2023 OR Management Summit

7:15am – 8:00am
Conference Registration & Networking Breakfast 

8:00am – 8:10am
Chairperson’s Opening Remarks 

8:10am – 8:50am
Digital Healthcare Transformation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
New technologies are emerging under the umbrella of digital transformation in healthcare such as artificial intelligence (AI) and medical analytics to provide insights beyond the abilities of human experts. Because AI is increasingly used to support doctors in decision-making, risk assessment, and pattern recognition, it will most likely transform healthcare services and the way doctors deliver those services. This session will explore how integrating data from multiple sources and incorporating a range of tools, operating rooms will be a key platform for digitally enabled healthcare.

Chad Ramos
CEO
Privado Health  

8:50am – 9:30am
Key Metrics to Improve OR Utilization
When it comes to making lasting improvements in OR utilization, are you where you want to be? Operating rooms are the proverbial heart of a hospital. Flow of patients through the OR impacts all departments from the ED or ICU and beyond. Surgeries are a major event in the life of patients and their families and their experience in the OR a major driver of patient satisfaction. Financially, ORs account for 40-70% of revenue for a typical hospital. They also represent a significant amount of investment as well as operating cost. A well-managed OR can make all the difference in financial stability of the organization. This is why there is such an emphasis on running an efficient operating room at most hospitals. But what operating room efficiency metrics should you look at? How can OR leaders measure these metrics? What benchmarks can be used to see how an organization is doing? This session will explore how data analytics can be used to improve the metrics that drive your success in the OR, including:

• OR utilization and scheduling accuracy
• Pre-admission testing and case cancellations
• Case start timeliness
• Staffing

Becky McKenzie, DNP, MBA, MSN, RN
AVP Perioperative Services
Duke University Hospital

9:30am – 10:00am
Networking & Refreshments Break 

10:00am – 10:40am
Maximize Anesthesia Coverage and Minimize Financial Burden: Navigating the Crisis in Anesthesia
Healthcare leaders understand the critical importance of stable anesthesia coverage for hospitals and ASCs. However, the current anesthesia shortage is causing a crisis, with increasing demand for anesthesia coverage and fewer providers to meet the needs. Despite offering millions of dollars in increased stipend support, local and national anesthesia groups are struggling to recruit the necessary anesthesia providers to meet their service obligations.

This session, led by Jeff Peters, MBA and Founder and Chair Emeritus of Surgical Directions, will delve into the root causes of the anesthesia provider shortage and will deliver practical solutions to maintain quality anesthesia coverage with minimal financial support. Participants will learn about:

• The factors contributing to the shortage of anesthesia providers
• Strategies to reduce the need for financial support from anesthesia providers
• Techniques for providing quality anesthesia at a lower cost
• How to foster a collaborative perioperative culture to retain anesthesia and clinical OR staff

With Jeff Peters, a national thought leader in the perioperative services and anesthesiology industry, leading the session, attendees will receive expert insight and guidance on overcoming the anesthesia crisis and ensuring stable anesthesia coverage for their organization.

Jeff Peters
Founder and Chair Emeritus
Surgical Directions 

10:40am – 11:20am

Surgical Homes: An Effective Strategy for Growing Volume and Improving Clinical Outcomes
Surgical Homes are an effective Strategy to improve Surgical Outcomes, Improve Patient Satisfaction and Grow Surgical Home. Coordinated surgical patient care from the point of patient registration through the recovery process utilizing. ERAS protocols, Presurgical Optimization and Protocol based recovery helps to ensure patients have optimal outcomes at a reduced cost. Patient engagement is enhanced through the use of clinical apps to facilitate real time communication with providers along with helpful guidance on the recovery and rehabilitation process. The speakers will share data with Advocate Lutheran General Hospital on the positive impact of Surgical Homes for Colo-rectal patients.

