Endoscopy Insights

Healthcare staff shortages, while not new, have spawned a world today where it can take five hours to get an X-ray for a dislocated elbow and another two to get pain medication for the injury. Ambulances sometimes wait eight hours to drop off a patient, and nurses work 12- to 16-hour shifts, without a break.

About 400,000 healthcare workers have left jobs since the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to recent estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Throughout the pandemic, hospitals have had to implement creative approaches to soften staffing shortages. Medical device companies have also gotten innovative. Single-use endoscopes, for example, can help address staffing shortages.

They’re always available. And unlike traditional endoscopes, they don’t require extensive staffing — for preparation, transport, reprocessing, and often direct procedure support. They can be simply used once and discarded.

This dovetails with efforts by hospital administrators to alleviate workflow burdens on healthcare professionals.

These challenges and more were explored as part of a virtual session sponsored by Ambu during Becker’s Hospital Review’s 12th Annual Meeting. We’re highlighting part of that conversation here in this episode of Endoscopy Insights.

Here are the experts you’ll hear from:

• Karen Conway, vice president, healthcare value, GHX
• Brian Howard, director, contract services, Vizient
• Karen Niven, director, performance groups, Premier
• India D. Randerson, vice president, strategic sourcing and procurement to payment, Henry Ford Health
• Steering the conversation is Wes Scruggs, Ambu’s vice president of corporate accounts

Show notes:

• Virtual Session: The Financial Case for Single-Use Endoscopy
• Becker’s Hospital Review: “Strategy: The Financial Case for Single-Use Endoscopy”
• Single-Use Endoscopy: “’Perfect Storm’ of Healthcare Worker Shortages Creates Need to Alleviate Workflow Burdens”
• Upcoming Becker’s virtual events
• Listen: “Calculating the Total Cost of Care”
• Listen: “Leading with Value to the Patient”
• Single-Use Endoscopy webinars page
• Endoscopy Insights show page

Medical device suppliers and group purchasing organizations are teaming to bring new healthcare innovations such as single-use endoscopes to hospitals and health systems.

By creating specific single-use endoscope categories for their members, these healthcare improvement companies can help accelerate the transition from reusable devices to disposable ones. But capitalizing on an opportunity to expand capacity and avoid costly and unnecessary expenses associated with workflow management and possible patient cross-contamination comes down to more than simply making a purchase.

Rather, both sides need to approach these deals as true partnerships, hinging on performance measurements and outcome-based metrics. That was one key takeaway from a conversation that was part of a virtual session sponsored by Ambu as part of Becker’s Hospital Review’s 12th Annual Meeting.

Here are the experts you’ll hear from in this episode:

• Karen Conway, vice president, healthcare value, GHX
• Brian Howard, director, contract services, Vizient
• Karen Niven, director, performance groups, Premier
• India D. Randerson, vice president, strategic sourcing and procurement to payment, Henry Ford Health
• Steering the conversation is Wes Scruggs, Ambu’s vice president of corporate accounts

Show notes:

• Virtual Session: The Financial Case for Single-Use Endoscopy
• Becker’s Hospital Review: “Strategy: The Financial Case for Single-Use Endoscopy”
• Upcoming Becker’s virtual events
• Listen: Calculating the Total Cost of Care
• Single-Use Endoscopy webinars page
• Endoscopy Insights show page

Matthew Katz was at Weill Cornell Medicine when a chance digital encounter ended up steering him into urology.

“If you had asked me what a urologist did before medical school I probably wouldn’t have been able to answer the question,” he told me self-deprecatingly when we chatted at the American Urological Association’s annual conference in New Orleans.

But a blast email to the entire medical school looking for people interested in robotics research caught Katz’s eye. His background in bioengineering had sparked an interest in doing something medically that was hands on, working with new technology and focusing on minimally invasive procedures.

A next-generation urologist was born.

Today, Katz brings a unique perspective to starting a urology practice. He’s less than a year out of an endourology fellowship, has an MBA and has co-authored research on telemedicine. He also has interesting insights on the emergence of single-use endoscopes and the role they can play in urology practice going forward.

Katz is affiliated with NYU Langone Health and is a clinical assistant professor in the urology department at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Show notes:

• Bio: Matthew Katz
• Diseases of the Colon & Rectum: “Assessment of Ileostomy Output Using Telemedicine: A Feasibility Trial”
• Single-Use Endoscopy: “5 Things Urologists Were Talking About at AUA 22”
• Single-Use Endoscopy: “How Robotics is Shaping the Future of Urology”
• Endoscopy Insights Show Page

One of the authors of that study, Dr. Yair Lotan, is our guest on the newest episode of Endoscopy Insights and he walks us through his findings. Factors such as capital equipment costs, labor, and supply costs, as well as the number of procedures performed each year, impact the price of cystoscopy.

Dr. Lotan is a urology professor and chief of urologic oncology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.