Keynoter Tim Porter-O'Grady sees new roles for perioperative nurses.

Tim Porter-O’Grady, DM, EdD, ScD(h), APRN, FAAN, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s OR Manager Conference, which takes place September 17-19 at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, California. The conference features 4 tracks—ambulatory surgery centers, business management, a masters series, and new manager—designed to address the interests and educational needs of our diverse audience. Through the masters series, experienced OR leaders will receive 400-level strategic training to meet their revenue and efficiency goals, and a mentor program will help pave the way for new OR managers coming up in the ranks to replace the many who will soon retire. Dr Porter-O’Grady, senior partner of an international healthcare consulting firm in Atlanta, is noted for his work on interdisciplinary shared governance models, clinical leadership, conflict, and health futures. Having spoken at the very first OR Manager Conference years ago, he returns this year to help clarify the shift from volume-based to value-based healthcare and to explore how that shift will affect the roles and responsibilities of perioperative leaders. “Value-based healthcare is based on the impact that makes a difference in the health of people rather than the amount of things we do to respond to their illnesses, conditions, or concerns,” Dr Porter-O’Grady told OR Manager. To determine the value of your organization, he says, you must: • Demonstrate that you have comparable or better service metrics than your competitors. • Be able to define what quality is, what quality indicators are, and whether you delivered on the promise that you made. • Be affordable: Does your cost of care, in light of the quality and service you provide, make you a desirable healthcare provider? Healthcare professionals can’t continue to provide services in the traditional way, he believes. Some organizations are beginning to look at how providers can be aligned around appropriate services, the continuum of care, and specific needs of populations, he explains. “We need to figure out how to address the 6% of the population that’s driving more than 50% of the costs of care.” To do this, he says, organizations must look at how they provide service, how they organize that service, and how different professionals relate to one another so that services can be coordinated more effectively. “Care coordination is the cornerstone of the future of healthcare delivery,” he says. For perioperative nurses, this will mean deepening relationships with other providers both before and after surgery. Engaging perioperative nurses earlier in the process will improve the surgical experience because patients’ clinical characteristics will be more clearly defined, and working with providers caring for the patient postoperatively will help achieve better outcomes. The entire continuum of care, not just the surgical experience, will be evaluated. Gaps in care, whether related to information, service, or relationships, pose risks and raise costs. To close those gaps, perioperative leaders can play a pivotal role by promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and seamlessness on the continuum of care. OR Manager Conference