Unlock Staff Potential and Elevate Surgical Capacity with ZEISS VERACITY Surgery Planner

We surgeons often find ourselves running all aspects of a surgical center’s logistics. When we commit to obligations that interfere with performing surgery—which is the only task that we alone can execute—we aren’t maximizing our potential as trained surgeons. These chores support our ultimate mission of delivering patient care, but they nevertheless undermine overall efficiency.

When I realigned my clinical workflow to maximize my time in the OR, I knew I had to maintain (or even elevate) quality of care and workplace efficiency. During this reshuffling, I relied on ZEISS VERACITY Surgery Planner to maximize my staff’s talents. Within a year, the results were clear: my staff were more confident, executed at a higher level, and delivered excellent face-to-face interactions with patients—and my clinic maintained its quality of care, spent less time training new hires, and maximized its surgical output.

And the best part: when I used ZEISS VERACITY Surgery Planner to strengthen my staff, it empowered me to focus on surgery and spend more time in the OR.

In my practice, four pillars in my clinic were significantly strengthened after I turned to ZEISS VERACITY Surgery Planner to unlock my staff’s potential. Let’s look at each one.

• Spotting biometric discrepancies. When patients sit for presurgical workups, my staff images them using a variety of modalities. They compare device outputs to ensure that measurements such as axial length and keratometric measurements have inter-modality agreement before scheduling surgery.
  
  In the past, I tasked staff with transcribing data from each biometer into an Excel spreadsheet specifically coded to detect discrepancies outside my toleration for variability—if, for example, two machines measured K values that disagreed by more than 0.25 D, I considered this disparity unacceptable and reassessed the patient. This process was vulnerable to human transcription error, inefficient, and cumbersome.
  
  Now that my staff uses ZEISS VERACITY Surgery Planner, they quickly detect when biometry diagreements are outside the parameters I specified. From there, my staff determines whether the patient needs to optimize their ocular surface and return for another assessment (more on that below) or if I should review the patient’s anatomy myself. Now, my staff spends less time on data entry and more time executing.
• Training new staff members. Training new staff members requires patience and time from your experienced staff—and contributes to overall slowdowns before the new person gets up to speed. Because ZEISS VERACITY Surgery Planner allows my staff to quickly identify biometric discrepancies, new hires require less up-front training to effectively assess anatomic data. This flattening of the learning curve makes new hires feel like a contributing team member, cuts down on the time it takes to maximize a new hire’s talents, and provides a space in which an employee learns ophthalmic concepts at their own pace.
• Empowering staff to advise patients on ocular surface optimization. My staff are uniquely talented in their ability to communicate confidently and accurately with patients. I designed a protocol focused on ocular surface optimization for patients whose biometric data indicate that an ocular surface optimization regimen will result in predictable surgical outcomes. When my staff identify such patients using ZEISS VERACITY Surgery Planner, they educate the patient about the regimen and the value of a stable ocular surface and schedule them for follow-up biometry. If a post-optimization biometric review reveals continued discrepancy between imaging modalities, then the patient is directed to me for examination; often, my staff’s intervention at the ocular surface level is sufficient for surgery to proceed.
  
  In these instances, my staff act as physician extenders. This process prioritizes the patient’s well-being and frees me to focus on surgery rather than address routine ocular surface issues. This entire system depends on ZEISS VERACITY Surgery Planner serving as the central tool to our clinic’s presurgical workup routine; without it, my day would be filled with ocular surface consultations and my staff would be performing at a fraction of their capacity.
• Improving intraoffice communication on patient files to enhance chart review. If a staff member spots a feature worthy of my review, they leave a note in the comments section in ZEISS VERACITY Surgery Planner, which is integrated into the patient’s EMR file. (This process became seamless after connecting ZEISS VERACITY with my clinic’s EMR—something you should consider doing if you haven’t already.) When reviewing a virtual stack of EMR charts before surgery, I examine files with comments flagged for my review before moving on to more conventional cases. This means that rather than rooting around EMR data for potential surgical issues, I shift into problem-solving mode for a specific batch of files before moving on to more conventional patient cases.
  

We turn to staff to manage some of the responsibilities of our clinics, but their productivity hinges on the ceiling provided within the framework of the practice. With the right staff and practice structure, surgical clinics can put every worker in a spot to maximize their talents and expertise.

Empower your staff to live up to their potential while also allowing yourself to increase OR time by introducing ZEISS VERACITY Surgery Planner into your staff’s workflow. When their power is unlocked, you and your clinic will realize greater efficiency—and your patients will feel the difference.

^{The statements of the author reflect only his personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any institution with whom he is affiliated.
The author has a contractual or other financial relationship with Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc. and has received financial support.}