How to Align Anesthesia and Surgical Teams
If your anesthesia and surgical teams are disjointed, problems ensue. Ultimately, your bottom line will be negatively impacted, and quality metrics could decline. Finding an anesthesia group that meshes well with your surgical team is critical to the success of any hospital or surgery center. CCI Anesthesia is proficient in aligning anesthesia teams to meet unique surgical team needs, and here are some of the strategies we employ in order to be successful:
Set Expectations for Anesthesia
Rather than being a drag on efficiency, your anesthesia team should support fast turnovers and use other strategies to help save time. Additionally, your anesthesia providers should be working hard to meet the unique needs of every surgeon. At CCI Anesthesia, our Chief of Anesthesia is clear on what the Chief of Surgery needs and expects, and vice versa. Our goal is to support you in every way we can, and the best way for us to do that is through clear communication.
Collaborate and Connect Regularly
Our leaders make time to talk with all stakeholders regularly about what is working well and what can be improved. These insights are shared with the entire anesthesia department and plans are made accordingly on how to implement constructive changes. Similarly, if our anesthesia providers are facing challenges, we will discuss the matter quickly with other department heads in a way that considers all possible solutions.
In the spirit of collaboration and teamwork, our anesthesia providers are encouraged to serve on hospital committees or in other leadership roles that allow them to help improve operational efficiencies. In these roles, our anesthesia providers are able to regularly coordinate with nursing and administrative staff to ensure everyone is on the same page. When teams work well together, everyone’s job is easier. This is why we offer mentorship opportunities to our boots-on-the-ground anesthesia providers through the CCI Leadership Institute.
Identify Best Practices and Implement New Processes
All of these good ideas would be worthless if we did not act upon the new information being shared and received. Our Chiefs are experts in developing new processes and successfully implementing them in ways that transform ideas into reality. We love timelines and considering who the new processes will ultimately touch or impact, as well as what adjustments need to be made to implement successfully. These efforts create value for our clients because they often result in improved efficiencies and better clinical outcomes.
Another way we create value for our clients is through implementation of customer-focused, standardized care initiatives that are based on national best practices and derived from Six Sigma and Lean principles. Our practice management teams monitor operational efficiency in real-time through our tablet-based EMR system while our clinical informatics team maintains a constant watch on quality metrics.
Improving Organizational Alignment Requires Experience
When it comes to organizational alignment, experience matters. Since 2004, CCI Anesthesia has taken on some of the most challenging issues relating to surgical and anesthesia team alignment and has been able to successfully implement positive changes every time. We are extremely experienced in transitioning anesthesia departments away from outdated management strategies and into a new era of excellence.
If your facility needs help aligning anesthesia and surgical teams, contact us today for more information on transitioning to CCI Anesthesia. In addition to reversing departmental inefficiencies and boosting quality and clinical outcomes, we are able to save our clients an average of $300,000 annually on anesthesia costs. Contact us today to speak with an anesthesia business leader who can offer insight into how proper organizational alignment can improve your bottom line.