Incentive payments to academic anesthesiologists for late afternoon work did not influence turnover times

Danielle Masursky; Franklin Dexter; Michael P Garver; Nancy A Nussmeier

doi:10.1213/ane.0b013e31819e7504

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Incentive payments to academic anesthesiologists for late afternoon work did not influence turnover times

Journal article

Peer reviewed

Incentive payments to academic anesthesiologists for late afternoon work did not influence turnover times

Danielle Masursky, Franklin Dexter, Michael P Garver and Nancy A Nussmeier

Anesthesia and analgesia, Vol.108(5), pp.1622-1626

05/2009

DOI: 10.1213/ane.0b013e31819e7504

PMID: 19372346

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Abstract

Anesthesiologists are often paid extra for hours worked in the late afternoon and evening. Although anesthesiologists have little influence on their operating room (OR) assignments and workloads late in the afternoon, they can influence turnover times. OR turnover times on workdays were reviewed for n = 30 mo before there was incremental pay, for n = 15 mo with incremental pay for work past 3:30 pm, and for n = 8 mo with pay for work past 4:00 pm. The end point was the percentage of turnovers that were prolonged, defined as longer than 1 h. Turnovers straddling 3:30 pm (n = 3945), 4:00 pm (n = 3602), and 5:00 pm (n = 2834) were studied, as were those straddling 2:00 pm (n = 4407) as a control. In addition, qualitative (survey) assessment of n = 30 anesthesiologists was performed the last month to learn about their opinions on working late on weekdays. Most respondents considered an OR to run late if it finished after a specific time of day (87%, P < 0.001), unrelated to the room's type of procedures (90%, P < 0.001) or to the payment for working after 4:00 pm (100%, P < 0.001). There was no significant effect of implementation or changes to the incentive program on the incidences of prolonged turnover times at each of the studied times in the afternoon (all P > 0.14). Our results suggest that hospital administrators, deans, and other executives need not be especially concerned about disincentives produced by methods of internal compensation of anesthesiologists on highly visible OR turnover times late in afternoons.

Operating Rooms - economics

Anesthesia Department, Hospital - economics

Operating Rooms - manpower

Humans

Anesthesiology - economics

Physician Incentive Plans - economics

Salaries and Fringe Benefits

Outcome and Process Assessment (Health Care)

Anesthesiology - manpower

Motivation

Time Factors

Anesthesia Department, Hospital - manpower

Program Evaluation

Personnel Staffing and Scheduling - economics

Workload - economics

Details

Title: Subtitle: Incentive payments to academic anesthesiologists for late afternoon work did not influence turnover times
Creators: Danielle Masursky - Department of Anesthesiology, SUNY Upstate, New York, USA
Franklin Dexter
Michael P Garver
Nancy A Nussmeier
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Anesthesia and analgesia, Vol.108(5), pp.1622-1626
Publisher: United States
DOI: 10.1213/ane.0b013e31819e7504
PMID: 19372346
ISSN: 0003-2999
eISSN: 1526-7598
Language: English
Date published: 05/2009
Academic Unit: Health Management and Policy; Anesthesia
Record Identifier: 9983806289702771

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