At the 11th Annual Orthopedic, Spine & Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference in Chicago on June 13, a roundtable of ambulatory surgery center industry experts discussed emerging business issues in spine surgery. The roundtable included orthopedic spine surgeon with Laser Spine Institute Stefan Prada, MD; Steven Weinshel, MD, of Aurora BayCare Medical Center; Chief Medical Officer at Access MediQuip Steven Arnold, MD; and President and CEO of Analytics Jeffrey Mason. The panel was moderated by Scott Becker, a partner at McGuireWoods.

At the 11th Annual Orthopedic, Spine & Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference in Chicago on June 13, Senior Vice President of Acquisitions and Business Development at Blue Chip Surgery Center Partners Chris Bishop gave a presentation titled "Utilizing Spine Cases to Improve the Profitability of Underutilized, Poorly Performing ASCs."

At the 11th Annual Spine, Orthopedic & Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference on June 14, John Peloza, MD, director at the Center for Spine Care, presented on how to begin performing spine surgeries in ASCs.

At the 11th Annual Spine, Orthopedic & Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference on June 14, a panel of spine leaders discussed trends and challenges for spine surgery going forward in a keynote session titled “The Changing Role of Spine Surgery.”

At the 11th Annual Spine, Orthopedic & Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference June 13, Carol Hiatt, RN, licensed healthcare risk manager, consultant and accreditation surveyor for Healthcare Consultants International, discussed proactively managing risk related to innovative spine surgery.

Novant Health Charlotte Orthopedic Hospital has named Bruce Darden, MD, Physician of the Year in 2013.

Minimally invasive spine surgery has been evolving for 30 to 40 years, and surgeons should know where the techniques came from before looking forward.

William Sonstein, MD, FACS, senior partner at Neurological Surgery, chief of neurosurgery at North Shore-LIJ Hospital at Plainview (N.Y.) and co-chief of neurosurgery at St. Joseph's Hospital in Bethpage, N.Y., is among the early adopters of new technologies that may help prevent complications for spine surgery: the Medtronic Aquamantys System, Stryker Sonopet Aspirator and Misonix Sonastar Ultrasonic Aspiration System.

Spine surgeons have a huge responsibility to provide safe, effective and cost-effective care to patients on a daily basis. However, for surgeons who want to go the extra mile to impact spine care beyond their practice, there are several avenues worth exploring.

United Surgical Partners International honored The Christ Hospital Surgery Center Administrator Michael Galvin with the 2012 CEO Award, according to a Cincinnati.com report.