In this episode, we talk with Edie Gigot, RN, MSN, MBA, Accreditation Program Director of the National Infusion Center Association. Edie shares great information about operational excellence, process improvement, and how accreditation can help infusion centers.
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Transcript: How Accreditation Drives Operational Excellence
Amanda Brummitt: We Infuse podcast, episode number 59. Welcome to the We Infuse podcast. My name is Amanda Brummett. In every episode, we give you a seat at the table as we talk to Infusion Center owners, operators, and experts, so you can get the insight you need to run a thriving practice. In this episode, talk about We talk with Edie Jagot, Accreditation Program Director of the National Infusion Center Association, or NICA. Edie shares great information about operational excellence, process improvement, and how accreditation can help infusion centers. Edie, thank you so much for being here with us. We’re so excited to have you on the show today. you have an amazing background. Can you walk our listeners through it?
Edie Gigot: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for having me, really excited to be able to join the podcast. yeah, my background. So prior to getting my undergraduate degree and being a nurse in the hospital, I actually worked at Sprint in marketing and advertising, and I thought that’s what I was going to do. And during that time I was helping care for my elderly grandparents. And through that experience, I actually fell in love with the art of nursing and decided to make a career change and go to nursing school. And after I worked in the hospital for a little while, I launched into my infusion career, which included leading pharmacy and nursing teams as a vice president of clinical operations and a chief clinical officer. And most recently starting my own consulting company, AdvisorWorks, where we focus on Supporting organizations and really helping them identify sustainable solutions that deliver cost effective care to achieve outcomes with value.
Amanda Brummitt: Wow. That is quite impressive. so how did you make that jump into the infusion industry? what attracted you to it?
Edie Gigot: So I was working as a nurse in the hospital on a telemetry, cardiac unit, and I was continuing to take on projects and chair committees and still feeling like I just wasn’t making the difference that I wanted to make. A home infusion rep actually came in one day and started talking with me about the infusion world. And she told me about an opening they had, and I decided to make the change. full transparency at the time. Hospitals aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. And so what do I have to lose? And I honestly never looked back. I fell in love with the infusion world and really being able to make a difference in people’s lives. leading is honestly where I’ve been most passionate, helping establish processes, policies, supporting teams, breaking down silos, and just really being able to create, what is otherwise a lasting change.
Amanda Brummitt: Yeah, those are all so important in healthcare. So with all of that background, what would you say is your main area of expertise? And what do you hope our listeners will learn from that today?
Edie Gigot: I would say operational optimization. All organizations need to continually strive for operational excellence in highly regulated, regulated industries, obviously, such as healthcare were able to establish our baseline based on the laws and regulations that exist. When you consider proprietary business operations, you have to take the blueprint that those laws and regulations provide us and really determine how to optimally operate and make it work for your organization’s practices. So, in other words, you can’t lose your secret sauce, right? The way to reach optimization is not through compliance and regulation alone. However, it’s about balancing those regulations, the laws, the accreditation requirements with your businesses, proprietary processes and models so that you can create sustainable and scalable solutions. to sum it up, I’d say you have to connect all the pieces through your processes. Those proprietary pieces really are as important as the laws and regulations that we must follow.
Amanda Brummitt: For sure. I love all of that, which is a beautiful segue into the National Infusion Center Association. Do you, I think most of our listeners are likely familiar with the organization, but before we jump into. What we’re going to talk about today. Can you just tell them a little bit about NICA for people that aren’t familiar with it?
Edie Gigot: Yes. so NICA is the, by the way, just to say that they are the nonprofit trade association for this industry. The, the, comprised of some awesome humans. these are things you’re not hearing on the website. So I wanted, that’s why I wanted to make sure that I plugged that in. But, NICA is dedicated to, representing the interests. of the ambulatory infusion, industry, the various care settings where provider administered biologics and specialty medications are prepared and, and administered. NICA is dedicated to really being the leading voice for non hospital, community based infusion providers and working to ensure the viability and safety, of those community based infusion centers.
Amanda Brummitt: Fantastic. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And so I understand that there is a ton of excitement in the industry that NICA is rolling out either a new or maybe even the first accreditation for ambulatory and fusion centers. Can you tell us about it and how it works?
