J A n U A R Y 2 0 1 8 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 1 9
Surgery That Comes With a Warranty
Ensuring successful outcomes could be good for business.
W
hat if you could
guarantee that
your patients
would have successful out-
comes? Offering such a
promise might strike you as
risky given that unforeseen
infections and complications
are bound to occur even in
the most diligent ORs, but
the recent innovation of sur-
gical warranties — ensuring
your patients have success-
ful outcomes or else paying to fix any complications out of your own
pocket — might actually carry less risk, and hold more cost reward,
for you than you might think.
Such was the gamble that Geisinger Health in Danville, Pa., took in
spring of 2004. The group found that in order to build successful out-
comes (and therefore have a backing to build a warranty program), it
really started with forming specific guidelines for OR staff to follow.
Initially, Geisinger leaders met to discuss the problems facing medi-
cine — two of which being how American healthcare facilities spend
4 times as much money as other developed countries per capita and
often do things to patients that don't have proven benefits — and
began establishing not only how they could perform more successful-
ly on patients, but also how they could save their health system
money.
The group found that it boiled down to one thing: doctors' idiosyn-
Business Advisor
Brielle Gregory | Associate Editor
SUCCESS GUARANTEED By coming up with a set of best practices,
some surgical facilities are able to guarantee their patients have suc-
cessful outcomes.
