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ECONOMICS AND HEALTH SYSTEMS RESEARCH

Which Clinical Anesthesia Outcomes Are Both Common and Important to Avoid? The Perspective of a Panel of Expert Anesthesiologists

Alex Macario, MD, MBA^*, Matthew Weinger, MD, P. Truong, and M. Lee

*Departments of Anesthesia and Health Research and Policy Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford; and Department of Anesthesiology, University of California San Diego and the San Diego Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, San Diego, California

Address correspondence to Alex Macario MD, MBA, Department of Anesthesia (H3580), Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA 94305-5640. Address e-mail to amaca{at}leland.stanford.edu

	Abstract

Top Abstract Introduction Methods Results Discussion Conclusion References

 
Anesthesia groups may need to determine which clinical anesthesia outcomes to track as part of quality improvement efforts. The goal of this study was to poll a panel of expert anesthesiologists to determine which clinical anesthesia outcomes associated with routine outpatient surgery were judged to occur frequently and to be important to avoid. Outcomes scoring highly in both scales could then be prioritized for measurement and improvement in ambulatory clinical practice. A mailed survey instrument instructed panel members to rate 33 clinical anesthesia outcomes in two scales: how frequently they believe the outcomes occur and which outcomes they expect patients find important to avoid. A feedback process (Delphi process) was used to gain consensus rankings of the outcomes for each scale. Importance and frequency scores were then weighted equally to qualitatively rank order the outcomes. Of the 72 anesthesiologists, 56 (78%) completed the questionnaire. The five items with the highest combined score were (in order): incisional pain, nausea, vomiting, preoperative anxiety, and discomfort from IV insertion. To increase quality of care, reducing the incidence and severity of these outcomes should be prioritized.

Implications: Expert anesthesiologists reached a consensus on which low-morbidity clinical outcomes are common and important to the patient. The outcomes identified may be reasonable choices to be monitored as part of ambulatory anesthesia clinical quality improvement efforts.

	Introduction

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Anesthesia groups need to determine which clinical anesthesia outcomes to track as part of their quality improvement efforts. Serious adverse outcomes (i.e., death) from anesthesia are now rare due to improvements in clinical care (1,2). A next step in quality improvement in anesthesia may come from addressing less morbid, yet more common, anesthesia outcomes. The term "outcome" may be used by clinicians to mean the results of patient care, such as an intermediate end point or adverse event. Donabedian (3) defined outcome more broadly as "a change in a patient's ... health status that can be attributed to antecedent healthcare." For purposes of this study, we use the term "clinical anesthesia outcome" to refer to adverse clinical events associated with anesthesia (e.g., postoperative nausea).

The clinical anesthesia outcomes deserving highest priority for monitoring and improvement are unknown. Physicians make most medical care decisions; thus, their opinions on clinical anesthesia outcomes are integral to the quality improvement process. Therefore, we were interested in identifying which anesthesia outcomes associated with routine outpatient surgery anesthesiologists believe occur frequently and which outcomes they believe that patients would most want to avoid. The importance of these outcomes could then be studied further in patients. In fact, the occurrence of minor adverse events leads to patient dissatisfaction with anesthesia (4). For example, avoiding postoperative nausea is reported to be high among patient concerns (6).¹ However, patients may not fully understand or be able to judge the care (and outcomes) that they receive. This is, in part, due to the finding that the interpersonal characteristics of care (i.e., how nice the staff is to the patient) are often indistinguishable to the patient from the clinical outcomes of care (7,8).

Because patients may have difficulty identifying which common, less morbid clinical anesthesia outcomes are most important to them, the goal of this study was to poll expert anesthesiologists (using a modified Delphi technique) (9) to quantify which clinical anesthesia outcomes they judged to occur frequently and to be important to avoid (from a patient's perspective). Given the large number of possible outcomes, the challenge was to find a meaningful rationale that can be used to develop a selection process. Expert panels convened around medical practice are used to attain consensus about specific clinical issues (10). By allowing anesthesiologists to identify key patient end points associated with outpatient surgery, anesthesiologists (instead of health maintenance organization administrators, for example) can define which outcomes should be measured during quality improvement processes. Once these highly rated clinical outcomes are identified, physicians can work together to reduce their incidence and severity.

	Methods

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This study was approved by Stanford University's Human Subjects Committee.

