The anesthesia misery index was introduced to assess the impact of contractual scope creep, according to an Aug. 12 blog post from Coronis Health.
Here are five things to know:
1. Many hospital contracts include a schedule of coverage requirements, but these became obsolete as more cases kept being added late in the day, according to the report. In an effort to track the impact of long days, advisers began tracking the percentage of cases and units generated after 5 p.m. and on the weekends.
2. "What started as a reasonable set of coverage requirements became downright challenging, thus contributing to provider misery," the report said. "The value of this misery index allowed practices to track changes to operating room utilization that impacted provider income and lifestyle."
3. The concept categorized billed units into three categories — those generated during normal weekdays, those generated after 5 p.m. and those generated on the weekends.
4. Anesthesia staffing requirements have evolved considerably over the past decades. Before the migration of more procedures to the outpatient setting, most surgical cases were performed on an inpatient basis during the OR day.
5. With the migration to ASCs and other outpatient venues, there has been a considerable increase in the number of anesthetizing locations and a drop in operating room productivity when measured by units generated per location day.