PPE or insufficient
testing for incoming
patients, surgical lead-
ers need to consider
whether their return
to elective surgeries is safe for the patients and their staff."
Nimble and flexible
Mr. Horowitz wonders what caseloads will be like when the initial
push of catch-up cases subsides. "We have a couple hundred on back-
log, which we'll knock out in a couple of weeks," he says. "But then
what? Is anybody really going to want to come into medical facili-
ties?"
That fear has led him to focus even more on diversifying his anes-
thesia business across more facilities and specialties. "You never want
to have all your eggs in one basket," he says. "What I've learned pretty
quickly in this current reality we find ourselves in is that it's not
enough to diversify to a plastic surgeon and an eye surgeon and a
podiatrist. You have to look at providing service for elective and non-
elective procedures.
"Outpatient facilities need to start thinking about this too," contin-
ues Mr. Horowitz. "What kinds of services can they provide that won't
get shut down by the next pandemic?'"
Alternative uses of outpatient facilities during the pandemic haven't
really materialized, but the thought exercise could prove valuable. "I
think we're going to come out better than we went in," says Dr.
Shapiro. "This will end. All these discussions of the possibilities for
delivering different kinds of health care in ASCs will have a long-last-
ing result [as we] recalibrate because of this pandemic, which has
uncovered the best and the worst of health care. We were woefully
M A Y 2 0 2 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 4 7
"I think we're going to come out
better than we went in."
— David Shapiro, MD