Six Questions to Test Your Anesthesia Collaboration

Is anesthesia cost a concern? Are you getting the highest value from your anesthesia management leaders?

OR nurse leaders and anesthesia leaders share the common goals of delivering high-quality anesthesia services to patients, running an efficient and productive OR to meet the needs of surgeons, and maximizing revenue while minimizing anesthesia cost to the hospital.

An effective and ongoing collaboration is crucial in creating a culture of excellence and achievement-oriented behaviors that result in peak performance. Shortcomings in any of the three phases of preoperative care put all the goals at risk.

Setting the Stage for Peak Performance

“If anesthesia and nurse leaders set the pace and lead by example, other key personnel, including surgeons will follow,” advises Robert C. Goldstein, MD, executive vice president and chief medical officer of Somnia Anesthesia. “Without a sense of urgency to improve collaboration, deficiencies in performance, productivity, and profitability will continue and may worsen.”

1. Goldstein suggests six questions for OR nurse leaders that will help them assess the value of their perioperative anesthesia partnership.
2. Does the current anesthesia team provide consistent, flexible and optimal OR coverage to meet the needs of surgical team, the hospital, and patients?
3. Does the current anesthesia team meet the expectation for on-time procedure starts and decreased OR turnaround time by introducing and implementing more efficient processes and procedures?
4. Does the current anesthesia team have the infrastructure and professional expertise to meet the dynamic needs for anesthesia management services throughout the hospital?
5. Does the current anesthesia team lead the preoperative process to ensure patients are optimized for surgery and that procedure cancellation is minimized?
6. Does the current anesthesia team deploy modern techniques for pain management in an effort to minimize length of stay and improve the patient’s outcome and satisfaction?
7. Does the current anesthesia team have an identified, reliable, and consistent leadership structure that is accountable and responsible for the department’s clinical and nonclinical duties?

Plan for Improved Value

Goldstein notes that in most cases, the inability of an anesthesia department to provide value is the result of a lack of infrastructure.

“The ideal solution would be for the anesthesia department to develop a value proposition, strategy and objectives, with defined timelines, that optimize anesthesia services and meet the needs and expectations of stakeholders,” he advises. “If the department is unable to execute this strategy effectively it should be an indication that exploring options for augmenting, enhancing, or replacing anesthesia management is an appropriate step to take.”

Somnia Anesthesia provides anesthesia management services for hospitals and outpatient facilities nationwide, maintaining OR efficiency metrics in the top 10%. To learn more about forging a strong alliance between anesthesia providers and OR managers to prepare the OR for continued success, read Somnia’s white paper, Creating a Perioperative Partnership for Operating Room Managers.

You can read all of Somnia Anesthesia’s blog posts here.