ASCs are getting technology pitches from every angle. The harder call often comes after implementing a new technology, when a new tool is not providing results and administrators have to work out whether the problem is the rollout or the product itself.
Getting it wrong is costly either way. Misjudge in one direction, and a center keeps paying for software its staff have quietly abandoned. Misjudge the other way, and it swaps one system for another without fixing what broke the first one, which adds to the technology fatigue already weighing on staff.
The warning signs don’t always show up in a dashboard. Sometimes it’s a staff member asking to move something back to paper, data that doesn’t match what the team knows about its own business, or a platform that can’t bend to how a center actually schedules cases.
Three ASC leaders shared how they tell the difference at Becker’s 32nd Annual: The Business and Operations of ASCs conference in Chicago.
Question: How do you know when a new piece of technology isn’t working, and whether it’s a change management problem or just the wrong fit for your staff and workflows?
Helen Lowenwirth. Former Administrator of East Side Endoscopy (New York City): It’s not working when you’re not getting the benchmarking and outcomes data that you were hoping this technology is going to support, and you’re not getting reasonable information out of it. We all know what the answers should be. We know our businesses, we know our specialties, and when the technology or the platform isn’t in sync with that, it’s just not going to work.
Technologies will often change your work, and I think it’s important to understand how they change it. One example that comes to mind is credentialing. We all remember the binders, and they’re still out there: chasing down doctors for their licenses or going on to 1,000 different websites to verify their credentials. There are some very viable, good solutions to that now. But people still have to understand what the process is and how to apply the technology, and then it changes the responsibility. Now doctors are getting emails, and they don’t know what they’re supposed to upload where. It’s another password for them, another thing to log into. But if you champion it and you get 80% compliance from your physicians, it’s at least moving in the right direction.
Katie Pierson, DNP, RN. Administrator of Global Ambulatory Surgery Centers (Milwaukee): I’ll tell you exactly when it stops working: when someone says, “Let’s just go back to paper.” And then it turns into two, and it turns into three, and all of a sudden you’re two years later and back to a paper chart. Or you get the seventh staff member in your office saying, “If you don’t get rid of this thing, you’re getting rid of me.”
You’ve got to make sure you understand who it is that’s making those complaints. If it’s those early adopter, high-IT folks that you were really banking on, I think that’s when you are considering it more. Then dive into what’s going on. Why are you feeling this way? Have we not talked about it? Have we talked about it and not addressed it? Get down into what the actual problem is, because then you get into technology fatigue. Are you really fixing whatever was wrong with the first one, or are you going to come up to that same exact problem with the second EMR? I see that a lot, where they think, “Oh, it’s fine, we can fix it with a different system.” But I really challenge you to ask yourselves: If it’s really broken, was it the rollout that was broken? Is it the adoption that’s broken? Is this really the right move at the end of the day? Because then you’re implementing a whole new system and going through that again.
Kayla Schneeweiss-Keene, BSN, RN. Executive Director of Surgical Services at Mann Cataract Surgery Center and Grand Parkway Surgery Center (Houston): I have two examples. One was a facility logs software that we implemented, and it failed so we just got rid of it. The other one, we’re in the middle of now. We’ve been demoing scheduling software on and off for about a year and a half now. Our workflow is completely different from an independent or standalone surgery center because our scheduling is linked completely to our clinics. Just the way our system works and how our flow works from the practice to the surgery center, a lot of technologies that we’ve looked at won’t allow us to do that. So when we’re looking at technologies from a workflow point of view, if it involves both the clinic and the surgery center, we’re having both teams involved demoing it and looking at it.
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.
