Across the United States, ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and office-based labs (OBLs) — now numbering more than 9,200 and 700 respectively — conducted more than half of all outpatient surgeries in 2017, compared with 32% in 2005. One healthcare analytics company has predicted that 85% of all surgeries will be conducted in the outpatient setting by 2028. These facilities are perfectly positioned to capture a growing proportion of the elective-surgery market, in part because of advancements in technology, technique, and safety that have prompted Medicare to determine that numerous procedures no longer require hospitalization — decisions that are likely to inform private payors’ policies, as well. As a result, a variety of cardiovascular services, spine surgeries, interventional radiology treatments, joint replacements, and image-guided procedures are now routinely performed by outpatient providers. The trend is also driven by the $40 billion saved annually by shifting those services to outpatient facilities, which receive Medicare reimbursement at 55% of the hospital rate. The transition is cost-effective not only for patients, who are charged lower co-pays, but for physicians, who garner a larger proportion of reimbursements when providing care in these lower-overhead, freestanding facilities. A final catalyst for the shift is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left hospitals with a backlog of elective procedures and many patients determined to avoid high-volume, general-care settings in the long term.
As non-emergent surgeries migrate from hospitals to dedicated outpatient facilities, ASCs and OBLs are preparing to absorb a growing influx of patients with a variety of medical needs. Before they pick up that mantle, these providers will need to ensure that they can expertly perform a wide range of procedures; that the quality, safety, and convenience of their practices are top-notch; and that these benefits are recognized by patients and their referring physicians. An important first step for these providers will involve ensuring that their physicians, lab technicians, nurses, physician assistants, and other staff members are not only aware of but trained in the latest techniques and device applications across a wide range of procedures, resulting in greater expertise at individual facilities and broadly across the field of outpatient care. “To distinguish themselves as trusted facilities, outpatient providers will need to stay deeply connected not only with potential patients, but with the galvanizing influence of colleagues and medical-device experts around the world,” said Dr. Joel Rainwater, an interventional radiologist and founder of Comprehensive Integrated Care, an outpatient practice in Arizona, Utah, and Oregon. “For facilities with small footprints and lean budgets, an ideal way to engage with those communities is to furnish procedure rooms with technology designed to instantly connect staff members with remote collaborators.”
Avail Medsystems provides a solution to facilitate remote connections with livestreamed procedures to the iPads or computers of remote parties. Equipped with high definition, high-powered video cameras and inputs for surgical imaging, the Avail system allows remote users to “join” a procedure, control cameras to view it from different angles and distances, monitor imaging, and communicate two-way with the operating practitioner. Professional networking through remote collaboration technology (i.e., the Avail system) is an efficient and effective way for staff members at these outpatient facilities to embrace this patient shift — both by learning techniques, procedures, and the application of tools from top experts and by sharing their own knowledge with the medical and device communities. These interactions can spur the growth of freestanding practices individually and across the entire outpatient ecosystem by establishing them as centers of excellence, in some cases with specific areas of specialty, and offering them new avenues for referrals. Ultimately, this raises patient awareness about the comfort, convenience, cost-effectiveness, and professional excellence of these facilities, creating a solid level of trust that reassures clients who initially may have been reluctant to transition away from hospitals.
For outpatient providers, the ability to livestream surgeries and other procedure room interactions at the touch of a button, anytime, anywhere, is crucial to the top-notch, comprehensive provision of elective surgical care that is designed to fill a growing patient need — and the Avail system facilitates the supportive network that makes it possible.
This article is an expert from a full-length whitepaper entitled: Outpatient Providers Turn to Remote Collaboration Technology as they Ramp Up Caseload Capacity.
The editorial staff had no role in this post's creation.