Edie Gigot: Yes, absolutely. And yes, the accreditation program is officially launched, which is super exciting. Super exciting. and honestly, how better to ensure the viability of community based infusion centers than to support them by filling this gap that has existed for so long. and you touched on it prior to the NICA standards and accreditation program, There was nothing specific to what we do in the ambulatory infusion industry. The other options we’ve had are very square peg round hole approach. they just reuse metrics and processes that were created for and used in other areas, which just makes for a frustrating, frustrating process for those who have had the experience of being involved in that. And so for those also who are listening who don’t know or just aren’t super familiar with accreditation, because again, accreditation is new for, ambulatory infusion centers. It’s not something that has been, a very established requirement or a well known requirement for this industry. it’s very well known when you’re talking about Pharmacies or hospital organizations, things like that, but what accreditation really does is it facilitates quality assessment of an organization services and care, creates goals for organizational improvement and advances the quality of patient care. And the standards are really the roadmap for what we’re, being assessed against. The standards establish safety and quality requirements that really set the expectation for reasonable and achievable organizational performance. and you asked, how does the accreditation program actually work? So organizations have to start by meeting the minimum requirements. They must be an infusion center with at least one dedicated site where infusion center, infusion services are provided. They must be located within the U S have established and implemented policies and procedures, and they must be licensed and compliant with all applicable laws and regulations. So nothing super crazy there. If you’re operating an infusion center, you should be able to check all those boxes. Otherwise I have some questions about what you’re doing. but. If an organization meets those requirements, the next step is to complete the NICA accreditation application process. And the application process is really designed to gather information about the infusion center. It helps to inform the program structure so that it’s tailored to each infusion center size. Once the organization is accepted to begin the accreditation process, they’re assigned an accreditation program navigator. Who works with them side by side throughout the program to really help ensure they understand each of the steps along the way and the accreditation process itself includes several key elements. There’s a completion of a self assessment that serves as a gap analysis to determine organizations baseline level of compliance. This was a big deal for us to actually add this step into the program. Organizations who have experienced other accreditation programs, oftentimes you have to, in order to be successful, you almost have to have a consulting team involved, and not everyone can always afford that. And so one of the pieces that was important when we designed the program was. Essentially to instead of paying someone to do a gap analysis for you to really figure out where are we at, how, where is our compliance level currently against compared to the NICA standards, we built that into the program. So it’s the first step. It allows you to determine how much time do we really need to get ready. And based on the score that comes out of that initial step, it helps give that timeframe to organizations. If you come out of that with 100%, then you are going to be moving on to the next step very quickly. Whereas if someone comes out and they’re like, Oh, I’ve got some work to do on some policies, or maybe I need to get some more things in place, then they might have a few months time before they’re actually moving on to the next step. So once they finish that step, there’s a virtual process where the organization will electronically upload supporting evidence to demonstrate compliance with the accreditation standards. That could be anything from policies and procedures, photos, examples of education and training material, those sort of things. And then finally, there’s an onsite assessment that’s conducted, which includes an assessment team completing an in, in person assessment of the organization’s actual operations. It’s really just a final step of validation. And honestly, that’s all accreditation should be. It should be validating the, that you are doing what you say you’re doing. And that it aligns with quality standards. after all of that said and done, and the assessment steps are complete, the information is reviewed by the accreditation committee and a final decision is granted, or determined on whether or not accreditation is then granted. And then the accreditation is actually a three year period. and which time at three years you go through a renewal process.
Amanda Brummitt: So it really sounds like you’re. Partnering with infusion centers to both celebrate what they’re doing. Right. But also educate and really, it sounds like you’re walking hand in hand with them through this process. It frankly doesn’t sound as scary as some of the accreditation processes. It sounds more. process improvement geared.
Edie Gigot: That is actually a great way to say it. And, I appreciate you pointing that out because, my past experience having experienced accreditation, both in the hospital setting and then in the, home infusion center, And then the pharmacy setting, there overall, it’s a very intimidating process and I didn’t often leave it feeling like I learned something or like we were awful, operationally better for it. And so again, when we were designing the program, we really wanted. Spent a lot of time focusing on how can we build this so that it is a joint partnership with organizations in the industry, as opposed to, we’re, this, scary, dark, being this board looking over things. And. judging people as opposed to, what it should be, which is a partnership.
Amanda Brummitt: Yeah, for sure. So it makes sense to me why a center would want to be accredited, obviously bragging rights and just to prove to the rest of the world that we’re doing things right. But, from, let’s say from a marketing perspective, what’s in it for them? What are the benefits for being able to say they’re not get accredited?