Participants will learn:

• How to build collaboration between surgeons, anesthesia and nursing on the planning and execution of Surgical Homes
• The critical components of a Colo-rectal Surgical Home
• The critical components of Pre-Surgical Optimization for all operating rooms
• The impact of ERAS on improvement in clinical outcomes and financial performance
• About patient engagement tool that supports patient engagement and communication

Cindy Mahal van Brenk DNP, MS, RN, CNOR
VP of Surgical Services, Administration
Advocate Lutheran General

David Young, MD
Medical Director, Physician Consultant
Surgical Directions 

11:40am – 12:30pm

Dan Johnson
Director of Operating Room
Emerson Hospital 

12:30pm – 1:30pm
Lunch Break 

1:30pm – 2:15pm

A Strategic Solution to Staffing in the Perioperative Setting
Healthcare across the nation has faced an unprecedented staffing crisis.  According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), on average, around 195,400 openings for registered nurses are projected from 2021-2031.  The staffing situation at Lehigh Valley Health Network, a multi-site health network in Northeastern Pennsylvania, was further complicated when a prime feeder for Surgical Technologists graduates in the area closed.  Creative thinking by the Perioperative Leadership Team led them to create an LPN Internship.  Learn how the team leveraged a robust applicant pool to fill vacancies, increase morale, and decrease expenses.

Tammy Straub, MSN, RN, APRN, CNOR
Administrator Perioperative Service
Lehigh Valley Health Network 

2:10pm – 3:10pm
Panel: Optimizing the Operating Room
Caring for patients in traditionally designed, large hospitals is often frustrating. Attempts at decreasing internal costs and inpatient length of stay are universally undertaken in order to address dwindling reimbursement, and patient care becomes more specialized and fractionated. These attempts have proven to be myopic, at best, and injurious to patient care and professional job satisfaction, at worst. This session will examine operational processes of the operating room as well as suggestions for operational improvements to optimize patients, to enhance satisfaction, efficiency and outcomes, all of which can be applied to all hospitals.

Panelists:

Tammy Hutton, MSN, RN, CNOR
Assistant Nurse Manager, Neurosurgery
Cleveland Clinic Florida, Weston Hospital 

Becky McKenzie, DNP, MBA, MSN, RN
AVP Perioperative Services
Duke University Hospital 

Sheila Thompson, RN, BS
RN Practice Administrator
Twin Cities Pain Clinic

3:10pm – 3:40pm
Networking & Refreshments Break 

3:40pm – 4:20pm
Advancing Financial Performance of the OR: 5 Key Drivers for OR Directors
As hospitals are under continued pressure to improve their margins, they are looking to surgical services and the OR directors to assist in improving financial performance.  While operating room efficiencies and increased volume are important elements in driving performance of surgical services, there are 5 key drivers OR directors should consider as they look to improve their operating room performance. 

The presentation will incorporate basic principles of financial management applied to these 5 key drivers addressing concepts such as budget management, revenue cycle impacts, payer reimbursement, expense management and tracking profitability by procedure.  The participants will learn about:

• The 5 key drivers of operating rooms critical to driving financial performance.
• Techniques to enhance performance indicators and enhancing margins
• Sample reports and key performance indicators to measure performance
• Creating a clinically-driven financial culture to engage physicians and OR leadership teams

The session will be led by Daniel J. Marino, Managing Partner of Lumina Health Partners, a national thought leader and expert in strategic and operational performance improvement for healthcare provider organizations.

Daniel J. Marino
Managing Partner
Lumina Health Partners

4:20pm – 5:00pm
Ensuring Patient Safety in the Surgical Environment
Prevention of surgical errors requires the attention of all personnel involved in the patient’s care. Ensuring patient safety in the OR begins before the patient enters the operative suite and includes attention to all applicable types of preventable medical errors. This session will explore steps to prevent wrong-site, wrong-person, wrong-procedure errors, or retained foreign objects, starting with structured communication between the patient, the surgeon(s), and other members of the healthcare team.

David Shapiro, MD
Risk Manager
Red Hills Surgical Center

5:00pm
End of Day One

7:15am – 8:00am
Networking Breakfast 

8:00am – 8:15am
Chairperson’s Recap 

8:15am – 9:00am
Improving OR Patient Flow
OR performance has become a priority as surgical services represent an increasingly important revenue source for hospitals. Historically, surgical patient throughput was monitored with top-level metrics like “OR in to OR out” times via an operating room information system. But this high-level view doesn’t reveal why a procedure was delayed – only that a problem occurred. While OR processes appear to be highly standardized, the truth is that even the strictest protocols leave room for variation. Due to the complexity, it is difficult to accurately track and pinpoint the root cause of delays and bottlenecks in patient throughput and capacity management. In this session learn how using real-time data can improve OR patient flow and define goals to improve OR performance, improve processes, reach daily KPIs, enhance communication, and deliver real-time information to staff, as well as to waiting family members.

