Atlantic Anesthesia’s commitment to innovative programs and practices translates into a successful and profitable OR. Our site directors work to ensure a seamless integration of our services into your system. Our experience and expertise in delivering high quality anesthesia services is a great advantage to your facilities to supply effective collaborative support. 

Our 40+ years of proven long-term success has provided us with a solid foundation for future growth and service:

• We work hard to provide the highest quality of care in the most cost-effective manner.
• We minimize the use of locum coverage to control costs.
• Our advanced billing system ensures quick and comprehensive management to meet your financial and auditing requirements.

Program Implementation

We integrate new programs quickly and seamlessly.  In our recent orientation to the PICIS automated record keeping system, for example, we prioritized the adaptation to the system by allowing each of our 160 providers to attend 4 hours of instruction.

OR and Service Support

We provide ongoing support for new operating rooms and services including:

• Expanding Ancillary and Heart Hospital services
• Participating in Executive Planning Meetings
• Assisting in the Development of Centers of Excellence

OR and Staff Integration

Our daily schedule design results in flexible staffing of the ORs with fewer disruptions.

Customer Service

We provide resolution of anesthesia service complaints with our service-oriented providers.

A key to improved quality and efficiency is AAI’s Advancing Excellence Process. We monitor a variety of important quality metrics that ensure excellent patient outcomes. We consider you our partners in achieving world-class performance in the operating room.

The following initiatives represent ways Atlantic Anesthesia’s commitment to innovative practices and excellent results has brought about an improvement in outcomes and has helped to prevent adverse outcomes:

• Support of the eCare initiative at Sentara hospitals (see www.sentara.com for more information)
• Dependable peri-operative antibiotic utilization
• Customization of proprietary software to provide extensive tutorial instruction at the clinical sites for the PICIS peri-operative electronic record keeping
• Acute pain management protocols carefully designed by AAI in order to cover all patients regardless of their ability to pay, including uncovered costs of free service to Medicare patients
• Respiratory telemetry and continuous pulse oximetry
• Pre-operative risk recognition for obstructive sleep apnea
• Committee appointments in support of hospital peer review
• Support of sedation training for non-anesthesia personnel
• Continuous updates to reflect changing national standards for pre-operative preparation of patients
• Supporting Sentara efforts to lead the nation by teaming with Sentara in the Volunteer Hospitals of America initiatives in anesthesia care.
• Improving manpower management processes through the hiring of a V.P. for Human Resource management
• Implementing feedback mechanisms in hospitals from OB floor managers to improve performance
• Improving the night-call team structure to ensure safety, save money, and increase effectiveness
• Surgical site/Infection task force participation and effective execution
• Development of PCA order sheets adopted for universal use in all AAI hospital sites by AAI and by surgeons and residents
• CME lecture series: content guided by findings of Patient Safety and Peer Review Committees
• Increases in AAI services to reflect evolving hospital business goals for operating room suites, OB suites, ancillary care, and ambulatory surgical suites
• Formulation of drug cart insert trays for centralized cart stocking
• Providing 24/7 availability of emergency HIV prophylaxis for all surgeons at all sites
• Dedication of AAI physicians to clinical and classroom teaching of medical students, residents, and SRNAs (30 – 35,000 hours per year)
• Establishment of clinical / quality guidelines for system wide application and metrics
• Implementation of a group tracking system to document professional credentialing standards for equipment used by Atlantic physicians and CRNAs, including PICIS and Drager anesthesia machines

Cost Savings

We know keeping costs down is a major objective. Our cost-saving initiatives help you reach your financial goals:

• Systems implemented to chart drugs, supplies, and equipment used to capture all charges at all OR, OB, and ancillary anesthesia sites.
• Utilization of low flow gas to keep costs at a minimum
• Identification of lower cost disposable masks and anesthesia circuits, with recommendations applied system-wide at all AAI served O.R. sites
• Suggesting and coordinating OR and anesthesia manpower reductions for known low-volume periods, using our proprietary billing software to generate recommendations
• Utilizing flexible personnel management principles to the greatest degree possible to reduce manpower costs.
• Rapidly disseminating guidelines and recommendations for best outcomes to reduce hospital utilization per surgical stay; including timely antibiotic use, normothermia efforts, low anesthesia complication rates, peer review generated teaching and other innovative efforts.

Data for these efforts are gathered through many venues including:

• ASA Guidelines
• 360 Evaluations
• Peri-operative nurse surveys
• Surgeon satisfaction surveys
• Peer Review results
• ACOG guidelines
• VHA initiative development

Our Hospital Staff