Anesthesiolgist direction and patient outcomes

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scudrunner

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Here is evidence demonstrating that when an anesthesiologist is not involved, safety declines. Published in 2000, but I have not seen it until now. Any thoughts on the study?


Anesthesiologist direction and patient outcomes.
Silber JH, Kennedy SK, Even-Shoshan O, Chen W, Koziol LF, Showan AM, Longnecker DE.
SourceCenter for Outcomes Research, the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. [email protected]

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Anesthesia services for surgical procedures may or may not be personally performed or medically directed by anesthesiologists. This study compares the outcomes of surgical patients whose anesthesia care was personally performed or medically directed by an anesthesiologist with the outcomes of patients whose anesthesia care was not personally performed or medically directed by an anesthesiologist.

METHODS: Cases were defined as being either "directed" or "undirected," depending on the type of involvement of the anesthesiologist, as determined by Health Care Financing Administration billing records. Outcome rates were adjusted to account for severity of disease and other provider characteristics using logistic regression models that included 64 patient and 42 procedure covariates, plus an additional 11 hospital characteristics often associated with quality of care. Medicare claims records were analyzed for all elderly patients in Pennsylvania who underwent general surgical or orthopedic procedures between 1991-1994. The study involved 194,430 directed and 23,010 undirected patients among 245 hospitals. Outcomes studied included death rate within 30 days of admission, in-hospital complication rate, and the failure-to-rescue rate (defined as the rate of death after complications).

RESULTS: Adjusted odds ratios for death and failure-to-rescue were greater when care was not directed by anesthesiologists (odds ratio for death = 1.08, P < 0.04; odds ratio for failure-to-rescue = 1.10, P < 0.01), whereas complications were not increased (odds ratio for complication = 1.00, P < 0.79). This corresponds to 2.5 excess deaths/1,000 patients and 6.9 excess failures-to-rescue (deaths) per 1,000 patients with complications.

CONCLUSIONS: Both 30-day mortality rate and mortality rate after complications (failure-to-rescue) were lower when anesthesiologists directed anesthesia care. These results suggest that surgical outcomes in Medicare patients are associated with anesthesiologist direction, and may provide insight regarding potential approaches for improving surgical outcomes. (Key words: Anesthesiologists; anesthesia care team; quality of care; mortality; failure-to-rescue; complication; Medicare; general surgery; orthopedics.)

Article: http://sofia.medicalistes.org/spip/...urie_F-_Showan_Ann_M-_Longnecker_David_E-.pdf
 
The Issue can not truly be studied scientifically. Regardless, the battle is political, not scientific.
 
Right, a prospective study would be unethical. However, this is SOMETHING to show the politicians.
 
This is not new news - the study is frequently cited.
 
Thanks for sharing. I see some surgeons getting used to referring to the patient as the anesthesiologist's patient.

Surgeon: "Is your patient ready to go?"
Anesthesiologist: "All prepped and ready to go."

I don't know, I always thought it was the surgeon's patient, and anesthesiologists never claimed ownership of patients.

Likely it is more of a mindset than anything else, but does not change who is at fault in an M and M conference discussion when something goes wrong.
 
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