Impact analysis of anesthesia information managment system in efficiency and quality of care - case: the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the possible impact of implementation of Anesthesia Information Management System, Centricity Anesthesia (CA) solution, on efficiency and on the quality of care. The research is a designed single case study and it is conducted in Surgical Hospital of the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa.

The primary analysis of the study is based on quantitative data. The impact on efficiency is analyzed through the time used for anesthesia process, whereas the impact on the quality of care is analyzed through the complication rate. Both analyzes seek to capture whether the implementation i.e. an intervention has changed the sequences of the observations items on time series. Since the time of the intervention is known, the observation items are separated into two samples sets, before and after the implementation. The time series is analyzed in order to find whether a change has occurred after the intervention. The primary analysis is complemented with the additional analysis where the possible impact is evaluated from the end-user’s perspective, which is based on qualitative data collected through survey. The additional analysis also includes the evaluation of end-user satisfaction.

The results of the study reveal that the anesthesia process in the anesthesia and surgical procedure has become more efficient after the implementation. The results from the primary analysis reveal that the overall mean of the anesthesia-ready time has shifted after the intervention meaning that the time spent on preparing and providing anesthesia has reduced after the CA implementation. However, the time spent on the whole anesthesia and surgical procedure hasn't been improved during the same period, and therefore the overall efficiency improvement does not seem to be achieved. The results of the primary analysis revealed that the number of the complications has not reduced after the intervention, but instead, it has actually increased. However, due to too many external affecting factors and the fact that the results fail to achieve a customary level of statistical significance, reliable conclusions cannot not be drawn from the data, and the impact on the quality of care remains unsolved. The results of the additional analysis reveal that the end-users are rather satisfied with the solution, particularly with the improvements related to efficiency.