The next phase of outpatient spine care could weigh on one practice model — the Center of Excellence.
The designation, which has become more prominent in the spine space, provides a multidisciplinary approach to care that offers treatments from pain management, surgery, and lifestyle coaching.
Hospitals are increasingly considering Centers of Excellence designations and refining spine care protocols. Centers of Excellence can attract more spine procedures that are moving outpatient, but ASCs are also seeking Center of Excellence designations and direct-to-employer contracting.
For ASCs, the designation can help gather crucial data that can be beneficial to clinical and financial successes.
"As the healthcare landscape is pushing toward an eventual value-based care model (and potential smaller population-based models), outpatient surgery centers need to better harness data and analytics," said Philip Louie, MD, of Tacoma, Wash.-based Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. "Precision analytics and time-driven activity-based costing will be crucial for driving clinical and financial performance in these outpatient surgery programs."
As more spine care shifts to outpatient settings, data harnessing and analytics becomes increasingly streamlined, and investment in innovation improves outcomes.
"These outpatient programs will become even more renowned and serve as preferred destinations. Thus, potentially earning additional key accreditations that will grow these programs and advance patient surgical care," Dr. Louie said.