Earlier this year, one of the authors (JM) spoke to an audience of physician anesthesiologists about ways to set up a basic QA program within their departments. At the end of the presentation, one anesthesiologist stated that his group “will not let anyone out of the operating room to do QA.” He further described how any activity that is not related to clinical work takes a back seat to the group’s mandate that the anesthesiologists must first “generate revenue in the operating rooms.”
While this mindset toward practice management and non-clinical time may have been acceptable in the past, in 2015 this traditional strategy puts the group at risk to fail or, at the very least, not define its own success. Increasing demands that physician anesthesiologists demonstrate their value require that we re-examine our strategies and resources for managing practices. The purpose of this article is to describe how anesthesiology...