Edie Gigot: Absolutely. so it establishes a foundation for safe, consistent, high value care, following the standards, they, the standards are based on the and then they go a step beyond that because they really were built by people who run infusion centers. And, those of us who have had the experience in the industry for, decades plus. And so being able to pull all of that together and hand somebody a, a guide, right? To this is, the way This is how you do it, really helps you be able to set that foundation from the beginning. it allows organizations to optimize their operations throughout the process, delivers value by driving those best practices and the quality standards and just the excellence in care delivery. It also promotes proactive positioning, to navigate Stay in network and it provides organizations better leverage in their contract negotiations. And then, as you said, it is, or as you pointed out, it helps you stand out and differentiate yourself. Really demonstrating that we have this commitment to excellence by becoming a national infusion center of excellence.
Amanda Brummitt: Fantastic. Well, let’s shift gears just a little bit and talk a little bit more about your experience in infusion. for having me. What would you say has been your biggest challenge in infusion practice? And maybe share a specific story that gives us a look at that.
Edie Gigot: Where do I begin? I’m going to go ahead and throw pair challenges out the window. We’re not going to talk about that because it is, Just the, it’s the known, it’s the given. and I don’t have any secret gems to give anybody about that. We all struggle with them every day. I wish I did. I would say overall though, the lack of resources and support available to the ambulatory infusion industry. And by that, the type of resources that are specific and really focused on the challenges that we face every day, having worked primarily for startups in my infusion industry career has given me firsthand experience at what it’s like to really operate in the wild west. In fact, That first year I left the hospital, I was like, I must be crazy. What am I doing? and I, thought about it many times. And then you, as many of us do and have done, you fall in love with it. But honestly, one of the first things that comes to mind is disparate systems. We’re all. face daily with operational challenges that often perpetuate our inefficiencies, and in systems and programs that don’t communicate data that we can’t easily gather, and all these problems are just a time suck and make all the problems that we’re already trying to solve for seem even harder. having to have 35 platforms to accomplish anything, trying to utilize the, quote unquote available systems and resources to, to get by is, it’s, just frustrating. at each organization I’ve been a part of, I’ve helped create processes and systems. To try to solve for these frustrations. That was partly an accompaniment of, existing solutions that were, that I had at my fingertips, like, using SharePoint and then proprietary or homegrown ones in the case of, actually what I helped create, Excel, a care Briova. I know they used it. For years. Don’t know if they still are, but in all cases, still multiple systems and platforms, were required. And so, one thing that inspires me now and excites me is working with and supporting organizations who are truly trained to solve for this problem, honestly, such as we infuse and that’s not just a plug because I’m doing the podcast. I’ve ever, I’ve never actually. Had to use it directly. However, I have used it, on, or seen it on the reverse side, like from an accreditation, assessment side. And which is really interesting because when you’ve seen some of the other systems and you’re trying to work with people to, pull data or, review their charting or different things like that, it’s a mess. And depending on what systems people have, it. It is just can be real messy and again, just frustrating for people. And so, again, it’s a big challenge, but it’s exciting to see that there are, organizations like we infused who are really making a difference with that.
Amanda Brummitt: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. thank you for the plug there. And especially with your background as a nurse, I feel like you have such a good lens to, look at that through. You’re not just looking at it operationally. You’re looking at it as the caretaker as well.
Edie Gigot: And we’re super judges. So,
Amanda Brummitt: you can’t get a better plug than a thumbs up from a super judging person.
Edie Gigot: Exactly.
Amanda Brummitt: So, so that’s your biggest challenge. What about, what’s your biggest light bulb moment that you’ve had so far with infusion practice?
Edie Gigot: That no one has all the answers, you just have to know where to find them. it is, I would say that is also one of the things that we, really try to drive home with the accreditation program as well, is you don’t have to know everything. None of us do. people don’t shout that from the rooftop though when you first start out. And so when I figured that out, that I didn’t have to have all the answers, but I just needed to know. What my resources were and where to locate them. It really shifted how I view things. and, this may seem like a again another needless plug, which I should probably stop saying, but, that was honestly part of it. Part of my initial draw to apply for the NICA standards development committee, which actually eventually led to my current role as the accreditation program director, being a part of an organization who is trying to help provide the answers that we’re all looking for. It just really meant a thing to me. And so That was, that was it, it was just the key that, that fit for me.
Amanda Brummitt: Yeah. I think that is such good advice, especially for early careerists or people that are new to owning their own center. many of us are used to being experts in our industry and saying, I don’t know, it’s a challenge and learning to say, I don’t know, but let me find out the answer or let me call NICA or let me call another infusion center. huge development.
