Today, surgical specialty clinics are up against a serious challenge: a lack of qualified providers. Clinics are often stymied as they try to mitigate the staffing shortage due to limited resources, the ever-increasing demand for services, and rising patient expectations for a consumer-type experience in healthcare settings.
The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of between 10,100 and 19,800 surgeons by 2036. According to the American College of Surgeons, the financial burden of a medical education is a major driver of this problem. They state that this shortage is “a critical component of the crisis in healthcare because only surgeons are uniquely trained and qualified to provide certain necessary, lifesaving procedures.”
Making matters worse, the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) reports that 20% of the nation’s surgical nurses will reach retirement age in the next five years. And there’s also a shortage of anesthesiologists. The Journal of Medicine, Surgery, and Public Health reports on this shortage and the increasing demand for surgical services, driven in part by the aging population in the U.S.          Â
Surgery clinics serve a vital purpose; if patients must delay care because no surgical providers are available near them, poor outcomes may result. With increasing demand coupled with increasing provider shortage, how can these clinics find a way to succeed?
Streamline Clinic Functions by Going Digital
Strategically deployed digital solutions that enable real-time data integration, utilize patient-entered data, prioritize digital patient intake, and engage with and educate patients can help reduce some of the burden created by staffing shortages in surgical specialty clinics. Let’s take a deeper dive into these four strategic capabilities:Â
1.  Integrate data directly into the EHR in real time data
Surgical providers can improve their decision-making and enhance patient care when patient’s test results and other data are documented in the EHR as soon as that information is available. Patient safety and clinical decision support are also enhanced by access to information from medical devices and retrospective electronic health record (EHR) data.
EHR integration of real-time data helps surgical providers give patients the top-quality care they seek. Clinicians can reduce unnecessary tasks, tests and procedures by accessing comprehensive, current patient data, which also enables better clinical decisions and health outcomes.
2.  Enable patient-entered digital data instead of paper templates
When patients are asked to fill out paper templates at the clinic, it not only takes time but also can result in errors. Patients can make mistakes or leave out critical information because they don’t have access to the details, and manual data entry into software is always prone to error.
When clinics can leverage digital patient-generated health data, they can save time during the patient’s appointment, increase data accuracy, empower the patient, and enable better patient care. For surgical staff, patient-generated health data improves care delivery by enabling them to easily access important information about a patient’s status.Â
3.  Transition to digital patient intake
To streamline registration, clinics can employ digital check-in during the patient intake process. The result is rapid retrieval of completed patient forms, insurance verification, and surgical procedure consent forms. Digital check-in frees up front-office staff, and the surgical staff can view a complete and accurate medical history and medication status.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) reports that digital check-in decreases patient intake time by 20 percent, reducing the burden on the front desk. Digital check-in also helps optimize patient scheduling, reduce waiting room time, and decrease errors during the registration process. The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) reports that “patient satisfaction often goes hand in hand with practice efficiency.” They discuss several key benefits to digital patient intake:
- Â Reduced wait times helps mitigate the number of disruptive patients, a number that increased by 71% in 2021 according to an MGMA Stat poll.
- Â When patients self-report from the comfort of home, it helps improve patient-reported outcomes (PROs). This includes important information such as social determinants of health and family history.
- Â Payer information and financial responsibility can be identified and verified prior to clinic visits/procedures.
- Â Patients spend less time at the clinic and benefit from self-service and convenience.
Because patient expectations have changed, with many aspects of life increasingly managed online, digital check-in meets their need for a consumer-like healthcare experience. In a poll conducted by Chief Healthcare Executive, 61% of poll respondents stated that they want the convenience of Uber or Amazon Prime from their healthcare providers.
4.  Engage with and educate patients using digital tools
Surgical specialty clinics can use digital tools to engage with patients beyond the clinic walls. This can help improve medication adherence and empower patients to monitor their own health. These tools also offer the opportunity to provide education to patients, including promotion of additional patient services that can be presented during the digital check-in workflow.
At Kyruus Health, our cloud-based, HIPAA-compliant patient engagement platform automates and integrates patient access to alleviate administrative bottlenecks, helping deliver a more consistent, tailored and enjoyable patient experience across all touchpoints.
Surgical specialty clinics today are under pressure given increasing demand with no end in sight, combined with a serious shortage of qualified surgeons, surgical nurses, and anesthesiologists. Strategies to leverage technology that ease the burden of clinic management while also providing patients with a streamlined experience can be of significant value.
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