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O R
M A N A G E M E N T
"COORDINATING THE ENTIRE OR PROCESS"
Life of a Truly Hands-On Anesthesiologist
I
do everything at my 4-OR surgery center. Not just clinically. I get involved far beyond that. My
role here at the Paoli Surgery Center in suburban Philadelphia is really coordinating the
entire OR process, not only on a clinical basis, but also in the behind-the-scenes business
aspects and acting as liaison between our corporate partner and the surgeons' staff, and
between the anesthesia and nursing teams. It's an all-encompassing role. I try to keep my finger
on the pulse on all levels.
• Wine and dine surgeons. I enjoy having dinner with other surgeons' offices. There's no better
way to get more cases at your surgery center than to share a meal, either with surgeons you're
trying to recruit or with those whose volumes you're trying to increase.
• Credentialing. As president of the medical staff, I review and approve surgeons' credentialing
files. We have around 100 physicians, so it's a pretty big job. Between 2 and 5 recredentialing
packets land on my desk every week.
• Peer review. Twice a month, I'm involved in peer review. We'll pick a subgroup such as ENT,
pediatrics, orthopedics or cataracts, and review their cases. Just the other day, we peerreviewed 30 cases. Nurses go through charts to make sure we checked all that we should have.
• Quality assurance committee. Once a month, this committee — our head nurse, 2 surgeons
and I — meets to go over infection control issues, whether patients received their antibiotics on
time, complications and new policies we're considering.
• Medical executive committee. The medical executive committee must approve all amendments to our center's policies. A group of 7 doctors, the administrator, the head nurse and the
head OR nurse meets quarterly to discuss certain issues that we'd like to bring to this committee
for approval. Examples of issues we've recently tackled: adding or removing drugs from the for-
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | F E B R U A R Y 2013
