Anesthesia Preparation Time Is Not Affected by the Experience Level of the Resident Involved During His/Her First Month of Adult Cardiac Surgery
Article
Objective: This study was designed to answer the question of whether the experience level of the resident on his/her first month of adult cardiothoracic anesthesiology has an impact on operating room efficiency in a large academic medical center. Traditionally, the resident's 1st month of cardiac anesthesia had been reserved for the clinical anesthesia (CA)-2 year of training. This study analyzed the impact on operating room efficiency of moving the 1st month of cardiac anesthesia into the CA-1 year. The authors hypothesized that there would be no difference in anesthesia preparation times (defined as the interval between "in-room" and "anesthesia-ready" times) between CA-1 and CA-2 residents on their 1st month of cardiac anesthesia.; Design: This study was retrospective and used an electronic anesthesia information management system database.; Setting: This study was conducted on care provided at a single 450-bed academic medical center.; Participants: This study included 12 residents in their 1st month of cardiac anesthesia.; Interventions: The anesthesia preparation time (defined as the interval between "in-room" and "anesthesia-ready" times) was measured for cases involving residents on their first month of cardiac anesthesia.; Measurements and Main Results: Anesthesia preparation times for 6 CA-1 resident months and 6 CA-2 resident months (100 adult cardiac procedures in total) were analyzed (49 for the CA-1 residents and 51 for the CA-2s). There were no differences in preparation time between CA-1 and CA-2 residents as a group (p = 0.8169). The CA-1 residents had an unadjusted mean (+/- standard error) of 51.1 +/- 3.18 minutes, whereas the CA-2 residents' unadjusted mean was 50.2 +/- 2.41 minutes. Adjusting for case mix (valves v coronary artery bypass graft surgery), the CA-1 mean was 49.1 +/- 5.22 minutes, whereas the CA-2 mean was 49.1 +/- 4.54 minutes.; Conclusions: These findings suggest that operating room efficiency as measured by the anesthesia preparation time may not be affected by the level of the resident on his/her 1st month of adult cardiac anesthesia. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
