Influence of provider type (nurse anesthetist or resident physician), staff assignments, and other covariates on daily evaluations of anesthesiologists' quality of supervision.

BACKGROUND

At many U.S. healthcare facilities, supervision of anesthesiology residents and/or Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) is a major daily responsibility of anesthesiologists. Our department implemented a daily process by which the supervision provided by each anesthesiologist working in operating rooms was evaluated by the anesthesiology resident(s) and CRNA(s) with whom they worked the previous day.

METHODS

Requests for evaluation were sent daily via e-mail to each resident and CRNA after working in an operating room. Supervision scores were analyzed after 6 months, and aligned with the cases' American Society of Anesthesiologists Relative Value Guide units.

RESULTS

(1) Mean monthly evaluation completion rates exceeded 85% (residents P = 0.0001, CRNAs P = 0.0005). (2) Pairwise by anesthesiologist, residents and CRNAs mean supervision scores were correlated (P < 0.0001), but residents assigned greater scores than did CRNAs (P < 0.0001). The pairwise differences between residents and CRNAs were heterogeneous among anesthesiologists (P < 0.0001). (3) Anesthesiologist supervision scores provided by residents were: (a) greater when a resident had more units of work that day with the rated anesthesiologist (P < 0.0001), and (b) less when the anesthesiologist had more units of work that same day with other providers (P < 0.0001). However, the relationships were unimportantly small, Kendall τb = +0.083 ± 0.014 (SE) and τb = -0.057 ± 0.014, respectively. The correlations were even less among the CRNAs, τb = -0.029 ± 0.013 and τb = -0.004 ± 0.012, respectively. (4) There also was unimportantly small association between a resident's or CRNA's mean score for an anesthesiologist and the number of days worked together (τb = -0.069 ± 0.023 and τb = +0.038 ± 0.020, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

Although the attributes that residents and CRNA perceive as constituting "supervision" significantly share commonalities, supervision scores should be analyzed separately for residents and CRNAs. Although mean supervision scores differ markedly among anesthesiologists, supervision scores are influenced negligibly by staff assignments (e.g., how busy the anesthesiologist is with other operating rooms).