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Have you or a family member ever been subject to a late surgery cancellation? Or maybe you’ve been impacted by one as a provider, clinical team member, or scheduler? At best, last-minute surgery cancellations are inconvenient and frustrating for patients. Likewise, they are an incredible challenge for surgeons and their clinical teams who have finite time in the operating room and complex schedules, as well as anesthesia providers, the Perioperative Department, and scheduling teams.

While any number of factors can cause a surgery to be canceled on short notice, one of them is an incomplete preoperative anesthesia evaluation. Preoperative anesthesia evaluations and triage ensure that patients are ready for any surgery or procedure that uses anesthesia, checking for health issues that could put patient safety at risk or make their medication less effective. At the heart of these evaluations is the Preoperative Anesthesia Clinic (formerly PETC), but their work requires close partnership with surgeons and their clinical teams, and often a patient’s primary care provider. 

“In studying the current process for preoperative anesthesia evaluations with clinic and physician leaders from the Anesthesia Department and surgical sub-specialties, we found communication challenges between clinics, difficulty tracking patient progress through the evaluation process, and other issues,” said Catherine Cash, MSHA, Ambulatory Director, Surgical Specialties. “People are relying on spreadsheets, patient lists, and other manual tools to track patients’ readiness for surgery. There is a clear opportunity to improve efficiency, transparency, and predictability of the process, which will support a smoother surgical experience for everyone involved.”

Enter Procedure Pass, an Epic module that consolidates critical information in one place and allows everyone involved in the surgical process to monitor progress in real-time. Specifically, Procedure Pass will:

• Improve visibility, communication, and coordination across all stakeholder clinics and teams. This will help most surgery patients be evaluated for anesthesia risk earlier in the process, streamlining their preparation for surgery.
• Reduce disruptions and short-notice surgery cancellations that often go unfilled, thereby creating the opportunity to complete more surgeries.
• Leverage automated risk scoring to enable a more targeted approach and less testing of patients who don’t need it.

“Not only will Procedure Pass streamline the process for team members — without compromising patient safety — at the end of the day, it will make for better educated patients ahead of surgery and improved patient satisfaction overall,” added William Manson, MD, Medical Director for the Preoperative Anesthesia Clinic.

Procedure Pass is slated to go live on Monday, March 3, and will have an impact across the University Medical Center, touching all procedures performed in the Main Operating Room, Outpatient Surgery Center, and Orthopedic Center Ivy Road. A robust training program will prepare providers, nurses, clinical support team members, and surgery schedulers to use the new module between now and launch.

“No one is happy when a surgery is postponed – not patients, not surgeons, not anesthesia providers,” said John Bennett, MPA, Chief Ambulatory Operations Officer. “Implementing Procedure Pass is a prime example of how we can use technology to improve our processes in ways that reduce team member frustration and burnout while delivering superior patient care. It supports our strategic commitment to strengthen our operational foundation and is a win for everyone.”