“We need to really invest in people, we need to invest in technology and we need to invest in how we manage the data,” said Irving Waxman, MD, chief of gastroenterology and director of the digestive disease service line at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
“I don’t think any of those pieces, which are all really important, are successful unless there is an administrative champion outside of GI who is willing to provide the support,” said Michael Smith, MD, associate system chief of gastroenterology for business development and strategy at New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System. “Because there can be very strong consensus within the gastroenterology team that there’s a clinical benefit, there’s value to it, patient care and outcomes will be improved.”
“So you have to have that support externally and internally or it’s just dead on arrival,” he added.
Reimbursement shapes that conversation from the start.
“We’re going to be told you can’t use this if we take a bath every time you bring it out,” Dr. Smith said. Dr. Smith, who also holds an MBA, has made that case to his own leadership.
“I was able to take our divisional administrator and partner with her and someone on the procurement side within the organization and we put together the case that went successfully to the C-suite,” he said.
Dr. Waxman’s team at Rush brought computer-aided detection to its colonoscopy program the same way by connecting Medtronic’s GI Genius endoscopy module with Apple Vision Pro. Software developed by Cosmo Pharmaceuticals allows physicians to visualize AI-generated insights from the GI Genius module directly through Apple Vision Pro without looking away from the operative screen.
“Our partners were the chief operating officer and the chief technology officer, who are big believers in these projects,” Dr. Waxman said. “First of all, you need to believe that technology is really going to provide better patient care. And then you sell the idea. But without having a hospital partner or a system partner, you cannot do this.”
At Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine, the test case was a diagnostic one.
“We had a challenge where we wanted to get DNA sequencing of indeterminate bile duct strictures,” said Abdul Aadam, MD, medical director of GI services and director of interventional endoscopy at Northwestern. “This is an area that’s very difficult to diagnose.”
“So our administrator trusted us … and finally got it approved,” Dr. Aadam said. “And it’s made some remarkable diagnoses in patients who weren’t able to get that, and they were able to get curative surgery.”
Independent practice works differently. Syd Thompson is director of operations for one of three GI divisions at the Oregon Clinic in Portland, a physician-owned multispecialty group.
“I’m in an independent model, so everything for me revolves around physician ownership and engagement,” Mr. Thompson said.
That structure puts the business case in physicians’ hands rather than an administrator’s.
“There are individuals in your practices that know their business better than administrators,” Mr. Thompson said. “I’m convinced of that.”
Asked for the one takeaway leaders should bring back to their teams, Dr. Aadam returned to the partnership behind each of those examples.
“I think to embrace that kind of dyad leadership model where physicians are partnering with their administrators to really solve these everyday problems, because one really just can’t exist without the other,” he said.
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.
