Data Insights Drive Profitability &
Time Savings for Ambulatory Surgery Center Association
Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA) is a trade organization with 2,800 organization members representing over 15,000 individuals. In an effort to to better understand renewal patterns such as who renews and when, ASCA’s Chief Financial Officer, John Greenwich, sought to understand the numbers behind the numbers. Were the smaller surgery centers taking longer to renew than the bigger ones? What were the differences between single-specialty and multi-specialty surgery centers? They also wanted to be able to compare their membership demographics to the industry at large. However, with all their data living in several disparate systems, they couldn’t see the full picture. Their goal was to be able to pull it all in one place to analyze what was happening with their memberships easily and quickly.
Why they chose Acumen
ASCA did their due diligence when searching for a solution. They appreciated that Association Analytics (A2) offered a service team so they wouldn’t have to figure everything out for themselves. They ultimately selected A2’s data analytics solution, Acumen, for its pre-built dashboards and data visualization capabilities. Mr. Greenwich reflects, “The vision was that one day, our staff and other stakeholders would have immediate access to critical data buried in our information systems. Association Analytics’ Acumen business intelligence platform helped make that vision a reality. Now, our eyes have been opened to a treasure chest of data points to track trends and gain insights that help us better understand and serve our members and staff.”
“Our eyes have been opened to a treasure chest of data points to track trends and gain insights that help us better understand and serve our members and staff.”
Insights lead to action…and profit
The main benefit that Acumen provides is uncovering insights that were not previously visible. That’s exactly what ASCA found when they used a combination of reports and meeting overlap visualizations in Acumen’s event module. With their analysis, they identified a large portion of people attending their virtual events in 2020 and early 2021 had never been to an in-person event with ASCA before. They also realized they had a new audience that wanted to attend virtual events only. With virtual events being very profitable compared to in-person events because of the decreased overhead costs, they decided to launch a new online course – the Virtual Infection Prevention (IP). In 2021, the course had 363 registrants. The second course launched in 2022 and had 469 registrants, an increase of 29% over 2021.
Between the two years, their new course resulted in nearly $300,000 of additional revenue – all because their new data visualizations told them the full story about a new audience. The data has also enabled ASCA to change its communications strategy. Before, they were sending mass emails to everyone. Now, they are sending targeted communications on available programs and events that speak to a single specialty such as ophthalmology.
Having a more targeted approach has improved the member experience overall, and since implementing Acumen, ASCA has seen a 10% increase in renewals prior to expiration
Easy reporting enables more strategic use of staff time
ASCA has a series of monthly reports that go to their finance committee. Before Acumen, putting these together was a highly manual process because data needed to be pulled from several databases. The time savings that Acumen deliver for staff is huge, as these reports can now be pulled in minutes. Emily Bernard, ASCA Sr. Business Analyst, states, “We’ve never had anything like this. We can see in real-time how we’re doing, particularly in renewal season. It’s a huge deal that reports that used to take several days are now self-serve.”
Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA)
The ambulatory surgery centers in delivering safe, high-quality, cost-effective patient care through legislative outreach, education and informational resources. ASCA is a trade organization comprised of 2,800 organization members representing over 15,000 individuals.
AMBULATORY SURGERY CENTER ASSOCIATION
WWW.ASCASSOCIATION.ORG
EMILY BERNARD
SR. BUSINESS ANALYST