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7 0 O U T P AT 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 | M A R C H 2 0 1 4 2. Hang a supply spreadsheet in your ORs Ongoing communication — both formal and informal — is essential. Fortunately, I have a very engaged group of surgeons. They come to our board meetings and they want to know what's going on when it comes to choosing which implants and other products to use. I used to tell them, based on prices: Use this product, use that product, don't use this product. But it's hard to remember all that information. And it's even harder to put into practice when a product rep is monitoring the surgery and encouraging the surgeon to use his particular implant. Eventually, my surgeons asked if I could provide an easily accessi- ble list of all the products we use, along with their prices — a guide that would help them decide which items to use under which circum- stances. What we came up with is a spreadsheet that hangs on the wall in the ORs. That's a mock sample chart below so you can get a sense of what yours might look like. We list items in order from cheapest to most expensive, and to put it all in perspective, the list is color-coded. The items that are less expensive are in the green category; the ones that are a little more expensive, but maybe clinically prudent for some cases, are in the yel- low category. And then there's the red category. That's for the most expensive items and for items from companies that don't want to work with us. It's a great decision-making tool for the surgeons and very valuable when a rep is in the OR, pushing his product. Used to be they'd feel bad if they didn't use that product. But now they can say: Hey, dude, your implant's in the red, you've got to get your price down. If you guys won't play the game, you're going to stay in the red and we're going to be discouraged from giving you business. Of course, we're talking here about products that are clinically equivalent. A metal anchor, for example, is a metal anchor, so why not O R T H O E C O N O M I C S OSE_1403_part2_Layout 1 3/5/14 10:52 AM Page 70