A first step in determining appropriate amounts of obstetric anesthesia work

Israel Journal of Health Policy Research

Barbara L Leighton²  Swarup S Varaday¹ 

[1] Anesthesiology, Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 8054, 660 South Euclid Avenue, Saint Louis, Missouri, 63110, USA;Anesthesiology and Obstetrics and Gynecology, Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 8054, 660 South Euclid Avenue, Saint Louis, Missouri, 63110, USA

关键词: Workload;    Manpower;    Obstetric anesthesia;   

Others  :  805051
DOI  :  10.1186/2045-4015-1-49

 received in 2012-11-02, accepted in 2012-11-15,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Ginosar, et al. describe a new performance indicator, the Obstetric Anesthesia Activity Index, to represent the current amount of obstetric anesthesia work done daily at each of 25 Israeli hospitals. The authors claim, correctly, that this index is a closer reflection of the anesthetic workload than simply looking at the number of deliveries at each hospital. However, the Obstetric Anesthesia Activity Index could easily be refined to reflect more closely the actual obstetric anesthesia workload by using the average cesarean delivery time for each hospital rather than one value for all hospitals. Although the authors state that they developed the Obstetric Anesthesia Activity Index out of concern for inadequate obstetric anesthesia manpower in Israel, they have not compared the Obstetric Anesthesia Activity Index with the size of the patient population or any measure of patient satisfaction or patient safety. In its current form, the Obstetric Anesthesia Activity Index describes the current work situation but does not evaluate the extent of the unmet need for additional anesthesia providers. Despite these shortcomings, the Obstetric Anesthesia Activity Index is an important first step in developing a tool to assess unmet obstetric anesthesia needs.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Varaday and Leighton; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 参考文献 】

• [1]Ginosar Y, Ioscovich A, Weissman C, Calderon-Margalit R, Weiniger CF: Comparison of the obstetric anesthesia activity index with total delivery numbers as a single denominator of workload demand in Israeli maternity units. Isr J Health Policy Res 2012, 1:43. BioMed Central Full Text
• [2]Yentis SM, Robinson PN: Definitions in obstetric anaesthesia: how should we measure anaesthetic workload and what is ‘epidural rate’? Anaesthesia 1999, 54:958-962.
• [3]Bailit JL, Blanchard MH: The effect of house staff working hours on the quality of obstetric and gynecologic care. Obstet Gynecol 2004, 103:613-616.