Market Your Center to Attract New Surgeons
How many times do you have to repeat a piece of information to be sure someone truly understands and remembers what you're trying to convey? "Five times," says Pam Hudson, RN, DM, administrator of the Paoli (Pa.) Surgery Center. That's why she uses whatever means necessary to promote her facility when trying to woo new surgeons: cold calls, lunch meetings, printed marketing materials and Paoli Surgery Center-themed chachka.

She also studies her competitive landscape by keeping an updated file of information on the surgical facilities in her area. How many ORs do they have and how many cases do they host each month? Are any of her surgeons credentialed in those centers? Who owns the centers and what are their hospital affiliations? The answers to those questions help her develop a marketing plan to target the docs who can bring more cases to her center.

When making cold calls to physicians' offices, Ms. Hudson's ultimate goal is to get an appointment with the surgeon she's trying to recruit. When she gets in front of him, she works off of a script she's committed to memory in order to make the most of the face-to-face time. The key, says Ms. Hudson, is to close with an enticing fact about your center. In her case, that's boasting about her staff's ability to turn over rooms in less than 10 minutes. Be sure to leave behind marketing materials to give your selling points a shelf life. Ms. Hudson created double-sided printed collateral that touts the training and outpatient-centric skills of her 2 anesthesia providers, who she believes differentiate her center from the competition.

Get the Compliance Monkey Off Your Back
When more than one regulatory agency has a rule regarding a certain issue, which rules do you follow? Adhere to the strictest one, says Mary Ann Gellenbeck, RN, CASC, chief operating officer of Prexus Health Consulting in Hamilton, Ohio.

These days, accreditation and licensure surveyors are focusing on patient safety and infection control issues such as having an adequate amount of hand sanitizer dispensers in proper locations and keeping sterilization logs properly maintained. When you consider all the federal and local safety regulations, preparing for a survey can be overwhelming. But fortunately, says Ms. Gellenbeck, the survey process is more collaborative and less punitive than in previous decades. To prepare for your next survey, she says, make sure everything in your facility — from sharps containers to the water filters in your ice machine — are installed properly and in good working order.