Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 1 • O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y . N E T • 11 hospital to the surgery center. "We're expecting to capture 20% to 30% of the outpatient ortho- pedic procedures that are current- ly being performed at the hospital across the street," says Peter G. Noordsij, MD, a board-certified orthopedic surgery specialist at Concord Orthopaedics. Designing a center for a service line with case volumes that are expected to explode over the next decade-plus can be challenging. That's why Mr. Paris invested time in getting input from staff at every level. He and the practice's leader- ship team held multiple "character sessions," during which they solicited feedback from the entire staff on anything in the old facility that could be improved in the new center. Then, they shadowed individual staff members to see what they did on a daily basis, put on scrubs and observed surgeries in action and spent time in sterile processing to watch staff workflow and note how instruments moved through the department. "We discovered team members had numerous workarounds they were doing in the existing space," says Mr. Paris. "We knew we could easily eliminate those design issues in the new facility." Concord's leadership team used a forward- thinking focus and staff-based suggestions to cre- ate a new facility filled with plenty of standout fea- tures, including: • A welcoming lobby. Patients form their first impressions the moment they set foot in facilities. That's why the Concord team spent plenty of time with its architects and interior designers in an effort to find the design that fit their facility's brand and created the first impression they wanted for patients. The 1,200-square-foot lobby not only fea- tures a large, open area with lots of windows and bright space, but also areas segregated with planters and outfitted with furniture equipped with USB ports for patients and family members looking for a quieter waiting experience. "We wanted to create intimate sections where families can wait without feeling like they're sitting at an airport gate," says Mr. Paris. Concord also added a few extras to the waiting area that are geared toward patients' fami- lies. "We put in patient tracking boards where they can see where their loved ones are during each phase of the care process," says Dr. Noordsij. • Strategic central sterile placement. One of the most significant design features in the new cen- ter involved placing the facility's five, 640-square- foot ORs around the sterile processing department as opposed to in a linear layout. This choice seemed counterintuitive on the surface, but the leadership spent a significant amount of time analyzing staff's processes and decided it was the better choice. "A more linear design would have used up less square footage, but it wasn't efficient for our staff and our processes," says Mr. Paris. The sterile processing department's expanded physical space — 873 square feet — was a vast improvement for staff. "In our previous center, repro- cessing techs would pull instrument trays out of a sterilizer and wouldn't have enough room to maneu- ver in order to place them on a cart," says Mr. Paris. • State-of-the-art ORs. Because most of Concord's capital equipment was at the end of its serviceable life, the group filled the new center's ON BRAND The blue, white and gray color scheme used throughout the brand-new Orthopaedic Surgery Center matches the logo of its physician group, Concord Orthopaedics.