Edie Gigot: Absolutely. Well, and no matter what, for, especially for people starting, new infusion centers or who are just new to the industry, no matter what you’ve done in your career, you likely weren’t doing all things. And that’s what happens when you start a new infusion center or you start a new pharmacy is you’re doing intake and you’re doing the off and you’re doing the billing and you are possibly the clinical SME. And. your hats are just many. And so there is just no way, especially when you start out that you’re going to have all the answers. And I still don’t have all the answers as much as I think I know. you’re con I’m constantly learning, which is also an amazing part of this industry is because there seems to be just no shortage of new experiences and opportunities to, to learn more.
Amanda Brummitt: Definitely. Well, speaking of opportunities to learn and do more, what are you most excited about in the industry right now?
Edie Gigot: If there were any answer, but the NICA accreditation program, honestly, there is just no other way I could answer that question. We officially launched the program. We have spent over the last two and a half years developing the program. And as I, I think I mentioned earlier, it was truly developed. By infusion centers for infusion centers, which doesn’t exist anywhere else in the industry. We’ve worked tirelessly over the past couple years to really establish our foundation as an American National Standards Institute accredited standards developer, which is a mouthful. so, what does that mean? Essentially, it means that as a standards developer and accreditation body, we got accredited in order to hold the bar. for ourselves as high as we possibly could, which just means that we’re now going to turn around and hold the bar for infusion centers just as high, which should only be a very positive thing. for everyone I have had, at the last NICA conference, I had so many organizations come up to me and with just questions on what do we do? How far do our chairs need to be apart? What do we need reaction kits? What should be in the reaction kit? Thank you. And good news, the accreditation standards actually answer all of these questions for people. so yes, it is super awesome because one thing that we tried really hard to do, and this is for everybody who was involved. I did not write the standards on my own, to be clear. there was an entire committee, and, many different standards. Stakeholders, from various walks of life were involved in the development process. But one thing that was important was that we weren’t just telling people, you need to have policy and procedures. now good luck figuring out what goes in them. but we’re going to judge you if you don’t put the right thing in them. One thing we really wanted to make sure we did was. Be clear in what it was, what the expectations are and what we all need to do in our practices to continue to, to strive to be better and to raise the bar higher. It also means that the industry, finally has the standards to guide us that really give us that relevant baseline, provide the actual guidance that we need and the best practices to support the establishment and development of stronger clinical and operational processes.
Amanda Brummitt: Yeah, well, we are super, super excited to have them. So thank you for all of that work.
Edie Gigot: Absolutely. Yes. It’s, it was, it’s been, just a great experience to be a part of it.
Amanda Brummitt: Awesome. Well, if you had just one last piece of advice for our listeners, what would it be?
Edie Gigot: Apply for the NICO accreditation program. I’m kidding, but not, because the more support the program gets, the greater impact and change we can continue to make for the industry. More support and involvement means we’re going to have a larger foothold. It means a better chance at continuing to have a voice, a better chance at creating lasting change, and not continuing to put the square peg in a round hole and we all just go along with it. So if you’re going to complain about those things, then just know that there is a way to impact that and to make a difference, and that is to be a part of the community. Accreditation program. So, I will say too, if anyone listening is interested in learning more about the accreditation program, they can email info at infusion center accreditation. org and we will happily get back with you and follow up and provide any information needed. We will be officially launching our new accreditation website and the standards will be released for sale. the new standards, so the ones that are currently available for free on the website, were the minimum standards that NICA originally developed. They have, just exponentially exploded in terms of the, amount of content and information that’s in them, which is super exciting. but those will be released and for sale at the upcoming conference. in Miami on June 23rd and 24th.
Amanda Brummitt: Perfect. Well, Edie, thank you so much for your time today. And thank you for all the work that’s gone into the new NICA accreditation. And we, hope that everybody gets out there and applies for it right away.
Edie Gigot: Absolutely. Thank you very much. And thank you for the support.
Amanda Brummitt: Well, that was great information from Edie Jagoe of NICA about their new accreditation, how to achieve operational excellence. And I particularly loved her insight on utilizing outside resources to gain knowledge. Speaking of operational excellence, if you aren’t familiar with the WeInfuse software platform and RxToolkit’s web based resources, I encourage you to schedule a test drive. These tools can save time and money in your practice while making infusions safer for patients and caregivers. My name is Amanda Brummett, and we’ll catch you in the next episode.
Guest Speaker: Edie Gigot is the CEO and founder of AdvisorWoRx and a leading expert in the infusion industry. Edie launched AdvisorWoRx with the mission of helping healthcare organizations identify sustainable solutions that deliver consistent, efficient, cost-effective care to achieve outcomes with value. She has more than a decade of proven success and experience leading clinical and operations teams delivering revenue growth and improved clinical outcomes. She is also the Accreditation Program Director of the National Infusion Center Association (NICA).
