Situation

The mission at Glasgow Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC), located in Newark, DE, has always been to provide high quality, community-based surgical care that is safe, convenient, and cost effective. The 15,000-square-foot, multi-specialty Center offers a variety of procedures performed under general, monitored and local anesthesia, in a patient-friendly, caring atmosphere featuring four operating rooms and two procedure rooms.

The Glasgow ASC’s dedicated staff includes highly qualified nurses and some of the best physicians in the tri-state area, including Board Certified anesthesiologists with extensive background in outpatient surgery. All surgeons with staff privileges have been carefully credentialed before being approved to operate in the facility, and The Center is state licensed, Medicare approved and AAAHC accredited. Center specialties include orthopedics, podiatry, ENT, urology, plastic surgery, ophthalmology, gynecology, colon/rectal surgery, GI, and pain management.

But being a well-run ASC with good people doing quality work wasn’t enough. The Center was struggling financially, and needed some help bringing administrative systems up to a similar level of quality.

Solution

To address these challenges, Glasgow’s leadership looked for a surgery center management and development company with experience deploying outpatient strategies. While the Glasgow Medical Center and its physician partners had been affiliated with Christiana Care Health System for a number of years, they decided to form a joint venture partnership with Regent Surgical Health, an industry-leading surgery center management and development company specializing in hospital and physician ambulatory surgery center (ASC) joint ventures.

Regent began managing the joint venture in January 2016, restructuring an existing partnership between the Glasgow Ambulatory Surgery Center and Christiana Care Health System, which is the largest health system in Delaware, also ranked as the 21st leading hospital in the nation and 10th on the east coast in terms of admissions.

Regent’s clinical and business expertise in operating centers has helped them reorganize administrative functions at Glasgow, while also building strong relationships with surgeons. The Regent team immediately began working in each of the ASC’s problem areas, streamlining management processes, and also attracting new physicians and working with the incumbent clinical team to lead a turnaround success story for the Glasgow Center.

“Regent’s financial, clinical and leadership staff were on site at Glasgow during the most critical period of transition,” said Administrator Lynne Tipton.  “They helped us implement new systems, such as an up-to-date patient management platform, while supporting and encouraging Glasgow’s culture of clinical excellence and patient satisfaction.”

Meanwhile, patients continued to receive the high level of customer service they’ve grown accustomed to at Glasgow, and both physicians and staff are happy with the changes, which enable a

higher level of care at a lower cost, a big win for the community.

Result

In just one year’s time, through the efforts of all parties involved in the joint venture, the Glasgow Ambulatory Surgery Center has moved from a six-figure operating loss in 2015 to realize an operating profit in 2016, and anticipate an 80% increase over that operating profit in 2017. The magnitude of the financial turnaround has been significant.

In addition, Regent also spearheaded improvements to the physical plant upgrading the four existing operating rooms to state of the art, and added ten new physicians to the ASC family.

For more information about Regent’s surgeon-hospital joint-venture capabilities, click here.