Advanced Family Surgery Center, Oak Ridge, Tenn.
By Kathy Dix
The Advanced Family Surgery Center was initially founded because surgeons were looking for more efficiency in their operating rooms (OR). It now has a staff of 36 surgeons and nine anesthesiologists — as well as four ORs and a procedure room.
“They were looking for a place other than a hospital setting where they could do block scheduling, several cases a day, and still be home by 4 or 5 o’clock,” says Alana Booth, RN, BSN, CASC, administrator at the center. “We have managed to provide that; some of them may do eight, nine, up to 12 cases per day, ‘real surgery’ procedures such as knee scopes, tonsils, and ACLs.”
The surgery center, which shares space with two other medical offices, was established in 1999. “We moved into our facility in Oak Ridge in May 2000, and performed our first case the next month. Our construction company was Johnson & Galyon and our architect was Barber & McMurry, Inc, both in Knoxville,” Booth says. “We are 50/50 owned by our physicians and by Fortress Corporation, which is a member of Covenant Health, a comprehensive health system in East Tennessee. Our specialties include ENT, general surgery, gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, plastics, urology, and pain management. We also provide occasional 23-hour admits.”
The surgery center had ambitious goals when it first opened, and it took only a short time to attain impressive outcomes.
“We achieved AAAHC (Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care) accreditation early on and our patient satisfaction levels are very high. We’ve received PRC’s (Professional Research Consultants’) highest honor, the Five Star Award for customer service in overall patient satisfaction, two years in a row. And financially we’re doing well. While we serve a largely rural area, our cost containment efforts have helped drive costs down and allowed us to be more efficient in our operations,” Booth says.
The focus on customer service also has extended to the care shown for employees. Low employee turnover reflects this. “We offer competitive compensation and benefits and do our best to make employees feel appreciated for their hard work and dedication. For example, we buy lunches for our staff and surgeons on busy days and we all eat together ... one lounge for all,” she reports.
The client base is unique; the location — Oak Ridge, Tenn. — is home to one of the world’s leading research centers, so many of the patients come from that collective of highly educated professionals. But Oak Ridge is also surrounded by countryside and many rural communities.
The multi-specialty center provides care for both children and adults, and prides itself on keeping up-to-date with new techniques. One of the newer offerings is a surgery to reduce hemorrhoids known as PPH. In fact, one of the surgeons at the center is a preceptor for the Ethicon ENDO-surgery stapler, a stapling device that makes hemorrhoid surgery much less painful post-operatively. “We are a training center for this procedure, and surgeons from across the country have come here to train,” explains Booth.
When the facility was new, the marketing was designed to establish community awareness of the center as a new alternative to hospital care. “Once a level of awareness was established, we focused our marketing on keeping outpatient surgery business in Oak Ridge,” Booth explains. “We’ve utilized a mix of media including outdoor, broadcast, and print, but concentrated most of our efforts on building relations with area referral sources including primary care physicians and pediatricians. For example, we have promoted our pediatric services specifically and have been fortunate to gain a lot of the pediatric business in town.”
One item shared with both referral sources and the community at large is that all the nurses are ACLS- (advanced cardiac life support) and PALS- (pediatric advanced life support) certified. Education of the staff is a primary focus, and employees are cross-trained so they can be more consistent in their care.
The Advanced Family Surgery Center is unique in that they are the only multi-specialty surgery center in their five-county service area, and they are located next door to Oak Ridge’s only acute care hospital. This is unlike Knoxville or a larger city — which has several hospitals and surgery centers. Tennessee does have certificate of need (CON) laws, and thus far, that has been a benefit for the facility; Booth does not foresee much competition by way of other ASCs. “We’re very lucky,” she concludes.