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It's noon on Tuesday at your ambulatory surgery center (ASC). You've just cancelled a Thursday afternoon OR block. You rush to the phone to call the scheduler for one of your utilizing physicians, hoping that you can fill the slot. You don't want to think of the alternative—your OR dark and empty for four hours.

Surgery scheduling: the process at the heart of every ASC

The ASC surgery schedule drives staff productivity and operating room use—two key ASC performance indicators. Because it touches employees, physicians, patients, and their families, the schedule can create harmony or wreak havoc in every part of your ASC. When managed successfully, the surgery schedule is a foundation for efficient and timely patient care, satisfied physicians, and prompt reimbursement.

How can you reach surgery scheduling nirvana?

With Scheduling Strategies for Ambulatory Surgery Centers. This comprehensive book from HCPro will teach you how to schedule your ASC patients and procedures effectively and efficiently. Written from the ASC scheduler's point of view, it addresses block scheduling, a concept critical to the financial health of your ASC. Complete with best practice interviews from ASC schedulers, Scheduling Strategies for Ambulatory Surgery Centers is the only book currently available designed specifically for ASC surgery scheduling. Schedulers in hospital and office surgery settings will find this easy-to-understand resource helpful, as well.

Software guidance to help you standardize the scheduling process

Scheduling Strategies for Ambulatory Surgery Centers offers up-to-date advice on how software can standardize your scheduling process. Included are chapters written by the three major scheduling vendors: Experior-SurgeOn, Prescient-Vision, and Source Medical (SurgiSource and AdvantiX). Through these vendors you'll learn how their programs can help you free up staff with surgery schedule automation.

You don't have to go it alone—surgery scheduling is a team effort

Scheduling Strategies for Ambulatory Surgery Centers is primarily a tool for the surgery scheduler, but it also speaks to the importance of management's role in the success of the process.

Sample policies and forms to keep your surgery scheduling on track

Use the 16 sample forms and policies included in Scheduling Strategies for Ambulatory Surgery Centers as scheduling tools that can be easily adapted for your specific needs.

Table of contents at a glance

Introduction

• Scheduler as the vanguard
• Block scheduling
• Electronic preference cards
• Internet capabilities
• The "customer" surgeon
• The "customer" patient
• Scheduling, beyond tomorrow

Chapter 1: Successful surgery scheduling in an ASC

• Scheduling process flowsheet
• Block scheduling
• Sample block scheduling form

Chapter 2: The surgery scheduler-a personal look

• Sample surgical scheduler position description
• Surgery scheduler interviews: Some tips for success

Chapter 3: Scheduling Roles at Your ASC

• The role of the physician office scheduler
• The scheduling guidelines manual

Chapter 4: Information Systems for Surgery Scheduling

• Experior-Surge-On
• Prescient-Vision
• Source Medical-SurgiSource
• Source Medical-AdvantX

Index of sample policies and forms:

• Scheduling procedures for surgery policy
• Scheduling rules summary policy
• Preoperative testing guidelines policy
• Admission/registration of patients policy
• Minor procedure room, scheduling and admission to/utilization of policy
• Charting, presurgical worksheet instructions policy
• Observers in the operating room policy
• Anesthesia policy
• Advance directive/living will policy
• HIPAA communications form
• Fax scheduling request form
• Aborted or cancelled case checklist

About the author

Dawn Q. McLane-Kinzie, RN, MSA, CASC, CNOR, serves as vice president of operations for Aspen Healthcare of Boulder, CO, a firm that specializes in the development and management of ASCs and surgical hospitals. Formerly executive director for Allied Physicians Surgery Center, a physician-owned, multi-specialty surgery center which opened in South Bend, IN, in 2000, McLane-Kinzie was responsible for all phases of start-up, administration, and leadership for the center's clinical and financial activities. Previously, as clinical director for RiverPointe Surgery Center in Elkhart, IN, Ms. McLane-Kinzie was responsible for the clinical management of the center until 1999. Ms. McLane-Kinzie has also worked in the hospital setting as a director of surgical services and as a staff nurse in surgery, the emergency room, and obstetrics.

• Books

• Other Ambulatory Surgery Center Products
• Other Executive Leadership Products