As an ambulatory surgery center (ASC), you are constantly under the watchful eye of regulatory bodies. Staying on top of documentation is one of the most critical priorities for an ASC and, simultaneously, one of its biggest challenges. Limited resources, varying log formats, and piles of binders or folders of spreadsheets lead to poor visibility of departmental compliance, leaving facilities unequipped for unannounced surveys.

Administrators and staff must sift through jumbled documentation to confirm that everything is logged in order to keep accreditation; if it isn't, they must find any missing logs. These activities require a significant amount of time and effort, in addition to the ongoing stress they place on the personnel.

ASCs can simplify their everyday compliance operations (logging, reporting, tracking, inspections, and credentialing), reduce the workload, and boost efficiency with robust cloud-based surgery center software.

Complexities of regulatory compliance

Without the required digital support, it is nearly impossible to maintain a tight hold on paperwork for a number of reasons.

For starters, surgery facilities frequently suffer with employee turnover and scarce physical resources.

Furthermore, strict federal, state, and municipal laws impose on ASCs ever-tougher requirements and are always changing, impacting daily clinical operations and making it challenging to keep compliant logs and forms up to date.

In addition, maintaining extensive logs, forms, and reports using outdated methods wastes a lot of time and shifts attention away from direct patient care, especially when there’s a lack of staff on hand. Not to mention that you also need to find time to train and retrain staff on changes in regulatory compliance standards.

Growing ASCs should re-evaluate the efficiency of their documentation maintenance, from logging to storage, if they want to save resources, provide high-quality patient care, and have peace of mind during surveys.