Lafayette

Source: Healthcare Digital

Date :25/06/2008 06:44:54

CEO Gary Keller talks about how Lafayette Surgical Special Hospital prides itself on its 98 percent patient satisfaction record

Written by Terrence Doyle and Produced by Shaheen Mohammedipour

For Lafayette Surgical Special Hospital in Lafayette, Louisiana, the mission is clear and well-defined on the hospital website, which states the facility’s purpose is to “provide high quality, cost and time-efficient surgical services to our patient population.”

And, for the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer, Gary Keller, those patients provide the hospital with a bellwether. “Much of what we do is based off of patient satisfaction and safety concerns,” says Keller.

Keller holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Louisiana State University, a Master of Arts in Management and Supervision with a concentration in healthcare from the University of Central Michigan and is a retired major in the United States Army. He’s intimately familiar with the ins and outs of health care services, having worked in the industry for the past 33 years.

Keller has worked in “various capacities in hospital management” with the Quorum Health Resources in Brentwood, Tennessee before moving to Louisiana. There he helped found The Schumacher Group, one of the largest emergency medical groups in the United States. “I helped grow the Schumacher Group to becoming the third largest company in the nation in emergency medical services,” says Keller. “I retired from Schumacher as co-owner and co-founder.”

Any retirement plans Keller may have had didn’t last long as he returned to the healthcare field with Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital. Keller says the facility’s reach is “all across the board really.” Lafayette Surgical specializes in services that include, but aren’t limited to, orthopedics, neurosurgery, interventional pain management, otolaryngology (ENT), general surgery, urology and gynecology.

Patient Satisfaction

Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital prides itself on its patient satisfaction history. Keller says that patient satisfaction levels average 98 percent, exceeding the national average. An average duration of stay for a patient at Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital is two days, a fact that speaks volumes since one of the hospital’s goals is to be cost-efficient for patients while helping them enjoy a speedy recovery.

Surgical wound infection rates for 2007 were a miniscule 14/100ths of one percent, a figure Keller says “stacks up very well against the national averages.”

Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital’s vision, as stated on the website, is to serve the health care needs of its patients, enhance the practice efficiencies of the physician staff, operate in a manner that is readily accessible and attractive to patients, provide an efficient setting that is responsive to physician needs, cultivate a supportive working environment and offer payors a fee structure that is fair and competitive.

The facility aims to operate a state-of-the-art facility focused on patient satisfaction and to offer the freedom of choice to the patient. At Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital, patient satisfaction refers to the patient’s level of comfort, satisfaction in treatment quality and satisfaction with the cost of procedures.

Despite his personal success in the medical management field, Keller remains humble and credits much of Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital’s success to its exceptional administrative team: Chief Administrative Officer Buffy Domingue, Chief Nursing Officer Selina Guidry, Chief Financial Officer Stephanie R. Guidry, and Chief Quality Officer Charlotte Dupuis.

“I can’t take sole credit for our success here. This hospital would be nothing without these talented, professional women,” says Keller.

Staff and Infrastructure

Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital currently has two major construction projects in the works. One is a three-story, 75,000-square-foot medical office building that is intended to provide more space for the hospital’s surgeons. The second is a 5,000-square-foot building that will house business offices and financial support operations.

Why is Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital investing so much into new infrastructure? “Efficiency,” Keller says. “We’re also looking into doing some upgrades with our information systems. We hope to develop some new pharmaceutical and scheduling packages to augment our current system. We hope to reduce redundancy on how many times you touch certain information in the system.”

Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital employs approximately 165 people. Employees enjoy generous health and dental plans and a competitive company match toward 401k. Keller says that the hospital takes pride on low turnover rates in addition to high rates of employee satisfaction. The hospital’s annual net revenue is slightly above US$30million.

The entire nursing staff is both Advanced Cardio Life Support [ACLS] and Pediatric Advanced Life Support [PALS] certified, again ensuring that every measure is taken to provide its patients with the highest quality of service possible. “We want to optimize our service that leads to an outcome of repeat business and the satisfaction of our customers,” says Keller.

Peer Recognition

Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital has been rewarded for its practices. For the past two years they have been named “Hospital of the Year” (100 beds or less) in the state of Louisiana by the Louisiana Nurses’ Foundation. “It’s a heck of an accomplishment,” says Keller.

The rest of the administrative staff agrees. For a hospital that prides itself on both patient satisfaction and the ability of its physicians to efficiently and effectively do their job, to receive such a high honor in consecutive years is impressive.

Though Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital puts heavy emphasis on the patient, Keller says the major market for the hospital is actually the physician. “There is a sense that the physicians own the facility,” he says. “We do everything we can do to take care of their needs. And, because of this model, the physicians are willing and active partners in the day to day considerations as well as the governance of the organization.”

The idealization and concept of Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital is largely accountable to two originators and founders, Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. John Cobb and Neurosurgeon Dr. Thomas Bertuccini. The facility began with a vision about 10 years ago with enhanced, optimal patient care in mind.

Asked if the current economic climate in the United States has affected the hospital in any way, Keller says Lafayette Surgical has “continued to enjoy a fairly high degree of success. Because we’re in the elective surgery niche of the marketplace we are continuing to see success on the economic side of things.”