Connect to physician offices through Internet
Connect to physician offices through Internet
Quick, effective communications boost scheduling
(Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series that examines the use of computers and networks to communicate with employees and physician offices. This month, we look at how an outpatient surgery program can use the Internet to tie physician offices into the scheduling system. Next month, we evaluate the use of an intranet to communicate with employees.)
Coordinating operating rooms, surgical equipment, and staff to come up with a surgery schedule that has no cancellations, few delays, and happy surgeons is a challenge. While most outpatient surgery programs still rely upon faxes, e-mails, or phone calls from surgeons' office staffs to schedule OR time, some programs are using the Internet to provide interactive, real-time communication with surgeons' schedulers to improve the process.
"We schedule almost 8,000 cases each year, and we have always relied upon faxed forms from the surgeons' offices to develop the schedule," says Laurie Eberly, chief operating officer of Newark Surgery Center in Newark, OH. Some faxes contained illegible or incomplete information, which meant extra telephone calls to the surgeons' office to gather information and more calls to confirm the schedule, she points out.
"We were looking at using our web site as a way for office schedulers to send in information, and then we discovered another web-based product that would do what we wanted without the need to create our own system," she says. The product is Surgery Center Online Resource (SCOR) from SurgeryCenter.com in Columbus, OH. "Now, physician office schedulers can access their surgeons' schedule as well as the block times assigned to them to see what is open," Eberly says.
The initial implementation fee for the product starts at $1,000, and monthly fees are determined by volume of surgery program. The company offers a 30-day free trial to enable the surgery program to identify customized needs.
The office scheduler uses the web-based system to submit a request for a day and time for a surgery. "The request includes the patient's name, address, phone numbers, insurance information, diagnosis and CPT codes," she says. "All of this information helps us get started on the registration process as soon as the procedure is scheduled.
Even though the physician office scheduler can view the schedule and place a hold on spots in the schedule, the final decision is made by the surgery program scheduler, says David Moody, RN, administrator of Knightsbridge Surgery Center in Columbus, OH. Approval of the "hold" or "request" is based upon staffing and equipment, he says. "At one point, we only had one C-arm, so if a physician's office scheduled a procedure that required the C-arm at the same time another surgeon was using it, we could not schedule both," he explains.
Once the schedulers have reviewed the request to make sure that there are no conflicts, the procedure is scheduled. It appears on the surgery schedule that can be seen by the physician's office scheduler. If there is a need to adjust the requested time or day, an e-mail message is sent to the physician's scheduler, Moody says.
The nice thing about the e-mail communications is the instant documentation of all communications with the physician's office, says Eberly. "It was hard to keep track of phone notifications or communications when multiple calls were made to set a schedule, and sometimes the scheduler was not able to document everything," she says. There is a record with the automatic messaging, which results in less miscommunication and documentation that the notifications of changes were made, Eberly adds.
Because physicians can access their schedule using their password on any computer that is connected to the Internet, there is less confusion about schedules, says Eberly. "We used to have one surgeon who was a challenge because he could not keep his schedule straight," she says. With the ability to check his schedule from home, he doesn't arrive late anymore, Eberly adds. "We even have some surgeons show up for their first procedure carrying the schedule their office scheduler printed off our system," she says with a laugh. Anesthesiologists also find it helpful to be able to check the center's schedule from their homes so that they can adjust their hours to fit the caseload, Eberly says.
The concept of using the Internet to give access to real-time communications with your surgery program is a natural evolution of case scheduling, says Scott Riemenschneider, president of ScheduleSurgery.com in Columbus, OH. Although different facilities use intranet for interdepartmental communications, there is less communication between surgery programs and physician offices outside the hospital or surgery center because these offices are not part of the surgery program's network, he points out. "We began development of SCOR after one of our information technology consultation clients asked if there was something available that would give all of their physician offices access to the schedule so they could improve the efficiency of scheduling," Riemenschneider explains.
Key requirements for the initial surgery center, as well as subsequent clients, were meeting Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) regulations as well as maintaining control of the schedule, he says.
Logins and passwords protect privacy
Surgeons and their office staff are given access only to schedules or block time on the schedule that belongs to that specific surgeon or practice, Riemenschneider says. This practice prevents a surgeon's scheduler from affecting anyone else's schedule, and it protects the privacy of patient information, he explains.
The office scheduler only can place a hold on the surgery schedule, Riemenschneider adds. "The procedure is not actually on the schedule until the surgery program schedule reviews the request, confirms that there are no conflicts, and approves the request," he says.
Because the web-based system acts as an interface between the physician office and the surgery program's scheduling software, there is little training required because schedulers don't need to learn how to use a completely new system, Riemenschneider says. "It is important that the system is compatible with a variety of scheduling software systems so that it is easy to implement," he adds.
Training required for surgery schedulers was minimal, says Eberly. "Because the information entered into the SCOR system automatically transfers to our Advantix system, our schedulers don't have to spend time re-entering information," she says. Educating the physician office schedulers took about five minutes. After an initial period during which schedulers were tentative about trusting the system, use of the web-based system to set schedules grew quickly, she says. "About 95% of all of our physician office schedulers use the web-based system exclusively," she says. The others use a combination of web-based and phone calls to set the schedules or make adjustments, she adds.
They are seeing about 50% of cases scheduled through the web-based system, Moody says. "But we do have some physician schedulers who are in offices without computers or Internet connections, or have urgent requests for today or tomorrow and prefer to talk to a person," he says. Because so many of the routine scheduling issues are handled more efficiently, the surgery program schedulers now have time to handle urgent requests, Moody points out.
One concern expressed by Eberly's schedulers when the software was introduced was that they would lose their jobs. "It's important to reassure your schedulers that they are still critical to the surgery program and that this is not a tool to replace them, but it is a tool that will help them better do their job and will improve customer service to our physician offices," she says.
An efficient scheduling process also is a good marketing tool, Eberly says. Because a person doesn't have to be on the other end of the phone to discuss scheduling options or to respond to a fax after hours, physician schedulers who are in offices with extended hours, or schedulers who choose to stay after normal work hours to send in requests because it is quiet, can do so anytime, she says. "It is not necessary to wait until Monday to talk with someone; nor is it necessary to wait for confirmation that a fax is received," she says. "Although some adjustments may be necessary once the surgery scheduler reviews the request, the physician's scheduler can be sure that there won't be big changes. This flexibility has increased the likelihood that the scheduler uses our center rather than one without this type of system."
Sources/Resource
For more information about web-based scheduling, contact:
- Laurie Eberly, Chief Operating Officer, Newark Surgery Center, 2000 Tamarack Road, Newark, OH 43055. Telephone: (740) 788-6010. Fax: (740) 788-6002. E-mail: [email protected].
- David Moody, RN, Administrator, Knightsbridge Surgery Center, 4845 Knightsbridge Blvd., Columbus, OH 43214. Telephone: (614) 273-0400. E-mail: [email protected].
- Scott Riemenschneider, President, ScheduleSurgery.com, 1111 Dublin Road, Columbus, OH 43215. Telephone: (888) 463-9058, ext. 103. Fax: (614) 442-3920. E-mail: [email protected].
- For more information about the Surgery Center Online Resource (SCOR), go to www.schedulesurgery.com.
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