Ep. 15: Gwen Donithan – Benchmarking to Improve Care & Your Bottom Line | This Week in Surgery Centers

Here’s what to expect on this week’s episode. 🎙️

Internal and external #benchmarking are critical to the success of every ASC. But where do you begin? What do you track, and what do you do with the data?

Gwen Donithan is the Clinical Director at Roanoke Valley Center for Sight’s four surgery centers. As her facilities are spread across Virginia, she is primarily offsite, trying to manage an onsite operation. To do so successfully, Gwen relies heavily on data and benchmarking to keep a pulse on what’s happening at each location and ensure they are achieving success. Here are a few highlights from the episode:

📊 Internal Benchmarking: After identifying your goals, tracking how you measure against those goals is vital. You can use the data you acquire to identify issues before they become a huge problem, provide better patient care, reduce unnecessary spending, and present your growth and findings to your ASC stakeholders.

📊 External Benchmarking: You’ll want to identify third-party groups that can show you where you stand against your peers and competitors. Organizations such as the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association or specialty-specific groups like Outpatient Ophthalmic Surgery Society (OOSS) can provide invaluable data.

📊 Specific Data Points: Just getting started? Gwen recommends beginning with a few data points at a time. She finds the most impactful metrics are post-op infections, OR efficiency (which impacts financials), and staff turnover.

📊 Never Stop Measuring: The second you think you’re done and let your guard down, you’ll begin to slip. Benchmarking is an ongoing process: collect, analyze, identify, act, implement, and re-evaluate.

Find the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube to hear all the details!