Eric Day, MBA, ATC, LAT — Mr. Day is the administrator at The Center for Special Surgery at the Texas Center for Athletes medical complex in San Antonio, Texas. The center opened in March 2007 and has six operating rooms, eight preoperative bays and 19 recovery bays. The center specializes in orthopedics, hand surgery, pain management, ENT, podiatry and plastic surgery. He has worked at the ASC since its inception and moved from Austin to open the center.
Mr. Day started his career as an athletic trainer, working with athletes and doing sports medicine outreach activities in the Austin market for HealthSouth Corp. He made the transition into administration with the help and support of those he worked with and began to work with outpatient rehabilitation and diagnostic imaging centers. From there, he made the transition into working with orthopedists at ASCs and was able to learn about the different aspects of the business.
At his current center, Mr. Day credits his “dedicated staff that provides great care to our patients” for its success. He notes that the center is always willing to try new things. “I have managers whom are very motivated and get the jobs done in a timely manner,” he says. “I have physicians whom are very supportive of the staff and the goals that we have set for the center. No day is exactly like the other at our center.”
Mr. Day loves his daily interaction with the people at the center and ensuring that patients leave the ASC happy with their experience.
The Center for Special Surgery is doing well in a market that is “full of ASCs,” according to Mr. Day. “We are lucky that we are supported by the physicians in our building, and they keep the center going.”
David Moody, RN, BA — Mr. Moody is the administrator at Knightsbridge Surgery Center in Columbus, Ohio. The center opened in 2001 and is multi-specialty with four operating rooms and performs around 275 procedures monthly. Mr. Moody has been with the center for five years. Prior to coming to Knightsbridge, Mr. Moody, who also has a background in nursing, operated a number of refractive centers that performed Lasik eye surgery. He was also an administrator at a hospital in Columbus.
Recently, Mr. Moody assisted the center in a merger with Ohio Health System, which purchased 49 percent of the center. “We’re beginning our second year with Ohio Health, and it’s been a great merger,” he says.
Mr. Moody enjoys the latitude his job allows him and likes that he has the ability to “wear multiple hats.” “I’m not just an administrator,” he says. “I can be a scrub nurse or an OR nurse. I love interacting with the physicians.”
He also notes that he enjoys working with everyone at his center, from the management company, Regent Surgical Health, to the physicians to the clinic staff. “I have a great group of physicians who I consider friends and professional partners,” he says. “I can go on vacation and trust that my incredible staff runs everything the way it should be run.”
Mr. Moody sees continued growth and profitability for his center through enriching its relationship with the hospital and adding new surgeons to the center. Most of all, he finds his work at Knightsbridge “fulfilling.” “I love to come to work in the morning,” he says.
Catherine Sayers, RN — Ms. Sayers is the administrator for Skyline Endoscopy Center, a single-specialty GI endoscopy center, in Loveland, Colo. She assisted with development of the ASC, which opened in 2004, and has maintained a management role since that time. Ms. Sayers is also director of clinical operations for Pinnacle III, and in this role, she has developed or managed 13 single- and multi-specialty ASCs throughout the country. Prior to working for Pinnacle III, she was director of surgical services at the Orthopaedic Center of the Rockies in Fort Collins, Colo., where she managed the ASC and a 10-bed recovery center.
According to her colleagues, Ms. Sayers, “an astute business woman,” was able to create a profitable center in short order and continues to do so despite the significant cuts gastroenterology centers have experienced under current Medicare reimbursement. Rather than consider this a hindrance, Ms. Sayers says, “This provides constant incentive to find ways to decrease and manage expenses while continuing to provide outstanding patient care and customer service.”
One of Ms. Sayers’ most successful initiatives as an administrator has been implementing an employee-incentive plan. “Through this plan, employees share in the distributions paid to investors,” she says. “They receive a percentage of the distributed amount if they have met pre-established goals and criteria. I believe this program provides incentive for the staff to be cost conscious, efficient and work as a team. They are rewarded as a member of the ASC team; therefore, they truly feel like an integral part of the ASC.”
