Setting Up Your Eye Center for Success

How we’ve managed constant technological changes and upgrades, and kept our ASC running smoothly.

The Williamson Eye Center has been around for 75 years, and it includes our ASC, which was one of the first dedicated to ophthalmology in Louisiana. Our two-room ASC has seen several changes since it was built more than 35 years ago, and the technology we use has been consistently upgraded to keep pace with volume. As an eye center that performs more than 30 cases a day, we need to be as efficient as possible in everything we do.

Our surgeon bounces from one OR to the other, back and forth, performing cataract surgery. That reduces the number of people walking back and forth through these spaces, and in turn, creates an efficient system that promotes a high volume caseload at our center. This linear flow for patients also translates to a lot of efficiency built in for our staff throughout the center.

Finding the right technology

Over the years, we’ve found that at minimum, an ASC our size with our volume needs two microscopes, four surgical beds, two phacoemulsification machines (with a backup available) and several autoclaves, depending on how you plan to handle reprocessing instruments.

While that’s the bare minimum, here are a few other things to keep in mind when it comes to capital equipment:

•Femto laser. One of the few renovations we have done to our center was to build out a laser suite for our Femtosecond laser. While some ASCs keep the femto in the OR and have a single surgeon perform both, for our high-volume center, we’ve found that having a separate suite with a separate shooter has saved us tons of time. If our surgeon had to run the femto, we would easily add several minutes to each case, which adds up when you’re doing 30 cases a day. For our laser suite, we took an old waiting room and transformed it into a clean room that houses the femto laser.

AERIALS An overhead shot of the entire team at Williamson Eye Center, which includes an ASC equipped with state-of-the-art equipment like femtosecond lasers, phacoemulsification machines and cutting-edge surgical microscopes.

• Surgical beds. We recently replaced our manual surgical beds with new ones that are automatic and allow our staff to just press a button to raise and lower the patient. Not only is this helping with the ergonomics for our staff — saving their backs and necks — but as a center in a state with a high obesity population, it ensures that we don’t need extra staff to linger around just to lift and lower patients.

• HVAC tonnage. While this is not necessarily a capital equipment investment, it is something to consider when building or renovating an ASC. Make sure your HVAC unit is capable of cooling off the pre-op, OR, PACU and autoclave areas sufficiently, and that you have positive pressure flow out of the ORs. This is something that can be very difficult to retrofit if you undersize.

Taking all opinions into account

Deciding what’s important to you and your surgeons is key for these capital equipment discussions. While some may be interested in having a separate femto laser suite, others might want to invest in the latest and greatest phaco machines.

That also extends to questions like what type of equipment do you want to purchase — new or refurbished? Every practice and surgeon will likely want something different, and you need to take those opinions into account when opening up a new center. OSM