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ASCs in the news: PA ASC uses online pre-assessment to reduce procedure cancellations

Ambulatory Surgery Reimbursement Update, August 5, 2008

The Surgery Center at Brinton Lake, in Glen Mills, PA, is a two-year-old ASC that is part of the Crozer-Keystone Health System. According to the Crozer-Keystone Web site, this well-wired health system has recently introduced online billing. It’s no surprise, then, that the Surgery Center also looked for online answers to a perennial problem for ASCs: procedure cancellations due to patient no-shows and incomplete pre-assessments.

Gina Espenschied, RN, BSN, CNOR, director of nursing at The Surgery Center, says that the facility chose SourcePlus Passport, a software solution by Medical Web Technologies (MWT) of Norwell, MA. According to an MWT news release, the product permits patients to complete their own registration and preoperative medical history online from home, with only internet access. SourcePlus Passport’s patient assessment checklist allows ASC staff members to see if any patient information is still outstanding with a mouse click, according to MWT. The product allows facility-wide access to the data and provides an audit trail for completion of staff tasks.

“One of the main reasons people choose to have surgery at an ambulatory surgery center is convenience,” says Espenschied in a Crozer-Keystone news release. “Our patients arrive just 30 to 60 minutes prior to their surgery time.” Now, front end staff bring patients to the preoperative area, she says, where they meet their operating room nurse and the anesthesiologist and enter the operating room within a matter of minutes.

In the MWT news release, Espenschied says that within six weeks of installing SourcePlus Passport, her ASC saw day-of surgery cancellations reduced by more than 70%.

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