Set Up Your GI Center for Success

• Warm elements. Today’s healthcare facilities don’t have to look or feel like the sterile, boring and cold institutions of yesteryear. Our center’s color palette is vibrant, with a botanical theme throughout and plenty of nature-themed artwork. Its design is intentionally unique and intended to provide a cheerful, relaxing, comfortable and contemporary experience for patients and providers.

The 944-square foot lobby is a perfect example. It’s a welcoming and quiet space for patients, family members and friends that boasts creature comforts such as quality furnishings, a refreshment bar and a flat-screen TV.

Banks of floor-to-ceiling windows span the entire north side of the center, allowing for tons of natural light to enter. Large windows in the staff break room afford expansive views of the surrounding countryside, and the sterile processing department — often akin to small, dark closets in many centers — is oversized and features floor-to-ceiling windows. The result is a light, bright and organic feel throughout the entire facility.

• Smart layout. Aesthetics are important, but an efficient design is essential for a high-volume specialty such as GI. The center’s basic rectangular layout is devoid of confusing corridors to navigate and designed to optimize patient flow. 

The lobby is near the 3,251-square-foot pre- and post-procedure area that houses 15 bays, each of which is 115 square feet and designed for preparing patients for procedures and recovering them afterward. This multipurpose design provides patients with a calming sense of familiarity throughout their stay and leads to increased staff efficiency.

• Prioritizing patient care. The facility’s 2,260 square feet of clinical space is divided into four, 230-square-foot procedure rooms. Capital equipment needs are expensive, so to maintain fiscal stewardship we fully outfitted two of the facility’s four procedure rooms — and eight of the 15 pre-/post-procedure bays — with carbon dioxide insufflation devices, endoscope towers and full anesthesia workspaces. The reprocessing area covers 380 square feet and is divided into two rooms for disinfecting and storing the center’s fleet of flexible endoscopes. We added two automated endoscope reprocessors that feature barcode-scanning technology, which gives us the ability to monitor which tech cares for each scope in our fleet.

A dedicated workspace consisting of two wall hangers and a countertop is where reprocessing techs complete channel checks on each endoscope and confirm the efficacy of the high-level disinfection process. Scopes that have been properly reprocessed are hung in one of two specialized storage cabinets that feature automated air circulation and HEPA filtration.

• Plenty of storage. Allotting for enough space to store supplies and equipment is critical in healthcare design, but it’s often under-planned and insufficiently funded. To avoid these common mistakes, we made sure to include additional storage rooms in our design. We also strategically placed permanent shelving units throughout the facility and bought several mobile carts in which we can stash instruments and supplies. The ample storage options provide staff with flexibility throughout their day, diminish clutter and keep stored items out of view.

If you’re considering building a new facility, take time on the front end to be deliberate and thoughtful about the design process. Visit other facilities and take note of what you like and don’t like. Involve critical stakeholders in the process, but don’t get mired down trying to please every person involved in the decision-making. Try to achieve a healthy balance between accomplishing the group’s vision and goals while also maintaining efficient planning and meeting deadlines. Project leaders need to effectively manage the process by being organized and setting expectations for what is doable versus what is out of scope.

Here’s one piece of advice all new centers should heed: Be careful not to overbuild or overstaff. Outpatient facilities that receive reimbursement for Medicare and Medicaid patients require CMS accreditation, a rigorous and time-intensive review of operational and quality standards. You should be cautious and realistic about staffing models and labor expenses when opening a new center. It takes time to achieve accreditation and ramp up case volumes. Labor dollars add up quickly, so your initial staffing plan should be conservative.

We initially hired an administrator, business manager and director of nursing, as well as five registered nurses, two endo techs, a medical assistant and two customer service representatives. The administrator and business manager rotate between the Gastro Center and the multi-specialty ASC.

A board-certified gastroenterologist and general surgeon currently perform procedures at the center. An additional board-certified gastroenterologist will be joining our team this summer. We expect significant case volume growth over the next few years, so we’ll recruit additional team members accordingly.

As mentioned, we’re currently using two of the four procedure rooms included in the new build. When we add more physicians and cases, we’re prepared to equip the other rooms and bring them online.

The Saltzer Health campus includes a medical imaging center as well as an urgent care center, physician clinic and physical therapy practice. It also features a 3,853-square-foot GI clinic that recently opened its doors. The clinic is where physicians provide consultative care to identify and treat the causes of gastrointestinal symptoms. The clinic’s team also performs pre- and post-procedural checkups and follow-up care when needed. The clinic works in concert with the Gastro Center to deliver comprehensive patient care.

Our team members — both clinical and administrative — enjoy the new center and feel they have the optimum environment, equipment and tools to provide best-in-class care and services to patients now and in the future as we grow. Patients first comment on the exceptional care they receive, which is a good thing because safety and quality are our top priorities, and often also remark on how refreshing the campus is because of its contemporary design and convenience. Planning for today and keeping a keen eye on the future will help our center serve patients and the growing local community for years to come. OSM