Hospitalists branch into perioperative medicine with preop assessments

At the Cleveland Clinic and other programs, orthopedic surgeons have been at the leading edge of requesting preoperative services from hospitalists.

2. Space. Secondly, you will need office space for evaluating patients. Jaffer recommends negotiating for free space from the hospital when possible.

Another inexpensive alternative is to set up shop at a preadmission testing clinic that is already oriented toward providing preoperative services.

3. Staffing model. The IMPACT Center has a staff of four administrative personnel, two nurses, and five hospitalists. Jaffer says that if he wanted to run a leaner operation, he could probably get by with two administrative staff members. He estimates that one hospitalist is needed to see about 14 patients per day and .5 nurses is needed for each hospitalist. Some programs make use of physician extenders (e.g., physician assistants) and residents in their preoperative clinics. In terms of scheduling, Cleveland Clinic hospitalists work at the IMPACT Center for two weeks at a time. During the course of a year, the 24 hospitalists at the Cleveland Clinic will work at the preop clinic for a total of about eight to 12 weeks. Jaffer says the rotations in the preop clinic give hospitalists time to decompress and may help prevent burnout.

4. Salary. Once you determine the number of staff needed, you can then project the budget for salaries, which, of course, are influenced by the geographic area in which you are providing services, Jaffer says.

5. Structure. The IMPACT Center offers preoperative assessments every day from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with an hour off for lunch. Patient appointments last for half an hour. For new programs, Jaffer recommends that hospitalists designate certain hours during the week when they will conduct preoperative assessments. It is important to accommodate surgeons, especially at the beginning, he stresses. If you turn down too many requests for preoperative assessments on patients because of an overbooked schedule or a lack of staff, surgeons may stop requesting your services, Jaffer adds.

6. Skill set. Before undertaking a perioperative program, ensure that hospitalists are comfortable with their perioperative medicine skills. Hospitalists just out of residency programs “are not always up to speed in the nuances of perioperative medicine,” Jaffer says. Others may shy away from providing outpatient services because they’re more comfortable with the inpatient setting.

7. Screening tools. According to Jaffer, it would be a waste of time for a hospitalist to conduct a preoperative assessment on a healthy 30-year-old who is scheduled for toe surgery. As a result, it is important to screen all patients. The anesthesia department at the Cleveland Clinic has developed an online preoperative health questionnaire called the HealthQuest that rates patients’ risk profiles on a scale of one to four based on medical history. Patients with scores of three or four are usually referred to the Cleveland Clinic. Some vendors market screening programs based on this module, but a hospital medicine program could develop its own questionnaire for screening purposes.

8. Standardization. An important role for hospitalists is to help standardize their facility’s perioperative care by ensuring that all practitioners involved in a patient’s care are on the same page regarding cardiopulmonary risk assessment, perioperative beta blockers, anticoagulation therapy, diabetes management, etc. Jaffer says hospitalists’ involvement in preoperative assessments of patients provides a perfect opportunity for them to communicate with surgeons and anesthesiologists about the standardization of care before, during, and after surgery.

9. Services. About one in five patients who undergoes preoperative assessment is recommended as a candidate for postoperative services with a hospitalist, Jaffer says.

As a result, the IMPACT Center hospitalist who rotates on the inpatient medical consult service and is aided by the internal medicine residents provides postoperative follow-ups. Patients are recommended for postoperative follow-up if they are at high risk for cardiac or pulmonary complications, delirium, or confusion; require perioperative anticoagulation management; or have other medical issues. In addition to preop services for elective surgery, a hospital medicine program can offer preop services for more emergent procedures (e.g., hip fractures, etc.) for which patients may come through the emergency department, Jaffer says.

10. Systems issues. Part of a preoperative program launch plan entails outlining for administrators the benefits of providing such assessments to the system as a whole. According to Jaffer, preoperative assessments by hospitalists can result in

Hospitalist program needs outpatient orientation to make preoperative clinic a success

One challenge for a hospital medicine program in setting up a preoperative clinic is putting in place an outpatient infrastructure for scheduling appointments, examining patients, and communicating with them on an outpatient basis, says Jeffrey Dichter, MD, FACP, founder of the hospitalist program at Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, IN. A hospital medicine program typically does not have that outpatient infrastructure, he says.

Scheduling is a particularly key function for a preoperative clinic. The preoperative clinic at the 350-bed Ball Memorial assesses about 250 patients per year, says Dichter.

The program got its start when orthopedic surgeons began requesting that hospitalists perform preoperative assessments of their patients who were scheduled for joint-replacement surgery.

Currently, the clinic schedules two to three assessments per week but could handle up to three patients daily Monday through Friday, according to Dichter. The hospitalists see patients at the specialty practice’s offices.

Whenever possible, the practice tries to assign a patient in the preoperative clinic to the same hospitalist that will care for him or her postsurgery to establish familiarity, Dichter adds. The hospitalists at Ball Memorial also strive to fulfill their commitment to begin a patient’s preop assessment within 15 minutes of a patient’s arrival.

To ensure success, a preoperative clinic must also be diligent in following up on tests ordered during the preoperative assessment. This step is critical enough to warrant establishing a standardized procedure, Dichter says. “This is not an insignificant amount of work or devotion of resources.”

Dichter recommends dedicating one staff member to the outpatient portion of the practice. He or she doesn’t have to be a full-time employee, but should be one who is accountable. Dictations, which should be done in a timely manner and sent to the anesthesiologist when complete, are another consideration.

There are also special communication challenges in operating a preoperative assessment clinic, Dichter says. Primary care physicians and referring physicians must be informed regularly of their patients’ preoperative assessments.

Specialty consultants should be told why they are being asked to assess a preop clinic patient. Lastly, patients must be educated about why it is necessary to undergo a preop assessment, Dichter says.

Sample protocol for evaluating patients preoperatively

In preoperatively evaluating patients, hospitalists at the Cleveland Clinic’s IMPACT Center use the following guidelines:

1. General

2. Cardiac

3. Pulmonary

4. Neurologic

5. Hematologic

6. Endocrine

Muscoloskeletal

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