SIS Advanced enhances the capabilities of an already powerful business office management solution
SIS Office, a module of SIS Complete, provides users with a modern business office management experience.
Some ASCs are ready to adopt newer technology but aren’t quite ready to leave behind paper charts. SIS Advanced was created to provide additional capabilities that are in high demand as centers look to add technology to assist with scheduling and patient engagement and communications.
“We are seeing significant adoption of SIS Office, our business office management software included in SIS Complete,” says Mike Scheidegger, Product Manager for SIS Complete’s Patient and Physician Engagement Solutions. “ASCs that are opting to start with SIS Office want all the benefits of this new software – streamlined scheduling, insurance verification, denial management – but are not necessarily ready to go ‘full EHR,’ as we call it, by adopting SIS Charts electronic clinical documentation. However, many SIS Office users want to use some of these advanced capabilities like the patient portal, patient trackers, and time trackers that are part of SIS Charts. So, to meet this need, we introduced an ‘advanced’ version of SIS Office that has these additional capabilities.”
An Advanced Communication & Engagement Solution for ASCs
SIS Advanced gives ASCs the benefit of an efficient, streamlined business office management solution and steps them toward the capabilities of a modern EHR:
An electronic case request platform – SIS Advanced gives users access to SIS Link, a tool that streamlines the scheduling process while still letting the ASC have full control of their schedule. The surgeon’s office has the ability to view the ASC’s schedule and submit case requests for review and approval by the ASC scheduler. Patient demographics, insurance, and additional documents can be attached to the case request, which then flow into the patient record, helping the ASC save even more time.
“ASCs love this because it makes the scheduling process so much more efficient yet still allows them to have complete control over their schedules,” Scheidegger says. “As an example, we have a client that is very comfortable exercising this power – they define all the fields they need completed on the case request and make those fields mandatory. That way, they have all the information they need when the request is submitted and don’t have to play phone tag with the physicians’ staff. They schedule 99% of their cases using SIS Link. It’s a huge satisfier for physicians, ASC schedulers, and the administrators.”
A secure, user-friendly patient portal – SIS Advanced users can also access SIS Exchange, a secure and easy-to-use portal that allows patients to complete pre-op and post-op questionnaires, receive important reminders, review instructions and disclosures, view estimates, and more. Patients do not need to create an account and keep track of one more set of login credentials – they can access the portal using unique identifiers.
“Some ASCs are unsure what levels of patient adoption to expect from an ASC patient portal,” says Scheidegger. “Because of how easy SIS Exchange’s login process is, it’s not uncommon for many of our ASCs to see upwards of 80% of their patients use the portal. Still, if only 50% of your patient population uses the patient portal, which is a worst-case scenario, that is still a significant workload reduction that frees up your staff from having to make pre-admissions phone calls.”
Configurable patient tracker boards – SIS’ configurable tracker boards are one of the most effective tools to help improve communication across the surgery center. ASCs can use a number of pre-existing clinical and waiting room tracker boards or create their own boards to meet their needs. These patient tracker boards make communication throughout the ASC easier while providing peace of mind for your patients’ loved ones. (Mike gave us a deep-dive into configurable tracker boards in a recent blog – read more here)
Mobile access for clinical staff – ASC clinical staff can easily access SIS Advanced capabilities from their mobile device. Physicians can view their surgical schedule, review pre-op and post-op reports and case attachments, and even see where patients are located in the surgery center.
Easy-to-use time trackers – SIS Advanced includes a Time Tracker that provides a glimpse of all cases happening in the surgery center on any given day. The tracker shows patient location and other key milestones such as arrival in each department and when anesthesia is started. Times entered on the tracker flow into the tracker boards as well as into the Clinical Documentation Manager. The time tracker also supports case costing by helping administrators see how much time they spend on cases.
Powerful case coordination capabilities – ASCs can communicate with staff and vendors working on a case using SIS Advanced. Case staff receive notifications when cases are scheduled, rescheduled, or canceled, and staff can communicate with one another through in-app notifications.
Easing the Transition to Electronic Clinical Documentation
Like the other products in the SIS Complete suite, SIS Advanced is a cloud-based system. If a surgery center decides to implement only one component of SIS Complete – such as SIS Office or SIS Charts – it is much easier for them to implement additional capabilities later. And, because each component is hosted in the same cloud-based environment, users won’t have to deal with the hassle of creating new logins for each new part of the system.
If an ASC decided to later implement our SIS Charts EHR, Mike Scheidegger says that SIS Advanced users are in luck:
“Leveraging our single, comprehensive platform, we were able to make it an easy, streamlined journey to go from SIS Advanced to SIS Charts. All users can keep their existing access, and they will not experience any changes or disruption to how they access their system. They will still have to go through the process of configuring and learning SIS Charts, but it would be an otherwise seamless process for the end user.”
Since its introduction, SIS Advanced has quickly become a popular option for ASCs ready to reap the benefits of modern business office software, but not yet ready to trade in their paper charts for electronic documentation. The SIS product team is continuing to work on new capabilities for SIS Advanced.
“As more ASCs adopt SIS Advanced, they will no doubt share with us their ideas to enhance the system,” says Scheidegger. “An enhancement we’ll be working on in 2024 is the ability to print out things like risk assessments. Clinical staff can print these out, review them with the patient, and make notes. It’ll then become part of the patient’s medical record.”
It’s time for your ASC to Operate Smart
SIS Advanced helps enhance the productivity of your business office and clinical staff. SIS will be hosting a special demonstration of SIS Advanced on February 15th at 3 PM ET. If you’re an ASC considering moving to an advanced office management solution, or if you’re already using SIS Office and want to add even more cutting-edge capabilities, we encourage you to register for our webinar or to contact us directly.
