In today’s growth environment of value-based care, expanding ambulatory care platforms can help hospitals build brand loyalty by improving relationships directly with patients while also better managing revenue.
For example, having invested heavily in electronic medical records (EMRs) over the past several years, hospital aligned facilities can now access a patient’s health record anytime and anywhere to see what procedures they’ve performed in the past. Extending this benefit across ambulatory care platforms is reassuring to patients, and helps hospitals capture a greater percentage of a patient’s lifetime value.
The move to value-based care is forcing healthcare leaders to reconsider their entire patient care model including where procedures are performed. According to Joel Allison, Chief Executive Officer of Baylor Scott & White Health (formerly Baylor Health Care System), this “population health” approach requires a system that offers care from the simplest procedures to the most complex, all performed in the most appropriate, cost-effective settings. In a recent interview with The Dallas Morning News, Allison stressed this new model requires stronger collaboration between hospitals and physicians saying, “You may not own it all,” he said. “But you make sure you and your partners agree on quality.”
A timely example of “appropriate, cost-effective settings” is outpatient urgent care centers. According to Chris Bishop, Regent’s Chief Executive Officer, these consumer-friendly healthcare sites are enjoying rapid growth now because, when compared to hospital emergency rooms, they provide a significantly better consumer experience, more cost effectively, closer to home and they attract physicians who are ideally suited to urgent – but non-emergent – care.
Regent Surgical Health’s successful track record with ASCs illustrates the need to move more surgery to outpatient centers. “In terms of healthcare spending, surgery is number two, second only in cost to disease state management,” said Bishop. “As a market leader in the ASC space, we assist our hospital partners more cost-effectively managing their surgical spend. The progressive health systems are identifying appropriate specialties to transition out of the hospital setting and into a surgery center. It’s a more convenient, high-quality experience for the patient and often can be performed at a substantially reduced cost, with lower risk of infection and readmission.”
Regent’s national team of clinical, operational and financial experts offer a comprehensive solution from crafting ambulatory strategy to partnership/center development to managing day-to-day operations. The company’s track record with 23 high performing operational facilities in the United States and Europe suggests ASCs can play an important role in maximizing the opportunity for a health systems value-based care strategy.
To learn more about Regent’s approach to ambulatory care strategy, download their white paper.