A comprehensive list of clinical anesthesia outcomes was developed from a computerized literature search (MEDLINE) for 1986–1997 using the term "anesthetic outcome, complications." This yielded >100 published studies (a sample of these studies includes References (11–18), which were read by AM to generate a list of clinical anesthesia outcomes associated with routine outpatient surgery. Death was included, in part, to test whether panel members correctly understood and completed the questionnaire (we expected death to be rated very important and very infrequent). The list of outcomes was reviewed to focus on outcomes that were associated with low morbidity, were applicable in the ambulatory surgery setting, and were likely to be noticed by patients. We edited (i.e., duplicative outcomes were eliminated) the list to a total of 33 items with the assistance of four senior, board-certified anesthesiologists in the Stanford anesthesia department to ensure that significant elements of care were not excluded. A pilot study of 97 surgical patients (19) was completed to ascertain which outcomes patients actually value. In the patient survey, patients were asked whether there were any other outcomes not mentioned in the survey that were important to them. All of the outcomes that were spontaneously identified by patients in this study were included in the final list of outcomes. Thus, the survey items had content validity to patients.

The eligible population of anesthesiologists included members of three different 1998 ASA committees (Quality Improvement, Value-Based Anesthesia Care, and Patient Safety) with expertise in anesthesia outcomes and a list of investigators in the field of anesthesia outcomes generated from a computerized literature search (MEDLINE) for 1986–1997 with the keyword "anesthesia outcome." Using a random number generator and an 80% sampling fraction of all members of the committees and all authors of the articles, 72 possible respondents were included in the panel for this study.

Rather than convening the panel members in one location, we mailed a survey instrument (available from the authors) to each physician on this panel. If a panel member failed to respond after 1 mo, a second request letter and questionnaire were mailed to the panel member's home address.

The instrument was organized into three parts: preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative outcomes. The written questionnaire instructed anesthesiologists to judge (on a 5-point Likert scale) the frequency and the importance to the patient (as perceived by the anesthesiologist) of 33 clinical anesthesia outcomes associated with routine outpatient surgery. Panel physicians were given the following instructions.

"The following list includes many possible outcomes of anesthesia for patients having routine surgery. For patients undergoing routine anesthetics, please rate each of the items based on your perception of the incidence of these events on a scale of 1–5, with 1 corresponding to "very infrequent" and 5 corresponding to "very common.

"Then, rate the outcomes you think are most important to avoid from an educated patient's perspective using a scale of 1–5, with 1 corresponding to "no importance to avoiding" and 5 corresponding to "very important to avoid."

The Delphi method was developed in the 1950s to obtain consensus among a group of experts by using a series of questionnaires interspersed with feedback (20). The theory behind Delphi is that the aggregate of a group will provide judgment that is superior to that of most individuals of the group. Features of the Delphi method include anonymity of the participants, iterative adjustment of members' responses to permit them to change their opinions, and a final group response expressed, when appropriate (as in this study), as a ranking of outcomes (21).

Each panel member's survey was returned, together with the tabulated group responses. Physicians were asked to review their individual responses in relation to the collective (group) data and to indicate any changes that they wanted to make. This feedback was used to gain consensus among the experts. The data used in this study are from responses that were reviewed and confirmed by the physicians who provided them. Thus, having passed the scrutiny of expert panel members, the model has face validity. Outcomes were ranked according to their mean score. The Spearman correlation coefficient was computed for pairs of outcomes that seemed to be clinically associated.

To obtain a final qualitative ranking of the outcomes, and understanding the limitations of noncontinuous Likert scales, importance and frequency scores were combined. A combined score was computed for each outcome by combining (multiplying) importance and fre-quency mean scores (weighted equally) to rank order the outcomes. An additive (importance and frequency scores were summed) model was also used to assure that the results were robust to choices of the qualitative model.

	Results

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Of the 72 anesthesiologists, 56 (78%) completed the questionnaire (Table 1). One questionnaire was returned for having an incorrect mailing address (we were unable to contact the panel member). One member was a nonpracticing anesthesiologist who returned the questionnaire without completing it. Fourteen panel members not return the questionnaire. Panelists who did not respond were roughly equivalent in available variables to those who responded (e.g., gender, type of practice, geographical location). Of the 56 respondents, 50 reported that 46% (range 25%–100%) of their practice was in ambulatory anesthesia.

Incisional pain received the highest frequency score. Death received the highest score for importance to avoid (Tables 2–4).

View larger version (27K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 1. The 33 clinical anesthesia outcomes plotted according to their mean scores for frequency and importance to avoid. The items in the upper right quadrant may deserve highest priority for clinical improvement. The x and y axes have different scales to aid in the visual representation of the results by spreading the outcomes apart on the graph.

