Stanley W. Stead, M.D., M.B.A., is Professor of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, University of California, Irvine.
Stanley W. Stead, M.D., M.B.A., is Professor of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, University of California, Irvine.
As physician anesthesiologists advance the Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH) model and more data are available to support how the concept helps provide better outcomes, lower costs and improved patient satisfaction, ASA is showcasing the innovative model in its communications efforts. The PSH has been highlighted in the last year in media outreach, member communications and digital marketing.
To help explain the model, a series of bylined articles and media coverage were secured in trade media targeting hospital administrators and executives, including Modern Healthcare, Health Affairs, Health & Hospital Networks, KevinMD.com, Minnesota Physician, Becker’s ASC Review, Infection Control Today and MedCity News.
Some of the coverage highlighted the launch of ASA’s Learning Collaborative, which has 44 health care organizations from across the country working together as a network who can pilot projects and learn from each other and from recognized experts. The long-term goal is to create an evidence-based “road map” for health care organizations to spread knowledge and best practices of the PSH model. ASA’s media outreach efforts were complemented by the Learning Collaborative participants who also reached out to media to announce their participation.
Media coverage often features preliminary findings from successful PSH models, including news from Kaiser Permanente on how knee replacement patients go home sooner, are highly satisfied and incur less cost when a physician anesthesiologist coordinates care. The research was presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2014 annual meeting.
In addition to PSH research news, the annual meeting also provided an opportunity to present the PSH model to ASA members as a “disruptive innovation” poised to reshape the specialty and the entire health care surgical system during the Opening Session, “Are You the Anesthesiologist of the Future?”
A video during the session on PSH followed speaker Jason Hwang, M.D., and highlighted how disruptive innovations in anesthesiology, from the discovery of ether in 1856 to epidural anesthesia and rapid-acting agents, have advanced the practice of medicine. Physician anesthesiologists Arthur Boudreaux, M.D., Professor of Anesthesiology and Chief of Staff, UAB Medicine; Zeev Kain, M.D., Chancellor’s Professor and Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care and Associate Dean for Clinical Operations, UC Irvine Health; Peter Dunbar, M.D., ASA Committee on Future Models of Anesthesia Practice; Jane C.K. Fitch, M.D., ASA Immediate Past President; and Mike Schweitzer, M.D., Chair, ASA Committee on Future Models of Anesthesia Practice, each shared how the specialty is poised to take the next step in spearheading efforts to improve patient care through the PSH.
Communications activities were expanded this year to online media with a digital marketing campaign to promote the PSH model and the PSH Surgical Summit in June. A series of ads were placed on Facebook and LinkedIn to target health care executives and surgeon specialists. The ads included information on how the PSH could lead to better outcomes and cost savings and drove readers to a special webpage summarizing the model and available data showing reduced hospital stays, improved pain scores and patient satisfaction, and cost savings. The ads reached almost 3.1 million people and generated 6,465 site visits and 139,806 views of an abbreviated version of the video shown at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2014 annual meeting.
While the concept may not be as familiar as the “medical home,” it is gaining traction and ASA has plans to begin introducing the concept to general consumer media in an effort to increase public awareness so that one day the public can request that a physician anesthesiologist help coordinate all their care through this model of the future.
