Vascular, cardiac and urology procedures are becoming more common in outpatient settings and are a few of the specialties that are being considered for New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health’s continuing growth.
Expanding access to primary care services through new methods and the management of chronic diseases are also priorities for Northwell Health over the next few years.
Nancy Beran, MD, vice president, chief quality officer for ambulatory of the organization, recently joined the Becker’s Ambulatory Surgery Centers podcast to talk about the trends in outpatient growth.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What are a few areas of outpatient growth that you are focusing on for the next one to two years?
Dr. Nancy Beran: We are focusing on primary care because we have a huge access need for primary care throughout our country and certainly in our market, and we are trying to think of new and innovative ways to design primary care that would meet the needs of our patients and our communities. We’re really looking at those procedures that can be done safely in the ambulatory environment, that can grow in the ambulatory environment, that do not need to be done as in such a high-cost setting as the hospital. So we’re seeing more and more vascular procedures being done in the ambulatory environment, more cardiac procedures being done in an ambulatory environment, more urologic procedures being done in an ambulatory environment. Certainly we are working with our surgeons to strategically think about where the appropriate level of care is based on treatment and diagnosis and condition. And then lastly, the management of chronic diseases. We need to really engage with and manage our patients who have multiple chronic conditions and make sure that they are plugged into the appropriate specialty care, that their care is coordinated across our health system, that we are allocating the necessary resources, that we leverage technologies and team-based care to engage patients to really improve the care. It’s certainly those patients with many chronic conditions that drive up cost in our health system and drive down outcomes. So we really wanna make sure we are giving them the resources they need to have the best care and the best outcomes possible.
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