	Discussion

Top Abstract Introduction Methods Results Discussion Conclusion References

Although there are numerous outcomes to monitor, the results of this anesthesiology expert panel, which used a modified Delphi process to gain consensus, suggest that clinicians judge the top five clinical anesthesia outcomes associated with ambulatory anesthesia to be (in order) incisional pain, nausea, vomiting, preoperative anxiety, and discomfort from insertion of the IV catheter (when weighted equally for importance and frequency). Once these outcomes are tracked over time, unnecessary variation in their occurrence can be detected, and efforts to systematically improve these clinical end points can be made (22). However, before assessing whether there are differences in these outcomes among clinicians and institutions, issues of differing case mixes and imprecise definitions must be addressed.

Patient satisfaction as measured in most anesthesia surveys may not be a fine enough measure of quality of care because patients have different expectations about the anesthesia experience, the validity of surveys has not been established, and nonmedical factors may affect a patient's satisfaction with care (23). The unstandardized, simple ratings of patient satisfaction used in most anesthesia surveys are inadequate to address the complexity of measuring satisfaction (24). For example, in the setting of perceived risk (anesthesia), satisfaction ratings may be dominated by a sense of relief.

Monitoring clinical anesthesia outcomes, instead of measuring patient satisfaction, may be a more useful indicator of quality. In this study, we focused on clinical anesthesia outcomes associated with routine outpatient surgery, rather than other aspects of care, such as customer service (e.g., the effect of care or how nice providers are to patients) or the timeliness of care (does surgery start on time?). In fact, these other aspects of care may be more noticeable and important to patient satisfaction than are the clinical outcomes about which physicians may be concerned. For example, one study suggested that friendliness of the operating room staff is the primary determinant of patient satisfaction with outpatient surgery (25). In a study of how surgeons prioritize different aspects of anesthesia service, we found that surgeons (another important customer of the anesthesia service) rank timeliness of care (e.g., time that the first case of the day starts) as a key item in improvement in the quality and function of the anesthesia service (26). Like surgeons, patients may perceive nonclinical issues to be important in evaluating anesthesia care.

The outcomes deemed important and frequent in this study are consistent with the findings of other investigators (4–6,11–19). Although major morbidity is uncommon after ambulatory surgery, symptom distress and reduced function are common 7 days postoperatively (27). Investigators are continuing to determine how the results of this study compare with patients' actual perceptions regarding which clinical anesthesia outcomes are important to avoid (19). In a pilot study of 97 patients, we found that although there was a substantial variability in patient preferences for postoperative outcomes, patients ranked vomiting, gagging on the endotracheal tube, and pain as their three least desirable outcomes.

There are several potential limitations to the study. Of the respondents, 70% were in academic practice, which may bias the results. However, subgroup analysis (academic versus community practice) showed no difference in rankings of outcomes. With any survey-based study, the results may be affected by a variety of cognitive biases or response bias (28). The possibility of response bias is somewhat diminished by the response rate in this study of 78%. In addition, there may be an interaction (i.e., scales are not independent) between importance and frequency scales, in that clinical outcomes judged to be frequent may be judged to be important to avoid because they occur frequently. Furthermore, the consensus of a panel does not mean that the correct answer has been found, and it is not a substitute for rigorous scientific review (29).

Panel members were asked to list other outcomes that should be included that were not on the questionnaire. No one clinical outcome was suggested by more than one respondent. Thus, it seems that our study did not miss any important outcomes. The generalizability of these consensus data to all North American anesthesia providers is supported because the panel population was comprised of practitioners from 26 American states and Canadian provinces. However, it is possible that opinion in other parts of the world could differ considerably.

	Conclusion

Top Abstract Introduction Methods Results Discussion Conclusion References

 
In this study, we identified clinical anesthesia outcomes associated with routine surgery that are common and important to avoid, at least from the physician's perspective. It is important to validate these findings with comparable data obtained from actual patients. Preliminary data from our studies of how these key clinical outcomes are perceived by patients suggest significant variability among patients as to what they believe is most important to avoid. Targeting the improvement of these outcomes prospectively, via physician-led scientific data collection, analysis, and feedback, is likely to improve patient care.

	Acknowledgments

 
This study was funded in part by a FAER/Hoechst Marion Roussel, Inc/Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia Clinical Research Starter Grant from the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research.

	Footnotes

 
¹ Orkin F. What do patients want? Preferences for immediate postoperative recovery [abstract]. Anesth Analg 1992;74:S225.

	References

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This Article Abstract Full Text (PDF) En Espanol Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (59) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Macario, A. Articles by Lee, M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Macario, A. Articles by Lee, M.

Anesthesia & Analgesia® is published for the International Anesthesia Research Society® by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins with the assistance of Stanford University Libraries' HighWire Press®. Copyright 2006 by the International Anesthesia Research Society. Online ISSN: 1526-7598   Print ISSN: 0003-2999