Pre-Anesthesia Testing (PAT) programs are designed to enhance patient safety, clinical efficiency, and financial outcomes by ensuring that all presurgical patient evaluations are completed promptly. A high-functioning PAT program should improve outcomes for patients, providers, and facilities. Unfortunately, this crucial part of the patient care continuum often falls short. Novus Anesthesia Partners’ Enhanced PAT program has been successfully implemented in over a dozen client facilities, resulting in significant clinical and financial improvements for our patients and facility partners.
Better Outcomes
Enhanced PAT significantly improves clinical quality and safety while enhancing the patient experience. Early identification and accurate documentation of patients’ comorbidities enable better planning and management of care, leading to improved communication with the patient. Once comorbidities are identified, a coordinated approach by the patient’s primary care physician (PCP), surgeon, and anesthesia team can create an optimal care plan for the safest possible surgical pathway. Enhanced PAT ensures that anesthesia providers and surgeons can remain focused during surgery, knowing the patient has been meticulously assessed and optimized beforehand. The program plays a critical role in minimizing opioid use and improving patient pain outcomes through the implementation and facilitation of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) programs. ERAS programs address patients preoperatively through early modifications that optimize preoperative health, create a pathway for improved postoperative outcomes, reduce complications, and decrease the length of inpatient stays.
Streamlined Patient Journey
Enhanced PAT improves efficiency by streamlining the entire process from the patient’s initial surgical consultation to the day of surgery. By completing all tests and evaluations based on best practice models well ahead of time, Enhanced PAT eliminates the need for extensive or unnecessary testing on the day of surgery. This reduction of “last-minute” testing eliminates unnecessary cancellations or delays and alleviates stress for patients and the perioperative team. One significant advantage of Enhanced PAT is the notable reduction in same-day cancellations and delays. By identifying and addressing clinical issues in advance, the program helps maintain efficient surgical schedules, avoids unexpected disruptions, and minimizes the underutilization of operating rooms (ORs), nursing teams, and anesthesia providers.
Positive Financial Impact
When deployed, Enhanced PAT can create opportunities to redesign and optimize anesthesia staffing models. By reducing the need for extensive provider involvement in last-minute preoperative assessments, the program becomes more cost-effective while maintaining high standards of care. Additionally, a more streamlined preoperative process allows for an increase in the number of patients evaluated within a system, leading to greater reliability in surgical scheduling. Enhanced PAT also contributes to more accurate anesthesia documentation, resulting in increased billing accuracy. Thorough preoperative assessments and documentation ensure precise billing by correctly documenting a patient’s comorbidities. In some instances, Enhanced PAT can create patient engagement opportunities, resulting in new revenue opportunities for the facility. For example, the Enhanced PAT engagement can be used to establish a primary care provider for patients who do not have one, creating long-term patient and family retention for the facility.
Part of a Digital Solution
Implementing an electronic pre-surgical workflow enhances operating room (OR) efficiency through more effective, accurate, and advanced surgical scheduling. This digital approach can also result in financial savings by reducing salary expenses and administrative costs. While not specifically tied to our Enhanced PAT solution, we are experienced in integrating with many of the market’s EMR platforms.
Two Approaches to Helping Facilities Improve PAT
Novus Anesthesia Partners supports our client facilities by customizing the program to each facility’s case mix and postoperative care capabilities. For facilities seeking a complete outsourcing of anesthesia, we begin during the relationship-building phase by identifying any challenges arising from ineffective PAT and conducting an extensive review of any current or legacy PAT programs. During the transition, if a new PAT process is needed, our Facility Implementation Team (FIT) will implement our Enhanced PAT program to effect substantive change early in the facility relationship. Additionally, our internal recruiting team will staff the department with personnel prepared to maintain our approach to PAT on a long-term basis.
Many facilities opt to maintain employed anesthesia programs and find that underlying challenges within anesthesia require highly specialized perioperative leadership. These facilities often experience PAT-related process deficiencies. In such scenarios, we work through our Anesthesia Employer Support services to “update” and “modernize” the facility PAT process while helping establish more sustainable approaches to managing anesthesia.
In Summary
Enhanced PAT is grounded in evidence-based care and is continually updated to reflect best practices. The program addresses patient safety and quality while simultaneously creating cost savings and revenue growth for our facility partners. Enhanced PAT creates pathways for better patient outcomes, reducing stress and redundant work for anesthesia and other healthcare providers on the day of surgery. Most importantly, Novus Anesthesia Partners’ Enhanced PAT reflects our commitment to improving anesthesia operations for the patients, providers, and facilities we serve, ensuring that our patients receive the highest quality of care in an efficient, cost-effective perioperative care model.