Sheila Thompson, RN, BS
RN Practice Administrator
Twin Cities Pain Clinic

9:00am – 9:45am
Managing Complexity in the Operating Room
Clinical work in the OR is considered challenging as it is complex, dynamic and often time- and resource-constrained. Important characteristics for successful management of complexity include adaptations and adaptive coordination when managing expected and unexpected events. This session will explore what makes things go well and how to best respond to challenges and compensate for constraints. We’ll dive into how complexity is best managed by operating room nurses, registered nurse anesthetists, and surgeons, and how these professionals adapt to create safe care in the OR.

Tammy Hutton, MSN, RN, CNOR
Assistant Nurse Manager, Neurosurgery
Cleveland Clinic Florida, Weston Hospital

9:45am – 10:15am
Networking & Refreshments Break 

10:15am – 11:00am
Operational and Strategic Decision Making in the Perioperative Setting
For optimal OR productivity, a surgical suite needs to define its main stakeholders, identify and create strategies to meet their needs, and ensure staff and patient satisfaction.

Efficient OR management is a constant balancing act between optimal OR capacity, allocation of ORs to surgeons, assignment of staff, ordering of materials, and reliable scheduling, while according the highest priority to patient safety. This session will provide an overview of common concepts in OR management, specifically addressing the areas of strategic, tactical, and operational decision making, and parameters to measure OR efficiency.

LaTasha Cherry, MSN, RN
Director of Nursing
Surgical Care Center

11:00am – 11:45am
Innovative Approaches to Address Critical Staffing challenges in ORs
Surgical case volume fluctuations due to inpatient capacity constraints have left perioperative departments facing growing backlogs and critical staffing and resource shortages. This session will explore how hospitals can better navigate this environment, and match OR supply and demand. Learn strategies for managing OR backlogs, mitigating staffing and resource constraints, and optimizing capacity despite an unpredictable environment.

Candy Ranshaw, BSN, RN, CNAMB
Chest Pain Coordinator
Steward Health

11:45am – 12:30pm
Perioperative Nursing: No Longer by Invitation Only
Recruitment and retention of perioperative registered nurses is a national concern. Vacancy rates and turnover are contributing to staffing gaps and the ability to support surgical volume. Innovative and creative methods to expose undergraduate nursing students to perioperative nursing through academic partnerships, and strategies to train graduate nurses as perioperative registered nurses, is critical to the future of perioperative nursing. Considering accommodations for both graduate nurses and experienced nurses choosing to transition to perioperative nursing, scheduling monthly onboarding into a hospital-based Perioperative Nurse Residency program has been key to “zero” vacancies, improving the operating room culture and environment of learning.

Sharon Udy-Janczuk, EdD, MSN, RN, CNOR, NE-BC
Perioperative Services, Director of Nursing, Special Projects
Nemours Children's Hospital 

Edna Gilliam, DNP, MBA, RN, CNOR
Assistant Vice President, Perioperative Services and SPD
Nemours Children's Hospital 

Cherie Crumpler, MSN, RN, CNOR
Clinical Nurse Educator, Perioperative Services
Nemours Children's Hospital

12:30pm
Conference Concludes

12:30pm – 2:30pm

Workshop
Growing Your Surgical Volume
The business goal of perioperative services is to grow surgical volume, market share and profitability. This session will provide participants with a framework to identify how to compete with investor-owned surgery centers and short-term strategies to grow OR volume. Topics to be discussed will include:

• How do you evaluate your competition?
• How do you compete with surgeon-owned ASCs?
• How do you identify specialties for growth?
• What are the key tactics to increase profitable surgical volume?

Jeff Peters
Founder and Chair Emeritus
Surgical Directions