Bradley Heaton, CEO of the surgery center division at Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health, joined Becker’s to discuss how the health system is leveraging ASCs to enhance patient access, support affordability and adapt to value-based care trends.
Question: What does the relationship between ASCs and growing hospitals and health systems look like in your state?
Bradley Heaton: Working within Sutter Health, ASCs play a critical role in our comprehensive, integrated and coordinated healthcare approach. They align with our vision for what we want to accomplish as a health system. While we have numerous hospitals and clinics that provide excellent care, we have repeatedly recognized the need to continue investing in the ASC space as part of the continuum of care.
Sutter currently operates 36 ASCs, and we are looking to grow that number. Patients increasingly want access to care locally, in an affordable and efficient setting. ASCs provide that option for surgical care, allowing us as a health system to expand into communities where building a hospital or a more complex facility may not be feasible. ASCs fill that niche, enabling us to reach further into the communities we serve and provide a local option for care.
One example of this is in Folsom, where we are developing a 106,000-square-foot medical complex with a $145 million investment. This project is scheduled to break ground soon, and at the heart of it will be a surgery center. The facility will house specialty physicians with offices in the same building, alongside general surgeons, primary care providers, and other specialists. This setup will enhance care coordination and provide patients with access to same-day procedures and other services in a convenient, centralized location.
The complex will bring 25 new specialists to the area, including oncologists, OB-GYNs, neurologists, cardiologists, orthopedic surgeons, ENTs and urologists. It will be a three-story facility, featuring an expanded urgent care center with in-house imaging and lab services. This is a prime example of how a health system can develop a facility that functions as a one-stop shop, meeting patients’ healthcare needs across the continuum of care.
Q: Are ASCs in your state adapting to trends like value-based care, bundled payments or alternative payment models? What has been the impact so far?
BH: The way we’re approaching this right now, there’s a lot tied up in regulatory oversight and exploration around different models. Our main focus is on affordability — making care more affordable for our patients. ASCs already provide a lower-cost option, as we’ve discussed, but we’re working to make them even more cost-effective. Controlling healthcare costs is a major priority, not just in our ASCs but across Sutter Health as a whole. It’s something that matters deeply to our patients and their families.
We’re looking at this from the patient perspective — how do we reduce the cost of care for them? Every day, teams across our organization work to manage and control costs while maintaining the high-quality care we’re committed to delivering. We share best practices, adopt new technologies, and optimize our resources. We are constantly working to ensure we provide care as efficiently as possible.
ASCs present a great opportunity for health systems to achieve cost savings, but this commitment extends across our entire system. We’re focused on doing everything we can to control and manage costs wherever possible.
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