around her, Monica Eckhardt RN, MSN, wondered why her facility
couldn't go one step further.
"Often, they'd give patients the names of orthopods to follow up
with, but they still couldn't be seen quick enough," says Ms. Eckhardt,
service line administrator for neurosciences and orthopedics at St.
Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, Pa. "I said, 'How can we make this
work?'"
The key was to convince her 45 orthopedic surgeons to hold open
certain times for patients with fractures and other manageable trau-
mas that could be seen and treated either at the hospital's surgery
center or at another nearby ASC. Besides that commitment, all that's
needed is a dedicated phone line.
"When patients call, they get a nurse who does a very brief intake to
find out what the chief complaint is," says Ms. Eckhardt. "Typically,
we see strains and sprains, although there could be minor fractures.
It's typically injuries from daily living — trips and falls, sports, things
of that nature."
"Patients can be seen and treated promptly," she says, "and that's
the name of the game. It's all about access. We really just wanted to
make sure patients had that access."
"Doods" come through
Sandy Singleton, MBA, was certain her hospital was losing trauma
patients who had to wait up to 5 days to see an orthopod.
"If you have a child with a broken arm, you don't want to wait 5
days," she says. "And we had competition that could see them right
away."
That changed 7 years ago when Cincinnati Children's Hospital,
which operates a Fracture and Sports Trauma (FAST) Clinic on the
hospital's main campus, and several satellite clinics, came up with the
F E B R U A R U Y 2 0 1 8 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 7 1
