International Journal of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine

EFFECTS OF â�?�?ANESTHESIA REPORT CARDSâ�? ON PROVIDER PERFORMANCE AND CLINICAL OUTCOMES

in this study, we investigate anesthesia provider compliance after implementation of quality reporting metrics and its effects on postoperative complications. We hypothesized that there would be increased compliance after implementation of intraoperative management guidelines for various anesthesia performance metrics. Compliance was gauged by monthly performance “report cards” comparing individual performance to benchmarks on selected metrics. The effects of improved compliance in these anesthesia performance metrics was assessed by correlation with postoperative outcomes.

METHODS: Our anesthesiology department implemented a program to capture and report quality metrics. After staff education, individualized monthly email reports (“anesthesia report cards”) were sent to all anesthesia providers, detailing individual compliance rates for a set of 14 quality measures (table 1). For each measure, the proportion of cases which passed the measure before and after implementation of the program was compared using a two-sample proportion test. To examine whether program implementation decreased the rate of complications, the proportion of complications pre- and post-program implementation was analyzed using fisher’s exact test.

CONCLUSION: after implementing a comprehensive anesthesia quality improvement program, we observed significant improvements in anesthesia performance metric compliance for several process measures. Additionally, we found that these improvements were associated with a decrease in any postoperative complication (experienced within 7 postoperative days). Future work is needed to determine if this initial success can be preserved as well as replicated at institutions beyond our own.

Author(s):

Cindy yeoh

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