Ms. Sayers says her staff at Skyline is a crucial asset to the center’s success. “Every staff member is dedicated to providing the highest quality care and excellent customer service,” she says. “They are lead by an exceptional nurse manager, who is a joy to work with, and they function as a dynamic team.”
She says that one of her favorite things about being an administrator is working with different physicians and their staffs. “I have truly enjoyed interacting and working with these varying groups, through tough situations and great successes,” she says.
Stephanie Stinson, RN, BSN — Ms. Stinson is the administrative director of the Strictly Pediatrics Surgery Center in Austin, Texas. The center opened on Apr. 30, 2007, and is an exclusive, “pediatric-only” ASC. “I am very proud of the fact that there is only a handful in the country,” Ms. Stinson says. The multi-specialty center includes ENT, orthopedics, GI, general surgery, plastics, ophthalmology and urology and has six operating rooms.
Ms. Stinson has been administrative director at the center since its inception in 2006 and has overseen its growth to a fully functional surgery center that performs more than 400 procedures monthly. She has been a nurse for 16 years and has been a staff nurse in the neurology/surgical ICU, surgery and the recovery room. She was a surgical technologist in the Mississippi Army National Guard for eight years prior to and while becoming an RN.
One aspect Ms. Stinson enjoys about her center is that it “provides a safe, pleasant and economical place for children to come have surgery.” She says, “It is an atmosphere created here by a very caring staff that tries really hard to provide a fun non-threatening environment. In fact, when siblings come for their sister’s/brother’s surgery, they leave stating ‘they want to come have surgery.’
“If we have kids leaving here saying things like that, it really makes you proud of your organization, and it gives you a sense of pride that you must be doing something right,” says Ms. Stinson.
Ms. Stinson loves the challenges that she experiences on the job and learns something new every day in her position. She enjoys the administrative and clinical aspects and that multi-tasking keeps her busy as day-to-day operations are constantly changing. “One minute you may be recovering a patient, educating the staff on policy and procedure changes, credentialing a new physician or processing HR paperwork on a new employee and that was all in the first hour of your day. I love the fact that you as an individual are always stimulated mentally and physically,” she says.
Handling these challenges enables Ms. Stinson to see that her center keeps growing. Strictly Pediatrics is looking to enclose some of their recovery areas and to keep some patients overnight. “During that process we will also extend our recovery room area to allow for more volume,” she says. “We have already outgrown ourselves!”
Cindy Young, RN, CASC — Ms. Young is the administrator of the Surgery Center of Farmington, in Farmington, Mo. The multi-specialty center, which opened in 1999, has two operating rooms and two procedure rooms. Physicians at the center perform around 450 cases a month, according to Ms. Young, and its top three specialties are ophthalmology, pain management and GI. Recently, the center added ENT to its specialties.
Ms. Young has been at the Surgery Center of Farmington since 1999, starting as a staff nurse and moving into the administrator position in 2002. Prior to coming to the center, she was a nurse at a rural hospital for five years and served for two years in the OR at the hospital.
“I absolutely love my job,” says Ms. Young. “I love ambulatory surgery. I found my niche.” She credits the success of her center and herself to her staff and physicians. “We work together as a family,” she says, and as a result, many people from outside who come into the center have noted its unique environment.
She also credits a part of her success to the support she receives from Woodrum/ASD, which manages the center. “If it wasn’t for them giving me the administrator opportunity and supporting me I wouldn’t be where I’m at,” she says.
Ms. Young has succeeded in creating a work place where the staff doesn’t hold grudges. “If we come across problems, we are able to go home and come back the next day, feeling new,” she says. “We make mistakes and move on.”
Most of all, Ms. Young says she considers the staff and physicians she works with her friends. “We have a personal relationship that is separate from our professional relationship,” she says. With this positive spirit, Ms. Young hopes to see her center continue to grow.
Note: To nominate an ASC administrator to know, e-mail Scott Becker at sbecker@mcguirewoods.com.
