Anesthesia Department Management: 10 Ways to Evaluate Your Anesthesia Department
Author : Doc Clemens
10 Ways to Evaluate Your Current Anesthesia Department
1. Track on-time arrivals. Late arrivals from anesthesia providers can affect OR finances as well as patient, staff and physician satisfaction. The department needs to track on-time arrivals to determine if anesthesia is delaying cases and diminishing OR efficiency. Anesthesia providers should be expected to talk to staff and physicians prior to the procedure, participate in the pre-operative exam and speak to patients about their anesthesia.
2. Look at interactions with physicians and operating room staff because anesthesia providers must be friendly and respectful.
3. Follow up with patients after discharge. Given the influence patient experience and postoperative complications can have on patient satisfaction, anesthesiologists should be kept aware of their track record in preventing postoperative discomfort. The patient may also feel that the anesthesia provider did not spend enough time explaining the anesthesia process or that they seemed rushed or rude. Make sure to catch these issues before they become a pattern and affect your anesthesia department's reputation in the community.
4. Collect information on specific clinical outcomes over time, you will get a sense for the most common anesthesia issues and can work with the anesthesia provider to fix those problems.
5. Analyze all anesthesia complications to see if it is a trend or isolated problem.
6. Perform regular chart reviews and if the charts are frequently incomplete, remind anesthesia staff that the information is important and mandatory.
7. Conduct customer satisfaction surveys from both the patients and the OR staff and surgeons. For patients, these questions could sound something like, "Did the anesthesia provider explain the anesthesia process adequately prior to surgery?" For physicians and staff, the question could be phrased, "Does the anesthesia provider introduce him/herself prior to surgery?" Leave room on the surveys for your "customers" to expand on their thoughts.
8. Expect anesthesia to contribute to quality improvement. anesthesia staff should be expected to contribute to projects that improve efficiency, cut costs or emphasize patient safety.
9. Track case cancellations due to anesthesia.
10. There should be a chairperson for the anesthesia group. This person is a go-to provider to answer questions, report anesthesia provider feedback, and head quality improvement initiatives for the team.